In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant asks, "How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?" Kant's answer? "By means of a faculty." But, unfortunately, not in five words.
Fans of Nietzsche might recognize this quotation. It's a caricature of Kant, but it's pithy and clever. Turns out Kant isn't the only one it applies to; we can say just about the same thing about
scientists today:
We only showed that brains might possess a faculty which free will could potentially be based on.
Actually, unlike Kant, they didn't even show this. Popular science, particularily pop science writing in the mass media, is depressingly terrible, but as a special bonus this article comes chock full of terrible philosophy, too. Almost every paragraph is an irredeemable mess of unfounded assumptions and egregious argumentation. Too bad neither the scientist nor the reporter who wrote the story stuck to a five-word limit.
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