A Defense of Intellectualism: Will, Intellect, and Control in Late Thirteenth-century Philosophy

The question of whether our volitions are caused by the activity of our cognitive powers was the subject of tremendous controversy for medieval philosophers. By answering in the affirmative, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas of Sutton and Godfrey of Fontaines, the so-called intellectualists, face what I call the Problem of Control. If my wanting some object is caused by my apprehending it as good through some cognitive act, then it seems that I am not able to will otherwise than I do. For to will otherwise than I do, it would be necessary that I apprehend some other object as good. If, however, I am not able to will otherwise than I do, then I do not seem to have control over my actions. But if I do not have control over my actions, then I do not act freely, since having control over one’s actions is necessary for acting freely. My dissertation addresses the Problem of Control. I first argue that Thomas Aquinas’s notion of “perfect cognition of the end” gives the intellectualists the resources to explain how a human being has control over her actions. Second, I argue that Aquinas does not adequately explain a central feature of his intellectualism, namely, how the will “moves itself” to the exercise of its act, and discuss how the “self-motion” of the will is addressed by Thomas of Sutton and Godfrey of Fontaines. Third, I consider whether the control that a human being has over her action when she has perfect cognition of the end of that action is the kind of control that matters for free will. I argue in the affirmative by defending the intellectualist claim that having perfect cognition of the end is what makes human beings free. In general, scholars have neglected intellectualism and praised the philosophical innovations of so-called voluntarists such as John Duns Scotus. But I show that intellectualism is worth careful attention, for although they were very much criticized by their contemporaries, the intellectualists have a more plausible understanding of the relationship between volition and the activity of our cognitive powers, and of human free will.Ph.D