Free Will and Human Persons

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Peter F. Strawson’s book Individuals is based on a collection of lectures that Strawson gives at Oxford University between the years of 1954 and ’55. The premise to this collection of papers is an attempt to define what he calls descriptive metaphysics which describes “the actual structure of our thought about the world”.

For though the central subject-matter of descriptive metaphysics does not change, the critical and analytical idiom of philosophy changes constantly. Permanent relationships are described in an impermanent idiom, which reflects both the age’s climate of thought and the individual philosopher’s personal style of thinking.

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Why do we need a way of describing the structure of our thoughts about the world?

• The world changes, as it does, our thoughts about it change.
• We often transliterate historical speech in light of contemporary challenges and commitments.