But to disagree would require re-visiting and re-reading many a dusty tome, so I think I'll regard his as one among other interpretation. — Wayfarer

Agreeing or disagreeing with interpretations aside, are you saying that pursuing authorial intent in the writings is a foolish enterprise because supporting or deconstructing a particular set of opinions is just another opinion?

Which of Gerson's key claims, as presented in this thread, are non-Aristotelian? — Leontiskos

Okay, I will give it a try.

The problem with Gerson is that he does not distinguish between the different roles Matter (ἡ ὕλη) plays amongst the 'Ur-Platonists' he assembles to oppose the team of 'Materialists' he objects to.

Plotinus says:

What conception then shall we for of matter? In what sense does matter exist? Its existence consists in potentiality. It is in the sense that it is potential. It exists in as much as it is a substrate of existence. "Existence" with regard to it signifies possibility of existence. The being of matter is only what it is to be. Matter is potential not just some particular thing, but all things. Being nothing by itself and being what it is, matter is nothing actually. If it were something actually, it would no longer be matter, that is , it would not be matter in the absolute sense of the term, but only in the sense in which bronze is matter. — Ennead, II, 5, 5, translated by Katz

In developing his ideas of actual being in relation to potential being, Aristotle says this:

Other thinkers, too, have perceived this nature (the belief in generation, destruction, and change in general) but not adequately. For, in the first place, they agree that there is unqualified generation from nonbeing, thus granting the statement of Parmenides as being right, secondly, it appears to them that if this nature is numerically one, then it must be also one potentially, and this makes the greatest difference.

Now we maintain that matter is distinct from privation and that one of these, matter, is nonbeing with respect to an attribute but privation is nonbeing in itself, and also that matter is in some way near to substance but privation is in no way such.

These thinkers, on the other hand, maintain that the Great and the Small are alike nonbeing, whether these two are taken together as one or each is taken separately. And so they posit their triad in a manner which is entirely distinct from ours. Thus, they have gone so far as to perceive the need of some underlying nature, but they posit this as being one, for even if someone [Plato] posits the Dyad, calling it the Great and Small, he nevertheless does the same since he overlooks the other [nature].

Now in things which are being generated, one of these [two natures] is an underlying joint cause with a form, being like a mother, so to speak, but the other part of the contrariety might often be imagined, by one who would belittle it, as not existing at all. For, as there exists an object which is divine and good and something to strive after, we maintain that one of the principles is contrary to it, but that the other [principle], in virtue of its nature, by nature strives after and desires that object. According to the doctrine of these thinkers, on the other hand, what results is that the contrary desires its own destruction. Yet neither would the form strive after itself, because it does not lack it, nor does it strive after the contrary, for contraries are destructive of each other. Now this [principle] is matter, and it is like the female which desires the male and the ugly which desires the beautiful, but it is not by itself that the ugly or the female does this, since these are only attributes. — Physics, 192a, translated by H.G. Apostle

For myself, the many points Plotinus and Aristotle may agree upon are not as interesting as where they clearly do not.

The Republic begins with Thrasymachus saying that justice is merely the order of those who presently have power. There is a lot of evidence to support this view. The argument against this is an appeal to see life in a different way.

So, what is that set of evidence against what it would bring into question?

Is it self-evident that sensible discussion would be impossible if people routinely contradicted themselves? It seems obvious that would be the case, but I'm not sure if that is exactly the same thing as it being self-evident. — Janus

I am not sure either. Both Plato and Aristotle argued against the 'relativity' of Protagoras. From that point of view, the matter is something that needs to be hammered out rather than treated as an uncontestable condition.

But as an appeal to a condition, the argument is about evidence.

I suggest reading enough Plotinus to see his objections to Aristotle. Gerson does not simply take those remarks as the only way to read Aristotle. But it does change the perspective of what Platonism is about.

I don't claim to understand all the moving parts.

Edit to add: Gerson has been discussed numerous times here. I made an argument against one of his positions here.

For a more exhaustive discussion of the differences between Plato and the 'Neo-Platonists' there is Fooloso4's OP on Phaedo to consider. From that, you can see that people here have been disagreeing for years about it.

I realize that I am not up for rekindling those debates right now. It is summertime and the living is easy.

