| 2171 | The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy. | |
| From: report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37 | |
| A reaction: This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing. |
| 8230 | Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop [Anon (Cent)] |
| Full Idea: Just as you have the impulse to do something, stop. | |
| From: Anon (Cent) (Centring [c.500 BCE], 64) | |
| A reaction: Nice. You might train your own will like a dog in this way. It is a counterexample to the simplistic idea that all you need is a belief and a desire, and you have got an action. But (pace Searle, Ideas 3817 + 3818) this does not prove free will. |
| 23316 | For Plato and Aristotle there is no will; there is only rational desire for what is seen as good [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Neither Plato nor Aristotle has a notion of the will. …Willing is a form of desire which is specific to reason. If reason perceives something as good, it wills or desires it. | |
| From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 577e) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 1 | |
| A reaction: [Frede cites 577e, Aris. 413c8, 1113a15-, 1136b6] How do they explain the apparent decisions of non-rational animals? No modern neuroscientist thinks there is a physical object called a person's 'will'. |
| 23320 | Choice is not explained by the will, but by the operation of reason when it judges what is good [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle choices are not explained in terms of a will, but in terms of the attachment of reason to the good, however conceived, and the exercise of reason to determine how the good might best be obtained. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1112b11-24) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 2 | |
| A reaction: I am personally happy to use the concept of the 'will', as the faculty which makes the final arbitration between competing mental drives, but this idea shows that the whole issue could be managed without it. |
| 23323 | Earlier Stoics speak of assent, but not of choice, let alone of a will [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Stoics [before Epictetus] have a notion of assent, and hence the appropriate notion of a willing, but we do not yet have a notion of a choice [prohairesis], let alone of a will. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Michael Frede - A Free Will 3 | |
| A reaction: The assent is just giving in to a desire, which is either rational or irrational. Choice implies a second-level thinking, of weighing the two desires. The will would then be a faculty which can do this (which seems to be the invention of Epictetus). |
| 22118 | Augustine created the modern concept of the will [Augustine, by Matthews] |
| Full Idea: The modern concept of the will is often said to originate with Augustine. | |
| From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.74 | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to think that this is the source of the trouble. How can a thing be intrinsically free? Surely freedom is always a contextual concept? |
| 1846 | The will can only want what it thinks is good [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Will's object is what is good, and so it cannot will anything but what is good. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.06) |
| 1847 | The will must aim at happiness, but can choose the means [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will is compelled by its ultimate goal (to achieve happiness), but not by the means to achieve it. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.07) |
| 1857 | We don't have to will even perfect good, because we can choose not to think of it [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will can avoid actually willing something by avoiding thinking of it, since mental activity is subject to will. In this respect we aren't compelled to will even total happiness, which is the only perfect good. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo [1271], Q6.h to 07) |
| 23180 | The will is the rational appetite [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The will is the rational appetite. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], II-II Q58 4) | |
| A reaction: Defining the will in terms of reason sounds more like an Enlightenment optimist than a medieval theologian. I suspect that for him it is tautological the reason is involved, if only the reason can make decisions. Hobbes prefers to ruling appetite. |
| 4309 | Spinoza argues that in reality the will and the intellect are 'one and the same' [Spinoza, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Spinoza argues that in reality the will and the intellect are 'one and the same'. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675]) by John Cottingham - The Rationalists p.159 | |
| A reaction: The 'will' is certainly a dubious concept, though it seems involved with desire and actual. In a sense, I suppose, all pursuits of reason are acts of will. |
| 4838 | Claiming that actions depend on the will is meaningless; no one knows what the will is [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Saying that human actions depend on the will is a mere phrase without any idea to correspond to. What the will is, and how it moves the body, no one knows. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 35) | |
| A reaction: As so often, the rationalist Spinoza agrees with many empiricists about this one. If there is no such thing as the will, then there isn't much prospect of it being free, thought one might talk about 'freedom of thought' instead. |
| 12946 | The idea of the will includes the understanding [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The idea of the will includes that of the understanding. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.06) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark, although I am not sure that I agree with it. The understanding (if we allow such talk of faculties, with which I have no problem) sometimes lags behind and sometimes forges ahead of the will. What else is weakness of the will? |
| 19331 | Will is an inclination to pursue something good [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One may say that 'will' consists in the inclination to do something in proportion to the good it contains. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.136), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
| A reaction: This emphasises that the will is faced with options, rather than generating the options. The context is a discussion of the nature of God's will. I think 'will' is a really useful concept, and dislike the Hobbesian rejection of will. |
| 2220 | Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume] |
| Full Idea: We learn the influence of our will from experience alone. | |
| From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], VII.I.52) | |
| A reaction: I can, of course, produce inductive generalisations about what my will can achieve, based on some limited experiences. "I know I can master that". Hobbes (and others) say we have no experience of a 'will'. Hume should be more sceptical! |
| 6183 | Can pure reason determine the will, or are empirical conditions relevant? [Kant] |
| Full Idea: This is the first question: Is pure reason sufficient of itself to determine the will, or is it only as empirically conditioned that it can do so? | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the core question of intellectualism, which goes back to Socrates. You can only accept the question if you accept the concept of 'pure' reason. Values seem to be needed for action, as well as empirical circumstances. |
| 6191 | The will is the faculty of purposes, which guide desires according to principles [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The will could be defined as the faculty of purposes, since they are always determining grounds of the faculty of desire according to principles. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II) | |
