Christian List
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clist.bsky.social
Christian List
@clist.bsky.social

Professor of Philosophy and Decision Theory, LMU Munich. Co-Director of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Account used for academic purposes. Further info at: https://christianlist.net/

Christian List is a German philosopher and political scientist who serves as professor of philosophy and decision theory at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and co-director of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. He was previously professor of political science and philosophy at the London School of Economics. List's research interests relate to social choice theory, formal epistemology, political philosophy, and the philosophy of social science. .. more

Economics 28%
Computer science 17%

Reposted by Christian List

Reposted by Christian List

Logicism is the thesis that mathematics is reducible to logic and analytic truths. It has a long history, going back to Frege, Russell, and Whitehead, but it was subsequently rejected by others. In this recent paper, Hannes Leitgeb, Uri Nodelman, and Edward Zalta offer a new defence of logicism.
A DEFENSE OF LOGICISM | Bulletin of Symbolic Logic | Cambridge Core
A DEFENSE OF LOGICISM - Volume 31 Issue 1
doi.org

Here is a broader discussion of the parallels between corporate agency and AI. Both involve non-human goal-directed agents that affect the social world, often in high-stakes settings, and so they raise similar moral and regulatory challenges, which we must address for the sake of protecting humans.
Group Agency and Artificial Intelligence - Philosophy & Technology
The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a ...
link.springer.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

The criteria for free will in AI systems are similar to those for free will in corporate agents. The key question is whether the kinds of non-biological entities that increasingly play decision-making roles in society (whether corporate or AI) should be viewed as intentional agents with free will.
Do group agents have free will?
It is common to ascribe agency to some organized collectives, such as corporations, courts, and states, and to treat them as loci of responsibility, over and above their individual members. But sin...
www.tandfonline.com

Here is a repost of a talk on the picture of free will that lies in the background. Free will, I argue, requires intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control. Free will is a multiply realizable capacity, which can occur not only in biological agents but also in artificial ones.
Does free will exist? | Christian List | TEDxTUM
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Joanna Bryson

To determine whether an AI system has free will, we shouldn't look for any mysterious property, ask if the system is unpredictable, or expect its algorithms to be indeterministic. We should ask: are there explanatory reasons to view the system as a choice-making agent with alternative possibilities?
Can AI systems have free will? - Synthese
While there has been much discussion of whether AI systems could function as moral agents or acquire sentience, there has been very little discussion of whether AI systems could have free will. I sket...
link.springer.com

Now forthcoming in Synthese: "Can AI systems have free will?", preprint available at: philsci-archive.pitt.edu/26166/3/Free...
Can AI systems have free will? - PhilSci-Archive
philsci-archive.pitt.edu

Reposted by Christian List

From why-why-why to global justice: LMU philosopher Laura Valentini asks fundamental questions about human coexistence. www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/...
From why-why-why to global justice
Political philosopher Laura Valentini asks fundamental questions about human coexistence. Now she is receiving the Princess Therese of Bavaria Prize.
www.lmu.de

Reposted by Christian List

Feeling what others feel: In a world battered by crises, what does empathy really mean? An interview with philosopher Monika Betzler on empathy and morality.
www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/...
Feeling what others feel
In a world battered by crises, what does empathy really mean? An interview with philosopher Monika Betzler on empathy and morality.
www.lmu.de

Reposted by Christian List

LMU philosophers Prof. Monika Betzler and Prof. Laura Valentini have each been awarded a Princess Therese of Bavaria Prize 2025. www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/...
Winners of Princess Therese of Bavaria Prize 2025
This year, the Princess Therese of Bavaria Foundation has recognized outstanding female researchers from the spheres of culture and the humanities at LMU.
www.lmu.de

Reposted by Christian List

At this year's MCMP Summer School, we had wonderful lectures by Professors Francesca Boccuni (San Raffaele), Hilary Greaves (Oxford), and Alyssa Ney (LMU). Many thanks to our speakers and especially to the fabulous participants from all over the world! www.mathsummer.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de

Reposted by Christian List

Any theory of consciousness can satisfy at most three of the following but not all four: (1) first-person realism ("there are 1st-person facts"), (2) non-solipsism ("there are other conscious minds"), (3) non-fragmentation ("the world is coherent") and (4) one world ("there is one world, not many").
A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness
Abstract. In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims—namely ‘first-pers
academic.oup.com

Reposted by Christian List

Job-opening at LMU Munich: Assistant Professor in Metaphysics (fixed-term). Please help us spread the word. Further details at: job-portal.lmu.de/jobposting/b...