Yours is a fair challenge. I will try to gather a proper response as I can. In the meantime, I can ask about something in your statement:

For example, I would want to say, "What matters is whether the identity implies the requisite immateriality, not whether it is a simple correspondence of 'forms'." — Leontiskos

Aristotle puts a lot of emphasis on the priority of the being one encounters. The generality of being a kind of thing is a pale shadow of the actual being. If that is the case, how 'forms' work in hylomorphic beings is different in the various "Platonic" models.

I figure that should be discussed before getting into Gerson's interpretation.

What is the difference between "conclusions are generally based on presuppositions" and the attempt to establish first principles in the fashion of Aristotle?

I agree with your judgement regarding non-contradiction. Should that sort of thing be counted as self-evident?

I understand that first principles cannot be proven since they are accepted or rejected upon a basis of priority where one can go no further back from a particular starting place. Does putting forward that criteria not require some kind of self-evidence?

For example, when Aristotle establishes the principle of non-contradiction, is that not an appeal to a limit of experience? We could, theoretically, ignore the principle. Or say it is one theory amongst others. Those speculations do not capture the necessity Aristotle argued for its acceptance.

I think the metaphor is speaking to a desire. A complete expression in the face of all that makes it unlikely. This is what we want.

Hurting other people sucks. I feel like you are asking a leading question.

I am not of one mind regarding religious expression. I have lost more than one interlocutor while lingering in the hall without a good answer.

The ascetic idea is presented in many ways of getting some sort of leverage when the odds are stacked against one. I prefer Epictetus over Aurelius because tactics are what you need when forced into a corner. Taking it as a form of life is not a simple matter. Looking for some kind of angle to change what is usually inevitable is interesting.

What I really like about Psalm 1 is that it encourages so much reasoning by means of negation. We know what assholes are like and what it looks like when we are like them. Before going into the desert to deprive ourselves of all those temptations. The choices are all more local. Even accidental. Pay attention.

At any rate, if we can only deal with ideas as elements of some narrative, we might as well face up to that up front, even if there's no decisively privileged way to do that. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that is what Plato was trying to get beyond with the acceptance of dialectic as a necessity of combined ignorance. That spirit of dialectic can also be seen in the way Aristotle commented upon the views of others before arguing his own case.

Those views of dialectic are sharply different from the view that history went one way rather than another. And are those changes accidents of some uninvolved fate or the sequence of some kind of logic such as Hegel wrote?

The motif of comparing rest with motion, reminds me of Psalm 1:

Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked,
or taken the path of sinners,
or joined the company of the insolent; — Psalms,1

These ambulatory options amongst the world of humans are compared to a tree:

He is like a tree planted beside streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season,
whose foliage never fades,
and whatever it produces thrives. — ibid.

Martin Buber first brought this difference to my attention in his book Good and Evil. And morality undoubtedly concerns the finishing detail of the metaphor:

Not so the wicked;
rather, they are like chaff that wind blows away. — ibid.

Just as importantly, the metaphor expresses a desire to be supported directly by whatever it is that supports anything rather than choose between what humans make up for each other.

There are narratives that tell us how much better we were in some distant past. There are others that tell of a movement away from the shadows of our ancestors. The 'history of ideas' is a record of previous opinions. It can also reflect the mutability of human life.

One of the odd features of the 'golden age' thinking is that it undercuts the universal as a continuity between all the many articulations of being a particular kind of being. Many models have emerged to imagine how we have changed or not changed. How will we compare these models to each other?

Or are we in the land of Protagoras where there is nothing to learn outside of one's own theater?

The significance of the theological was to differentiate between the cogito as a given rather than an outcome of a natural process. I was wondering how taking that as a given relates to your saying: "view the brain as some kind of idealized embodiment of consciousness, susceptible of scientific analysis."

It seems to me that "idealized rational subjectivity," is abandoned by biology as well as by social sciences. The evolutionary view binds all the disciplines into the exploration of the same nature.

The "standpoint of idealized rational subjectivity", as described by Descartes, comes into being out of nothing. In the Meditations, he argues that the experience of isolated awareness and the choices available to it are not inherited from parents but are created moment to moment by God. That perspective does not favor any attempt to understand how the 'thinking activity' came into being as a process of nature. Descartes recognizes the embodiment is experienced directly but deliberately avoids treating the union as a development. That is quite a different idea from seeing "the brain as some kind of idealized embodiment of consciousness, susceptible of scientific analysis." When differentiating between the biological organism from the social environment the organism emerges from, it is not a matter of either/or selection between the factors that explains the 'self' experience.

