Contesting the Will: Phenomenological Reflections on Four Structural Moments in the Concept of Willing

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 49 (1):18-35 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The starting point of this article is the undeniable experience of conscious willing despite its rejection by scientific research. The article starts a phenomenology of willing at the level of the phenomenon of willing itself, without assuming its embeddedness in a faculty of the soul, consciousness and so forth. After the introduction, a brief history of the philosophy of willing is provided, from which the paradoxical conclusion is drawn that, according to phenomenologists like Heidegger and his followers, the dominance of the will is the main characteristic of the current age, whereas scientists deny the existence of a conscious will at all. Then, four structural moments of the phenomenon of willing are explored in contrast to traditional characterizations in order to rehabilitate and appreciate the phenomenon of willing in contemporary philosophy: the interconnectedness of the one who wills and that which is willed, the transcendence and demand character of that which is willed, the self-involvement of the one who wills and the ampliative nature of the act of willing. To this end, not only sources from the phenomenological tradition but also the affordance theory of the ecological psychologist James Gibson are critically discussed.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Ontology of the Will — Geiger, Pfänder, Husserl.Daniel Neumann - 2022 - HORIZON. Studies in Phenomenology 11 (2):495-516.
The Concept of Willing. [REVIEW]R. D. - 1968 - Review of Metaphysics 22 (1):159-160.
Against the Instrumental Principle: A Kantian Account.Jamsheed Siyar - 2018 - Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 44:71-76.
Husserls phänomenologie Des willens.U. Melle - 1992 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 54 (2):280 - 305.
Acting, Willing, Desiring.H. A. Prichard - 2002 - In H. A. Prichard (ed.), Moral writings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart.Stephen R. Munzer - 2016 - International Philosophical Quarterly 56 (3):315-336.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-10-21

Downloads
424 (#66,793)

6 months
111 (#52,333)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Vincent Blok
Wageningen University and Research

References found in this work

Critique of Practical Reason.Immanuel Kant (ed.) - 1788 - New York,: Hackett Publishing Company.
The Illusion of Conscious Will.Daniel Wegner - 2002 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.Marc H. Bornstein - 1980 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 39 (2):203-206.

View all 28 references / Add more references