Abstract

Could there be a balanced philosophical stance capable of accommodating the scientific facts pertaining to free will without compromising the ideal of human freedom and autonomy? A stance that can render intelligible the inferences emerging from the factual analysis of free will in terms of the phenomenon called ‘Readiness Potential’(RP), at the same time, existentially upholding the ideal of freedom? In the present paper, an attempt will be made to bring to light such an existential phenomenological perspective implicit in the philosophy of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In the analysis, some of the most relevant scientific facts pertaining to RPs and the corresponding scientific inferences as to the conception of ‘free will’ will be taken into account with a view to see how in this phenomenological scheme they could all be intelligibly accommodated. Once this is achieved, a unique version of compatibilism inherent in Merleau-Ponty’s thought will also be traced.