Rejecting a 'brain in a vat' position is to look for a model where the possibility for social forms is made possible through evolution. How to distinguish between what is hard wired instinctively from what is capable of change and adaptation involves a larger view of ecology along with sharper methods of reduction. One aspect of that double movement that speaks to Mead's call for a multi-disciplinarian approach is the role of Developmental Immaturity. Some genetic processes are sped up in changes of species and others are slowed down. The importance of the concept of neoteny is important to both 'biological' and 'sociological' registers:

Contemporary evolutionary theorists no longer see evolution as progressive in the sense of developing toward ever-increasing levels of complexity (see Gould, 1989); nor is the biogenetic law taken seriously. Many aspects of evolution can be seen as additions or acceleradotls of a developmental trend but certainly not all and perhaps not even most. In many cases, important evolutionary changes are brought about by retardation of development, not by acceleration. This is reflected by the concept of neoteny, which means literally "holding youth" or the retention of embryonic or juvenile characteristics by a retardation of development. Neoteny is an example of the process of heterochrony—genetic-based differences in developmental timing, de Beer (1958) proposed that changes in the timing of ontogeny are the driving force of evolution, and many evolutionary biologists over the course of this century have concurred. — The Role of Immaturity in Human Development, by David F. Bjorklund

Whether through this formulation or another, immaturity permits a response to the environment rather than being hard wired to an 'innate' condition. Development psychology approaches that from many angles, from Jung wondering if we manipulate our instincts to Vygotsky understanding 'isolated rational subjectivity' as a skill learned through years of social interaction and training. For development of particular persons, immaturity is interrelated to the profound dependence upon care givers, the anxiety and fear as reflected in the Mirror Stage as depicted by Lacan. Such a model does not explain the Cartesian Theater but looks for events which places it somewhere.

I have read that essay several times. It is not an argument built upon assertions but a 'by means of negation':

The strategy I employed was to follow a sort of via negativa, examining the dialogues for the philosophical positions that are therein totally and consistently rejected. The ‘consistently rejected’ part is important because many would maintain that the difficulty in determining Plato’s philosophy is in part that his views changed over the course of the dialogues. So, we hear about the early, middle, and late Plato, terms of periodization that, we should never forget, are entirely fictitious.
The apotheosis of such fictional construction is the hermeneutic version of an astronomical
epicycle, the ‘transition’ dialogue, supposedly including those works which do not fit neatly into the early, middle, or late categories

My problems with his argument have nothing to do with this sort of speculation.

Gerson is a devoted student of Plotinus. Plotinus had his own view of the limits of Aristotle in relation to what he thought Plato was saying. To some extent, I think Gerson is reverse engineering what Plotinus assumed to be the case.

I don't charge Gerson with some nefarious purpose. Some of his commentaries on Aristotle are very interesting. But I am not on board with the Ur Platonism argument.

Sure, you might be right. But in context, Gerson's point was this: 'when you think you see—
mentally see—a form which could not in principle be identical with a particular, including a
particular neurological element, a circuit or a state of a circuit or a synapse, and so on. This is so
because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally. For example,
when you think ‘equals taken from equals are equal’ this is a perfectly universal truth which you
see when you think it. But this truth, since it is universal could not be identical with any
particular, any material particular located in space and time.' Which makes perfect sense to me. — Wayfarer

If I am correct, then Gerson has misunderstood Aristotle. I recognize that you want to use Gerson to leverage an argument against reduction in the context of the scientific method. I don't have a clear understanding of those matters and am loath to put forward an exact definition in the style of the SEP.

But I have read enough text to question Gerson's assertions and look forward to challenging anyone who would champion his position as a scholar.

That convict element seems very important to the mix to me. I think of those videos where Progozhin is shown telling them (more or less): "Make no mistake, if you back out of this deal, I will kill you myself."

Agreed. My comment is pure speculation.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Lloyd Gerson

The arguments in Aristotle do not follow this line of reasoning. The "identity" with the object is not a simple correspondence of "forms". Aristotle goes to great pains in his Metaphysics to distinguish between the relatively easy task of grouping beings by kinds from understanding causes. The often repeated maxim is that "we move from what is known by us to what is known by nature." Toward that end, we can establish some principles by analogy and others through experience. Gerson consistently overlooks the importance of this distinction when discussing substance (ousia) in Aristotle's writings. The idea of intellect as a pure process is presented as something we will never be able to directly experience for ourselves:

