The Bewitchment of Language

The Bewitchment of Language

Free Will:

• Why do philosophers assume the will to be a single thing? It has 'unity only as a word'.

• Acts of will are highly complex, consisting of a number of different aspects which exist together (sensations, desires, etc.); can't be arranged in a simple causal relationship

• 'The will' = the feeling of power that accompanies successful actions; it's this feeling of dominance that we come to think of the will itself.

• Free will 'is the complex condition of pleasure of the person who wills, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor of the command.

• The self as a social structure composed of the many different competing drives that make up human beings

• Reflects Nietzsche's doctrine of the 'will to power' – it is the most dominant drive which claims responsibility for the act of willing, just as 'the ruling class identifies itself with the…