The Will and Human Action: From Antiquity to the Present Day (London Studies in the History of Philosophy)

228 Pages·2003·0.95 MB·English

by  Thomas Pink

The Will and Human Action
London Studies in the History of Philosophy
Series editors: Tim Crane, Tom Pink, M.W.F. Stone,
Jonathan Wolff, Jill Kraye, Susan James, Daniel
Garber, Steven Nadler, and Christina Mercer
London Studies in the History of Philosophy is a unique series of
tightly focused edited collections. Bringing together the work of many
scholars, some volumes will trace the history of the formulation and
treatment of a particular problem of philosophy from the Ancient
Greeks to the present day, while others will provide an in-depth anal-
ysis of a period or tradition of thought. The series is produced in
collaboration with the Philosophy Programme of the University of
London School of Advanced Study.
Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy
Edited by Jill Kraye and M.W.F.Stone
Proper Ambition of Science
Edited by M.W.F. Stone and Jonathan Wolff
History of the Mind–Body Problem
Edited by Tim Crane and Sarah Patterson
The Will and Human Action
From Antiquity to the Present Day
Edited by Thomas Pink and M.W.F. Stone
The Will and
Human Action
From antiquity to
the present day
Edited by Thomas Pink
and M.W.F Stone
First published 2004
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Thomas Pink and M.W.F. Stone for editorial matter;
individual contributors, their contributions
All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library ofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN 0-203-50024-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-57412-5 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–32467–X(Print Edition)
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Introduction 1
THOMAS PINK AND M.W.F. STONE
1 The concept of the will from Plato to Maximus the
Confessor 6
RICHARD SORABJI
2 Aristotle, the Stoics and the will 29
A.W. PRICE
3 Intellect with a (divine) purpose: Augustine on the will 53
JOSEF LÖSSL
4 The effect of the will on judgement: Thomas Aquinas
on faith and prudence 78
CARLOS STEEL
5 Moral psychology before 1277: the will, liberum
arbitrium,and moral rectitude in Bonaventure 99
M.W.F. STONE
6 Suarez, Hobbes and the scholastic tradition in
action theory 127
THOMAS PINK
vi Contents
7 Kant on the will 154
J.B. SCHNEEWIND
8 Nietzsche and Schopenhauer: is the will merely a
word? 173
CHRISTOPHER JANAWAY
9 Theories of the bodily will 197
BRIAN O’SHAUGHNESSY
Index 212
Contributors
Christopher Janaway is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College,
University of London. He is the author of Self and World in
Schopenhauer’s Philosophy (1989) and Images of Excellence. Plato’s
Critique of the Arts (1995). He is the editor of The Cambridge
Companion to Schopenhauer(1999).
Josef Lössl is Lecturer in Patristics at Cardiff University. He is the
author of Intellectus gratiae: die erkenntnistheoretische und
hermeneutische Dimension der Gnadenlehre Augustins von Hippo
(1997) and Julian von Aeclanum: Studien zu seinem Leben, seinem
Werk, seiner Lehre und ihrer Überlieferung (2001). He has also
written many articles on the Greek and Latin Church Fathers.
Brian O’Shaughnessy is Emeritus Reader in Philosophy at King’s
College, London. He is the author of The Will, 2 vols (1980) and
Consciousness and the World (2000). He has published numerous
articles concerning philosophy of mind and philosophical
psychology.
Thomas Pink is a Lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College, London.
Besides The Psychology of Freedom (1996), forthcoming work
includes articles on early modern natural law theory and The Ethics
of Action, a two-volume study of moral normativity and its relation
to action. He is series editor of London Studies in the History of
Philosophy.
A.W. Price is a Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University
of London. He has chiefly published on Greek ethics and moral
psychology, and is the author of Love and Friendship in Plato and
Aristotle(1989) and Mental Conflict(1995).
viii Contributors
J.B. Schneewind is Professor of Philosphy at Johns Hopkins
University, Baltimore. He is the author of Sidgwick’s Ethics and
Victorian Moral Philosophy (1977), and a major history of modern
moral philosophy, The Invention of Autonomy (1988). He has also
published numerous articles on Kant and the history of ethics.
Richard Sorabji, MBE, FBA, is Emeritus Professor of Ancient
Philosophy at King’s College, London. He is the founding editor
and organizer of the English translations of the Ancient
Commentaries on the Works of Aristotlethat unite the philosophy of
late antiquity with the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He is also the
author of several influential books on ancient philosophy and
science.
Carlos Steel is Professor ordinarius of Philosophy at the Hoger
Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium, where he is also director of the De Wulf-Mansion Centre
for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. He is a member of the Royal
Belgian Academy, and the author of many books and articles on
ancient and medieval philosophy.
M.W.F. Stone is Professor of Philosophy at Hoger Instituut voor
Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and
Visiting Professor at King’s College, London. His forthcoming
book is on the history of casuistry, and he has published many arti-
cles on medieval, Renaissance and early modern philosophy. He is
one of the series editors of London Studies in the History of
Philosophy.
Introduction
Thomas Pink and M.W.F. Stone
Modern philosophy of action is largely agreed, along with common
sense, on what might count as particularly clear examples of its subject
matter. Consider crossing the road, raising one’s hand, or thinking
hard about what to do this summer – these are things that one can do
intentionallyor deliberately, as actions. By contrast the idea of the will
is much more obscure. There is hardly any clear consensus, either
among philosophers or within everyday opinion, about what might
count as a clear case of willing. The very absence of such a consensus
might be said to reflect a fundamental lack of clarity about just what
the notions of ‘will’and ‘willing’legitimately involve.
It may, then, be surprising that throughout history, at least from late
antiquity onwards, philosophers have frequently turned to some
theory of the will in order to characterize and clarify human action.
Not only that, but the notion of the will has been central to many
philosophical accounts of the human self and of the relationship of
human beings to the wider world of nature. Despite historical interest
in the will, it is important to stress that here again, one can hardly
speak of any consensus. For some, the will is a reason-involving
psychological capacity that distinguishes humans from the other
animals. While for others, the will is a drive that extends beyond
reason, even beyond animality itself, and which can be said to unite
human beings with inanimate nature.
If it is possible to identify any recurring features in the historical
discussion of the will then it is this: the term will has been taken by
most philosophers to refer to the source of a drive that expresses
itself in human action if nowhere else. For familiar and everyday
actions such as crossing the road or thinking hard are always
expressions of some kind of drive or motivation. This drive or
motivation provides action with something essential to its nature –
its ‘goal’ or ‘purpose’, to the attainment of which the action is