And in fact there is one sort of understanding that is such by becoming all things, while there is another that is such by producing all things in the way that a sort of state, like light, does, |430a15| since in a way light too makes potential colors into active colors.363 And this [productive] understanding is separable, unaffectable, and unmixed, being in substance an activity (for the producer is always more estimable than the thing affected, and the starting-point than the matter), not sometimes understanding and at other times not. But, when separated, this alone is just what it is.365 And it alone is immortal and eternal (but we do not remember because this is unaffectable, whereas the passive understanding is capable of passing away), and without this it understands nothing. — Aristotle

This idea of a self-sufficient process is closely bound with a very messy material set of conditions:

A problem might be raised as to how, when the affection is present but the thing producing it is absent, what is not present is ever remembered. For it is clear that one must understand the affection, which is produced by means of perception in the soul, and in that part of the body in which it is, as being like a sort of picture, the having of which we say is memory. For the movement that occurs stamps a sort of imprint, as it were, of the perceptible object, as people do who seal things with a signet ring. That is also why memory does not occur in those who are subject to a lot of change, because of some affection or because of their age, just as if the change and the seal were falling on running water. In others, because of wearing down, as in the old parts of buildings, and because of the hardness of what receives the affection, the imprint is not produced — Aristotle, On Memory, 1 450a25–b5

Apparently this was meant as a kind of wake up call to the Kremlin. Strange way to do so... — Manuel

That aspect makes me wonder if Prigozhin had been communicating with parts of Putin's regime and other oligarchs who may have extended tentative support if he achieved a certain level of success. The sudden abandonment of the project could have come from being notified that the support was being withdrawn. Palace intrigue combined with Mafia gang dynamics.

Having to shoot down Russian aircraft cannot be what Prigozhin was hoping for.

One element I found interesting in PDK back when I first read him as a teenager up to now as a pretty senior person is the theme of how one distinguishes fake narratives from real ones.

Moral logic and quests for the common good can lead one to do immoral things. As intimated I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern. — NOS4A2

That was Luther's argument against Erasmus. There are not a gang of referees to call each play so a different approach is needed.

I am not (only) appalled by Wallace's ranking of different societies. Darwin did not fill in the cultural development dimension that Wallace does. Maybe that silence counts for something.

I have many conflicting views of what is "spiritual" But I am not down with this:

As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. To us, the whole purpose, the only raison d'être of the world--with all its complexities of physical structure, with its grand geological progress, the slow evolution of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the ultimate appearance of man--was the development of the human spirit in association with the human body. From the fact that the spirit of man--the man himself--is so developed, we may well believe that this is the only, or at least the best, way for its development; and we may even see in what is usually termed "evil" on the earth, one of the most efficient means of its growth. For we know that the noblest faculties of man are strengthened and perfected by struggle and effort; it is by unceasing warfare against physical evils and in the midst of difficulty and danger that energy, courage, self-reliance, and industry have become the common qualities of the northern races; it is by the battle with moral evil in all its hydra-headed forms, that the still nobler qualities of justice and mercy and humanity and self-sacrifice have been steadily increasing in the world. Beings thus trained and strengthened by their surroundings, and possessing latent faculties capable of such noble development, are surely destined for a higher and more permanent [[p. 478]] existence; and we may confidently believe with our greatest living poet--



That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter'd with the shocks of doom
To shape and use. — A.R. Wallace

Nothing will be the same. — Jabberwock

Agreed. We don't know what is going on but so much brinkmanship doesn't fit with the monolithic information control Putin has relied upon up to now.

My family did not impose such a polarizing set of options of what makes a "real man" as yours did but the society around us was dominated by that ethos. My particular situation probably had something to do with short male life spans and abusive behavior encouraging finding new mates over several generations of mothers. I am twenty-seven years older than what my father got. I don't know what my lease agreement says. The process has not given me a strong patriarchal vibe.

Both my male and female siblings received a training based upon being able to fend for oneself rather than expecting shelter by means of another. Kind of a mixed message as far as family bonding goes. My son grew up in a much more supportive environment. That is not to say I did not make a lot of stupid situations. Parenting is a fantastic method to learn about one's limitations.

Despite those generational differences, I think there was a continuity in a belief in a balance of personality of the sort Jung talked about between animus and anima. Male and Female were mythological components that had to be explored but was not a law or something. My parents did not read Jung (as far as I know) but there was a sense that we had to find out what we were rather than being told what those roles were.