| A reaction: Do animals have wills? Kant implies that you can only have a will if you have principles. Compare Hobbes' rather less elevated definition of the will (Idea 2362). |
| 23233 | The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces [Fichte] |
| Full Idea: To will is to be immediately conscious of the activity of one of our inner natural forces. | |
| From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1) | |
| A reaction: A more Nietzschean view would be that to will is to be conscious of the victor among our inner natural drives. It can't just be awareness of one force, because the will feels conflicts. |
| 22769 | The concept of the will is the free will which wills its freedom [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The abstract concept of the Idea of the will is in general the free will which wills the free will. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Elements of the Philosophy of Right [1821], 027) | |
| A reaction: Since Hegel thinks we only have free will because we will to have it, it makes sense that that will precedes the free will. But I don't understand how the will which wills that freedom is itself free. No doubt Hegelians understand this. |
| 21924 | As the subject of willing I am wretched, but absorption in knowledge is bliss [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: As the subject of willing I am an exceedingly wretched being, and all our suffering consistd in willing, ...but as soon as I am absorbed in knowledge, I am blissfully happy and nothing can assail me. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Manuscript remains [1855], I p.137), quoted by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4 | |
| A reaction: So the source of his pessimism is subjection to his own will. However, since becoming absorbed in knowledge is an easy task for a scholar, he has little to grumble about. Nietzsche mocked the great pessimist for playing the flute every day. |
| 7187 | Schopenhauer was caught in Christian ideals, because he didn't deify his 'will' [Nietzsche on Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Schopenhauer's interpretation of the in-itself as will was an essential step: but he didn't know how to deify the will, and remained caught in the moral, Christian ideal | |
| From: comment on Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 9[42] | |
| A reaction: Intriguingly, this seems to suggest that Nietzsche consciously sought to replace the absence of God with the human will, which strikes me as an odd, and very nineteenth century, idea. Loss of religion bothered them a lot. |
| 21365 | Only the will is thing-in-itself, seen both in blind nature and in human action [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Only the will is thing-in-itself. ...It appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of man, and the great difference between the two concerns only the degree of the manifestation. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I 110), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 3 'Will' | |
| A reaction: If will acts 'blindly' in forces of nature, then these seems to be the same concept as Nietzsche's 'will to power'. This seems to be heading towards Heidegger's Dasein, as a central and distinctive mode of being. |
| 3772 | The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of simplistic psychology that modern philosophers tend to avoid. Personally I am more Kantian. I will and desire that the answer to 3+2=? is 5, simply because it is true. Mill must realise we can will ourselves to desire something. |
| 24105 | Drives make us feel non-feelings; Will is the effect of those feelings [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: 'Drive' is only a translation from the language of nonfeeling into the language of feeling. 'Will' is what is communicated to our feelings as a result of that process - in other words an effect, and not the beginning and cause. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 7[025]) | |
| A reaction: This shows the link between his central idea of 'drives' in psychology, and the actions that result. Effectively this makes all our actions arise from the unconscious. Intention and choice are effectively epiphenomena. |
| 18313 | The big error is to think the will is a faculty producing effects; in fact, it is just a word [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: At the beginning stands the great fateful error that the will is something which produces an effect - that will is a faculty.... Today we know it is merely a word. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: This is despite Nietzsche's insistence that 'will to power' is the central fact of active existence. The misreading of Nietzsche is to think that this refers to the conscious exercising of a mental faculty. |
| 4554 | The concept of the 'will' is just a false simplification by our understanding [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as 'will'; it is only a simplifying conception of understanding, as is 'matter'. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §671) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche shares this view with British philosophers such as Hobbes and Bernard Williams. So what is the ontological status of the 'will to power'? |
| 18299 | The will is constantly frustrated by the past [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Powerless against that which has been done, the will is an angry spectator of all things past. The will cannot will backwards; that it cannot break time and time's desire - that is the will's most lonely affliction. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra [1884], 2.20) |
| 9265 | The will is the effective desire which actually leads to an action [Frankfurt] |
| Full Idea: A person's will is the effective desire which moves (or will or would move) a person all the way to action. The will is not coextensive with what an agent intends to do, since he may do something else instead. | |
| From: Harry G. Frankfurt (Freedom of the Will and concept of a person [1971], §I) | |
| A reaction: Essentially Hobbes's view, but with an arbitrary distinction added. If the desire is only definitely a 'will' if it really does lead to action, then it only becomes the will after the action starts. The error is thinking that will is all-or-nothing. |
| 23336 | There is no will for Plato or Aristotle, because actions come directly from perception of what is good [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle do not have a notion of a will, since for them a willing, a desire of reason, is a direct result of one's cognitive state: once one sees something to be good, one will it. | |
| From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 09) | |
| A reaction: The point is that their decisions are 'direct', whereas the will introduces the concept of a final arbiter which weighs up the desires, reasons and drives. The historical steps were first the meta-choosing, then the will as entity, then the will as free. |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 6661 | Libet gives empirical support for the will, as a kind of 'executive' mental operation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet's experiments (on conscious and non-conscious choice) seem to provide empirical support for the concept of 'volition', conceived as a special kind of 'executive' mental operation. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Despite the strictures of Hobbes (Idea 2362) and Williams (Idea 2171), the will strikes me as a genuine item, clearly observable by introspection, and offering the best explanation of human behaviour. I take it to be part of the brain's frontal lobes. |
| 23517 | Volition is felt as doing what you want, with possible alternatives, and a source from within [Seth] |
| Full Idea: The experience of volition is defined by 1) the feeling that I am doing what I want to do, 2) that I could have done otherwise, and 3) that voluntary actions seem to come from within. | |
| From: Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.11) | |
| A reaction: Note that these can all be cited without reference to their feeling 'free'. |