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Will vs understanding

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Often appears with: will, choice, and freedom · suspension of judgment · source of errors · praise and blame · power of affirmation · objections to determinism · justice as a virtue · freedom of will · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · buridan's ass thought experiment

Usually: argument (2) · resignation (1) · skepticism (1)

Selections from the Principles of Philosophy primary

René Descartes · 1641-1644 (Composition spanning revisions; Latin Principles issued 1644)
LETTER OF THE AUTHOR > PART I. (10/23)

He argues that our errors stem from the will being more extensive than the finite understanding, yet God cannot be blamed, and human freedom makes us praise- or blame-worthy.

XXXV. That the will is of greater extension than the understanding, and is thus the source of our errors. Further, the perception of the intellect extends only to the few things that are presented to it, and is always very limited: the will, on the other hand, may, in a certain sense, be said to be infinite, because we observe nothing that can be the object of the will of any other, even of the unlimited will of God…

Ethics — Part 2 primary

Benedictus de Spinoza · 1675-1676
Part II: ON THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND > Part. We there drew the conclusion, that God can form the idea of his essence, and of all things which follow necessarily therefrom, solely because he is a thinking thing, and not because he is the object of his own idea. Wherefore the actual being of ideas owns for cause God, in so far as he is a thinking thing. (27/30)

He begins refuting objections by addressing claims that the will has wider scope than understanding, that people can suspend judgment, that affirming seems equal in power to affirming falsely, and the Buridan’s ass problem.

consist in the image of anything, nor in words. The essence of words and images is put together by bodily motions, which in no wise involve the conception of thought. These few words on this subject will suffice: I will therefore pass on to consider the objections, which may be raised against our doctrine. Of these, the first is advanced by those, who think that the will has a wider scope than the understanding,…