[lit-ideas] Re: What would Wittgenstein do?
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 07 Oct 2005 18:09:37 -0700
I have a question for the philosophers on this list. A serious question
-- no, that's not oxymoronic with me: it regards the meaning of 'will'
as used by Kant and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and, hell, just about
every one of those thought workers. I've never been sure what they're
talking about when they say "will". Do they mean the ability to make a
decision? To choose a course of action? Do they mean something along
the lines of headstrong in the desire for something? Do they mean being
mean enough to look out for numero uno first and foremost? Do they mean
the determination, courage, perseverance to effect their personal
ambitions, needs and desires in and onto the world? And if any of these
are what they mean -- what does that have to do with being autonomous or
free?
But seriously. They all seem to take it as given that there is a human
faculty called the will which has not only powers as an agent, but
itself has attributes independently of its actually being at work in
some particular case. I would have thought that a belief in the will
presupposed a belief in the ability to make decisions, which were then
'carried out' by the will. But then, what's meant by the problem of free
will? If the will isn't 'free' (if it's just billiard balls colliding
and gears meshing all the way down), the will has no job. My hunch is
that the existence of the will entails that it is free, and that if
there is no free will, then there is no will, the will being just that
metaphysical agent or entity which carries out rational decisions.
If Determinism is true, the will would appear to be a fiction. Luckily,
I don't know what Determinism is, really, so I don't know if this is
quite right. I leave it to others to decide whether it makes sense for
Kant to believe in the Will, and then worry whether it is free.
Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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