Choice and Practical Reasoning in Ancient Philosophy

Abstract

Ancient thinkers acknowledged that we are the sort of creatures that want things to be a certain way and can make efforts for them to become that way. In that sense, the ancients had a notion of volition. But it is not clear how they conceived of volition. The problem is partly historical. Some late ancient, notably Christian thinkers came to regard volition in a different way than earlier thinkers had done, seeing reason as a less powerful ability than Socrates did, and instead placing their hopes on the will, which they regarded as a separate and sovereign part of the soul. About these historical developments there is much debate and little agreement. The problem is also partly conceptual. Just as we do today, the ancients used volition language in many contexts, e.g. in law, action theory and moral psychology. In Aristotle’s influential terminology, one’s notion of volition depends on one’s notions of the voluntary (to hekousion), choice (prohairesis), and wish (boulēsis). It seems best, therefore, to start out with a concept of practical reasoning and then try to see how this may have developed into a recognisable concept of will.