Benjamin Libet

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Benjamin Libet [ 'bɛndʒəmɪn' lɪbət ] (born April 12, 1916 in Chicago , Illinois , † July 23, 2007 in Davis , California ) was an American physiologist . Libet gained notoriety beyond the specialist audience in the early 1980s due to an experiment known as the " Libet Experiment " to measure the chronological sequence of conscious action decisions and their motor implementation. This sparked a controversial discussion about possible conclusions about the freedom of human will .

Life

Libet studied physiology at the University of Chicago until 1936 and received his doctorate in this subject in 1939. After positions at various American universities, he was professor at the University of California, San Francisco from 1949 until his retirement . In 1956/57 he traveled to Canberra to do research with John Eccles .

In 2003 he was awarded the Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology .

Work and reception

Libet himself was an advocate of free will, but he only granted it a veto function. By this he understood the possibility of suppressing unconscious impulses for action based on moral considerations. He also advocated indeterminism , which he regarded as a prerequisite for free will.

Individual voices suggest that Libet's experiments exposed free will as an illusion and that Libet just didn't dare to accept the full consequences of its results. Many philosophers, on the other hand, point out that Libet's experiments were neither conceived for researching free will, nor are they methodologically suitable. Libet himself admitted that his position on free will is shaped by personal conviction and goes beyond what can be scientifically justified by his results.

swell

  1. ↑ Benjamin Libet: 2003 Virtual Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech ( Memento from July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) ( MOV ; 8.6 MB)
  2. ↑ Benjamin Libet: Do we have free will? In: Christian Geyer (ed.): Brain research and free will. To interpret the latest experiments. Suhrkamp, ​​2004, ISBN 3-518-12387-4 , p. 268 ff.

literature

  • Benjamin Libet: Mind Time. The Temporal Factor in Consciousness. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-674-01320-4 (German: Mind Time. How the brain produces consciousness. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-518-58427-8 ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Libet, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois, USA
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 2007
Place of death Davis (California) , USA