Strange as it may seem in today's options-at-the-push-of-a- button world, the idea that making choices, committing acts of volition, is an exercise of the human faculty of will was a new and issues-riddled one for medieval philosophers and theologians.
Scholars will examine the medieval concepts of the will in a colloquium being held on campus Thursday-Friday, Sept. 26-27. Titled "The Will: Problems and Possibilities, A Medieval Perspective," the colloquium is sponsored by the philosophy and religious studies departments, the medieval studies program and the Divinity School.
The discussion will center around the accounts presented by such theologians and philosphers as Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and William Ockham. Working sessions will focus on free will, on voluntarism and ethical implictions of views on the will, and on historical developments between 1050 and 1350.
The colloquium will open at 4 p.m.on Thursday with a free public lecture titled "The Will as Power: Its Explanatory Function" by John Boler, who recently retired as chair of Washington University's philosophy department. This talk will be held in the faculty room of Connecticut Hall on Old Campus. Professor Boler is best known for his work on Scotus and has written many articles about Ockham as well. His "Charles Pierce and Scholastic Realism" compares the views of one of America's greatest philosophers with the Scholastic philosopher who most deeply influenced him.
For further information about the colloquium, call Rega Wood at 432-5671.