Al Mele of Philosophy to lead $4.4 million private grant to study free will

Professor Alfred Mele has been awarded a four-year, $4.4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to lead a study of free will, especially as it relates to recent developments in science. Mele, the William H. and Lucyle Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, has published several books about free will, most recently Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will in 2009, in which he takes a hard look at scientific findings that supposedly cast doubt on free will. “What I want to do [in the Templeton grant] is make significant progress on discovering whether we do or don’t have free will,” Mele said. “It’s not as if in four years, we are going to know. But I want to push us along the way so that we can speed up our understanding of all of this.” Mele will distribute about $3.4 million of the grant money to other researchers around the world who submit worthy proposals, while other funding will go toward such things as a post-doctoral position, research colloquia, a summer seminar, and writing prizes. The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for research relating to what scientists and philosophers call the Big Questions. It supports work at the world’s top universities in such fields as theoretical physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and social science. To read more about Mele's grant, go to http://www.fsu.edu/indexTOFStory.html?lead.freewill