The 17th century philosopher famously denied the freedom of the will. There was no separate, wholly independent power of choice or decision which cut us off from our histories or the world at large as we have lived in it, floating above it in a divinity of autonomy. We feel free when we make choices, but we are not free. This fundamental feeling of freedom that all of us experience is one of the most intractable obstacles for such a claim. It turns perhaps our most salient feature as thinking be