Boethius on Human Freedom
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (2):309-327 (2004)
Abstract
It is commonly asserted that Boethius defined free will as the judgment of the will or a rational choice. Accordingly, sin or evil is identified with ignorance or vice of the intellect, which prevents or distorts rational deliberation. However, Boethius adopted a more complex understanding of the self-motion of the soul and, consequently, articulated a more nuanced account of sin and the healing effects of Providence. Boethius treated human freedom as a complex including a natural motion, identified as the desire for happiness, the determination of reason following the judgment of deliberation, and the sovereignty of the will over its own acts and, to some extent,over other acts of the soul. Sin, therefore, involves mistaken ideas about reality but also deformations in the affective orientation of the will to the world and in the exercise of the will’s control over the soulISBN(s)
1051-3558
DOI
10.5840/acpq200478218
My notes
Similar books and articles
On the Composition and Sources of Boethius Second Peri Hermeneias Commentary.John Magee - 2010 - Vivarium 48 (1-2):7-54.
Denying conditionals: Abaelard and the failure of Boethius' account of the hypothetical syllogism.Christopher Martin - 2007 - Vivarium 45 (s 2-3):153-168.
Boethius on utterances, understanding and reality.Margaret Cameron - 2009 - In John Marenbon (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Boethius. Cambridge University Press. pp. 85.
The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius's de Consolatione Philosophiae.Malcolm Godden, Susan Irvine & Rohini Jayatilaka - 2008 - Oxford University Press.
Stoicism as Anesthesia: Philosophy’s “Gentler Remedies” in Boethius’s Consolation.Matthew D. Walz - 2011 - International Philosophical Quarterly 51 (4):501-519.
Boethius's life and the world of late antique philosophy.John Moorhead - 2009 - In John Marenbon (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Boethius. Cambridge University Press.
Rahnerian Freedom: Fundamental Option in Karl Rahner’s Transcendental Anthropology.Mark Joseph T. Calano - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 20:51-68.
Form and Universal in Boethius.Richard Cross - 2012 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (3):439-458.
Boethius on Mind, Grammar and Logic: A Study of Boethius' Commentaries on Peri Hermeneias.Taki Suto - 2011 - Brill.
Boethius and the Theological Origins of the Concept of Person.Joseph W. Koterski - 2004 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (2):203-224.
Analytics
Added to PP
2011-01-09
Downloads
47 (#251,586)
6 months
2 (#301,800)
2011-01-09
Downloads
47 (#251,586)
6 months
2 (#301,800)
Historical graph of downloads