Concept
Will (philosophy)
Overview
faculty of the mind which intentionally selects the strongest desire from among the various desires present
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Will (philosophy) is discussed.
(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to property, to _tools,_ to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body as an example.--The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained mechanically. (3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Will to Power
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From the first appearance of consciousness, a man finds himself a willing being, and as a rule, his knowledge remains in constant relation to his will. He first seeks to know thoroughly the objects of his desire, and then the means of attaining them. Now he knows what he has to do, and, as a rule, he does not strive after other knowledge.
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
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Now the will has a natural tendency towards good. Consequently there alone are essence and will identified where all good is contained within the essence of him who wills; that is to say, in God, Who wills nothing beyond Himself except on account of His goodness.
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
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Whence it is evident that desiring and willing are two distinct acts of the mind; and consequently, that the will, which is but the power of volition, is much more distinct from desire.
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1
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The will, regarded as the faculty of desire, is (in this view) one of the many natural causes in the world, viz. that cause which acts in accordance with concepts. All that is represented as possible (or necessary) by means of a will is called practically possible (or necessary); as distinguished from the physical possibility or necessity of an effect, whose cause is not determined to causality by concepts (but in…
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
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Philosophers who discussed Will (philosophy)
- Albert Schweitzer
- Max Stirner
- Peter van Inwagen
- Zhuangzi (book)
- Augustine of Hippo
- Eduard von Hartmann
- Giovanni Gentile
- Charles Renouvier
- Julius Bahnsen
- Sebastian Petrycy
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Avicenna
- Francis Bacon
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- The World as Will and Representation
- Philosophy
- De Officiis
- Western philosophy
- Vice
- Immanuel Kant
- John Stuart Mill
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- John Locke
- Adam Smith
- Leviathan (Hobbes book)
- The Social Contract
- Mind
- Maimonides
- Boethius
- Augustine of Hippo
- Categorical imperative
- Thomas Aquinas
- Natural law
- Physics
Place in the tradition
Part of Action theory (philosophy).