• Fooloso4
    6k


    Understood. I'm asking if you noticed this on your own or if it was pointed out to you.
  • Apollodorus
    3.4k
    there was not yet a concept of "free will" in the modern sense. In the modern sense, "free will" is the source of activity in an intentional act.Metaphysician Undercover

    I think many concepts developed by later thinkers are present in the Platonic corpus in seed form and were likely discussed in the Academy:

    “For this purpose He has designed the rule which prescribes what kind of character should be set to dwell in what kind of position and in what regions; but the causes of the generation of any special kind he left to the wills of each one of us men. For according to the trend of our desires and the nature of our souls, each one of us generally becomes of a corresponding character”

    “And whenever the soul gets a specially large share of either virtue or vice, owing to the force of its own will …” (Laws 904b – d).

    If we decide the causes of something and we make moral choices, according to our will then, arguably, there is some form of free will. Exactly how “free” that will is, is another matter.
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