Abstract
The problem of distinguishing between willing and wishing and their
significance for both the constitution of our consciousness as well as
the constitution of our practical life runs all the way through the history
of philosophy. Given the persuasiveness of the problem, it might
be helpful to draw a sharp distinction between a metaphysical and a
psychological or phenomenological approach to the problem. The first
approach may be identified with the positions that Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche held, which involved an identification
of the will with reality/actuality in general, and which Heidegger
tried to analyze in his later writings on the basis of his confrontation
with Nietzsche. In this paper, however, I will not consider the metaphysical
approach to the distinction; rather, I will focus on the second
approach to distinguishing wishing and willing, which was initiated by
Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, and of which as we will see
soon – Husserl and the early Heidegger are ultimately still heirs.
Hence I will begin my consideration by recalling briefly the main claim
in Aristotle’s discovery of the central position of will within our life.