Elly Ebenspanger on Free Will

Sa？etak Analysed and evaluated in this article is the PhD thesis The Free Will Problem of the Croatian philosopher Elly Ebenspanger (1904 – 1942), which is the first doctoral dissertation on the free will problem defended at the University of Zagreb after its restoration in 1874. Ebenspanger focuses on answering the question whether next to the causal-deterministic perspective, according to which our will is determined and our action unavoidable, there is a perspective by /according to/ which we have free will. Ebenspanger answers in the affirmative and says that it is the perspective in which we are oriented towards values. In this ethical perspective freedom is a postulate and when evaluating actions their causal history is not taken into account. Such actions are outside of causality and are thus free. Because of this perspective and our direct experience of our own spontaneity and freedom Ebenspanger concludes that we have free will