An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will (eBook)

Albert Taylor Bledsoe (1809-1877) was an American scholar, polemicist, and theologian known for his ardent defense of the Southern cause and his contributions to the literature on free will and determinism. Born in Frankfort, Kentucky, Bledsoe graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and later served as an assistant professor of mathematics there. Though he began his career in the military, Bledsoe's interests ultimately veered towards the humanities, culminating in his foray into the ministry and academics. He held a professorship at the University of Mississippi before moving on to becoming a professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia. Bledsoe's reputation as an intellectual was greatly informed by his robust engagement with the philosophical and theological debates of his day, culminating in one of his most significant works, 'An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will' (1845), in which he challenges the ideas of the New England theologian Jonathan Edwards. In a style characterized by its dialectical rigor and careful analysis, Bledsoe critiqued Edwards's determinism, advocating instead for the compatibility of free will and moral responsibility. His contributions to the discourse on free will persist as a window into the nineteenth-century American philosophical landscape and continue to draw the interest of scholars examining antebellum intellectual history.