Reposted by Christian List

Is Life Fine Tuned to Physics or Is Physics Fine Tuned to Life? Don't miss the online panel discussion with Philip Goff @philipgoff.bsky.social @durham-university.bsky.social and Helen Meskhidze @bhi-harvard.bsky.social in our lecture series ‘The Fine-Tuned Universe’ on Tuesday, 13 May at 7pm (CET).

Reposted by Christian List

Just accepted:

‘The Impossibility of Non-manipulable Probability Aggregation’
– Franz Dietrich & Christian List

Abstract in alt text or read the full paper here:
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

#philsci #philsky
In episode 419, I talk with Dr. Christian List about his book, Why Free Will Is Real. #Philosophy

youtu.be/XHmdhDjLGwA
#419 Christian List: Why Free Will Is Real
YouTube video by The Dissenter
youtu.be

Reposted by Christian List

Thrilled to announce that Sebastian Bender is joining LMU Munich as Professor of Early Modern Philosophy. His expertise in 17th-18th c. metaphysics & epistemology (Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant) will boost our History of Philosophy section. Welcome, Sebastian! sebastianbender.net
Sebastian Bender
I am an Assistant Professor (a tenure track "Juniorprofessor") at the Philosophy Department of University of Göttingen. Before coming to Göttingen, I held positions at Humboldt University in Berlin (w...
sebastianbender.net
The University of Vienna is hiring a full Professor in Philosophy of Mind! Spread the word! philjobs.org/job/show/29293
Full Professor of Philosophy of Mind, University of Vienna - PhilJobs:JFP Full Professor of Philosophy of Mind, University of Vienna
An international database of jobs for philosophers
philjobs.org

Reposted by Christian List

Ocean health is moving into a danger zone, with rampant human-caused carbon dioxide emissions having already pushed ocean acidification levels beyond safe limits in large swaths of the marine environment. 🌊
news.mongabay.com/2025/06/as-o...
As ocean acidification ramps up, experts call for speedy ocean protection
Ocean health is moving into a danger zone, with rampant human-caused carbon dioxide emissions having already pushed ocean acidification levels beyond safe limits in large swaths of the marine environm...
news.mongabay.com

On the 9th anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, it's worth reposting a 2019 blog post with some social-choice-theoretically inspired comments on the referendum. blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/...
Is Brexit the will of the people? The answer is not quite that simple
Christian List looks at majoritarianism, Condorcet’s paradox and the UK’s decision to leave the EU.
www.lse.ac.uk
I'm sympathetic to first-personal facts so I was interested to read this paper by Christian List about them academic.oup.com/pq/article/7...; at first I was leaning towards rejecting "one world", as does he, but now I've realized that gets you things interacting with their non-worldmates so idk
A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness
Abstract. In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims—namely ‘first-pers
academic.oup.com

Reposted by Christian List

Congratulations to my brilliant colleague Alyssa Ney (now here on Bluesky @alyssaney.bsky.social) for winning the Patrick Suppes Prize in Philosophy of Science!

www.amphilsoc.org/news/aps-awa...
APS Awards 2025 Patrick Suppes Prize in Philosophy of Science, largest book prize in Philosophy, to Dr. Alyssa Ney | American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society has awarded the 2025 Patrick Suppes Prize in Philosophy to Dr. Alyssa Ney for her book The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics (Oxford Univ...
www.amphilsoc.org

Reposted by Christian List

Newly published: "Do our observations make reality happen?", by Alyssa Ney, Nature, 2025, www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Do our observations make reality happen?
Finally answering the most-vexed question in quantum theory might mean redefining what is real.
www.nature.com

Reposted by Christian List

Recently published: "A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness", by Christian List, Philosophical Quarterly, 2025, academic.oup.com/pq/article/7...
A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness
Abstract. In this paper, I argue that no theory of consciousness can simultaneously respect four initially plausible metaphysical claims—namely ‘first-pers
academic.oup.com

Reposted by Christian List

Christian List explains it nicely. There is no contradiction between the idea of free will and the fact that our choices are part of the causal chains of natural laws. What we call conscious choice is indeed our choice, but it doesn't mean it's detached from the microphysical processes of our brain.
Does free will exist? | Christian List | TEDxTUM
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Christian List

Gibt es einen freien Willen?

Dieser Frage widmet sich BAdW-Mitglied @clist.bsky.social in seiner Forschung - und auch hier im TED talk!

Damit ein wunderschönes langes Wochenende allen! Mit vielen freien Willensentscheidungen!
☕️🍰🛌🚴‍♀️🕺🎳🆓
Does free will exist? | Christian List | TEDxTUM
YouTube video by TEDx Talks
m.youtube.com