Making Sense of Your Freedom: Philosophy for the Perplexed

Written for the general reader, this book provides in highly accessible language a brief metaphysical defense of freedom. James W. Felt invites his readers on a philosophic journey explore the questions: Are we truly free in our actions, and if so, can we make sense of this fact?
Developing an approach that owes most to the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), Felt explains why it is reasonable to affirm that we are free in making personal decisions. He then reviews several senses of "freedom" and common arguments for and against affirming it, including those for determinism and compatibilism. He leads the reader to an uncommon understanding of the nature of both time and personal causal activity (agency) and, in the high metaphysical reconception of time and of agency, establishes that the affirmation of personal freedom makes rational sense - indeed more sense than its denial. In his concluding pages, he illustrates the significance of this new perspective of time, agency, and freedom by applying it to the problem of evil in a created world and to our conception of the future and of the self.
Conceding that his view is not a popular one, Felt describes the path he traces as "tortuous and sometimes steep. But the prospect at the end, which may be a new view of yourself and of the adventure of life, may make the climb worthwhile."

James W. Felt, S.J., is Santa Clara Jesuit Community Professor of Philosophy at Santa Clara University.