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Dieses Buch nimmt eine umfangreiche Erörterung des Willensbegriffs vor. Es beschreibt ausführlich die ideengeschichtlichen Entwicklungslinien verschiedener Willenskonzepte seit der Antike bis in die Gegenwart. Dabei liegt der Fokus darauf, ob eine Epoche überhaupt einen Willensbegriff hatte,und wozu sie ihn verwendete. Die Darstellung ist wesentlich einer systematischen Perspektive verpflichtet, die historische Entwicklungsstränge als Kontrastfolie nutzt, um gegenwärtige Willensansätze argumentativ zu diskutieren. Der ideengeschichtlich-systematische Überblick über verschiedene Willenskonzepte mündet in einer Präzisierung und Klärung, sowie letztlich einer Kritik der aktuellen Debatte um die Freiheit des Willens. Leitende Fragestellungen des Buches sind: Welche Funktionen und Stellungen nimmt der Begriff des ›Willens‹ – besonders in der Philosophie, Psychologie und den Neurowissenschaften – ein und wie verhalten sich diese Funktionen zur Alltagssprache in den lebensweltlichen Kontexten?

Will, Imagination, and Reason sets forth a new understanding of reality and knowledge with far-reaching implications for the study of man and society. Employing a systematic approach, Claes Ryn goes to the philosophical depths to rethink and reconstitute the epistemology of the humanities and social sciences. He shows that will and imagination, together, constitute our basic outlook on life and that reason derives its material and general orientation from the interaction between them.The imaginative master-minds novelists, poets, composers, painters, and others powerfully affect the sensibility and direction of society. Sometimes a distorting, self-serving willfulness at the base of their visions draws civilization, including reason, into dangerous illusion. More penetrating and balanced vision and rationality spring from a different quality of will. Ryn explains the kind of interplay between will, imagination, and reason that is conducive to a deepened sense of reality and to intellectual understanding. He argues that human life and self-knowledge are inescapably historical. In developing his dialectical view of intellect, he draws from Irving Babbitt, Benedetto Croce, and other philosophers to refute positivistic, formalistic, and ahistorical theories of knowledge and to develop his alternative.Advancing a systematic epistemological argument, Ryn throws much new light on the nature of reason but also on central issues of ethics and aesthetics. This trenchant and original work is indispensable to philosophers, social, political and cultural theorists, literary scholars, and historians.

The book proposes a critique of Nietzsche's works'from within'. In doing so, it answers the continuing question asked by any reader of Nietzsche: Why did he decide not to write the major work he said he would write?

Each of the following claims has been defended in the scientific literature on free will and consciousness: your brain routinely decides what you will do before you become conscious of its decision; there is only a 100 millisecond window of opportunity for free will, and all it can do is veto conscious decisions, intentions, or urges; intentions never play a role in producing corresponding actions; and free will is an illusion. In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence offered to support these claims is sorely deficient. He also shows that there is strong empirical support for the thesis that some conscious decisions and intentions have a genuine place in causal explanations of corresponding actions. In short, there is weighty evidence of the existence of effective conscious intentions or the power of conscious will. Mele examines the accuracy of subjects'reports about when they first became aware of decisions or intentions in laboratory settings and develops some implications of warranted skepticism about the accuracy of these reports. In addition, he explores such questions as whether we must be conscious of all of our intentions and why scientists disagree about this. Mele's final chapter closes with a discussion of imaginary scientific findings that would warrant bold claims about free will and consciousness of the sort he examines in this book.

The neurosciences propose that the concept of will is scientifically untenable - it is our brain rather than our'self'that controls our choices. Yet we seem to be confronted with increasing free choice in all areas of life. Using up-to-date empirical research in the social sciences and philosophy, this volume addresses the seeming contradiction.

Among the many practical failures that threaten us, weakness of will or akrasia is often considered to be a paradigm of irrationality. The eleven new essays in this collection, written by an excellent international team of philosophers, some well-established, some younger scholars, give a rich overview of the current debate over weakness of will and practical irrationality more generally. Issues covered include classical questions such as the distinction between weakness and compulsion, the connection between evaluative judgement and motivation, the role of emotions in akrasia, rational agency, and the existence of the will. The also include new topics, such as group akrasia, strength of will, the nature of correct choice, the structure of decision theory, the temporality of prudential reasons, and emotional rationality. Because these questions cut across philosophy of mind and ethics, the collection will be essential reading for scholars, postgraduates, and upper-level undergraduates in both these fields.