This experience causes me to reflect on how humiliation gets mixed up with all sorts of sexual distinctions. Humiliation comes in many forms. There is the Lord of the Flies, The Last Picture Show, the fetishes of Sade. I think the Metamorphosis of Kafka may be the most terrible vision of the conditions. The son turns into another species while the favored daughter is put upon display the next day to lure prospective husbands.

I don't have a sense of what is going on beyond what emerges from time to time. Just observing parts that don't fit with other parts.

The response by Surovikin makes sense as a way to cut out support from Wagner troops. I wonder how the heavy recruitment from prisons will play into this. They aren't your "go along to get along" mobis from Vladivostok.

Plato addressed this problem from two directions. The need for dialectic as demonstrated in the middle books of The Republic shows that it is the incongruity of different ideas that can help us search beyond sets of assumptions that exclude each other by default.

The Cratylus shows how the use of language is a pattern of contingency where meaning is not given through looking for a word's definition.

Taking such a broad view that would encompass ancient, medieval, and modern points of view is a project beyond the scope of my tiny mind and would call for its own discussion if it was not. But I can offer an example of how different first principles give different 'psychologies' or 'soul accounts', to translate the word from the Greek.

John Duns Scotus regarded the will to be prior to the intellect. He would have objected to the way Descartes presents them side by side in the quote above. There is a tension between the natural world and the realm of divine grace which the scholastic philosophers dealt with by explaining that the intellect is an activity of creatures as described by Aristotle. The possibility of free choice is 'unnatural' against the background of necessary processes. So, Scotus develops an idea of contingency quite at variance from Aristotle's treatment:

By contingent, I do not mean something that is not necessary, or which was not always or which was not always in existence, but something whose opposite could have occurred at the time that this actually did. That is why I do not say that something is contingent, but that something is caused contingently. — Quoted from Arendt, will provide source when reunited with my Scotus book.

It has been more than a decade since I last wrestled with the text. This discussion encourages me to give it another go. In the meantime, I will appeal to a secondary source who I think gets at the consequences of free choice being accepted as prior to intellect:

When Scotus rejects the idea that will is merely intellectual appetite, he is saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with eudaimonistic ethics. Morality is not tied to human flourishing at all. For it is Scotus’s fundamental conviction that morality is impossible without libertarian freedom, and since he sees no way for there to be libertarian freedom on Aquinas’s eudaimonistic understanding of ethics, Aquinas’s understanding must be rejected. And just as Aquinas’s conception of the will was tailor-made to suit his eudaimonistic conception of morality, Scotus’s conception of the will is tailor-made to suit his anti-eudaimonistic conception of morality. It’s not merely that he thinks there can be no genuine freedom in mere intellectual appetite. It’s also that he rejects the idea that moral norms are intimately bound up with human nature and human happiness. The fact that God creates human beings with a certain kind of nature does not require God to command or forbid the actions that he in fact commanded or forbade. The actions he commands are not necessary for our happiness, and the actions he forbids are not incompatible with our happiness. Now if the will were merely intellectual appetite—that is, if it were aimed solely at happiness—we would not be able to choose in accordance with the moral law, since the moral law itself is not determined by any considerations about human happiness. So Scotus relegates concerns about happiness to the affectio commodi and assigns whatever is properly moral to the other affection, the affectio iustitiae. — Thomas Williams, SEP article

All I'm saying is that I perceive that in a single mental act, or object of knowledge, there is more at play than the will. — Manuel

I mean to say that Descartes would largely agree. The greater degrees of freedom come from knowing more and resisting acting stupidly as a consequence. I don't understand how you see the will as being over-determined in the Meditations.

I suppose I unconsciously had Schopenhauer in mind, as when he says "Man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills." But he was a determinist. — Manuel

I don't know how Descartes would respond to that. He might agree to some extent. Spinoza denied free will but for different reasons than Schopenhauer did. Spinoza said it was cheeky to say our acts of deliberation were like what God did. We deliberate about what will best serve our ends. Spinoza accepted that it was natural that we pursued those ends. He objected to the idea that we were breaking a chain of causality by doing so. Having a God who would interrupt the program at any time was declared capricious and weird from the perspective of a natural world.

Schopenhauer introduced a more thorough going skepticism regarding the idea of an ordered universe which would have been nonsense from Spinoza's point of view. It seems determinism is as tricky as freedom.

If you want to add something, please do, you certainly know Descartes very well. — Manuel

Well, I have had to accept that I had gotten it wrong several times during this OP. There are plenty of opportunities to fail again.

Now, if my definition is not too problematic, then we can do, or not do something. With the intellect we judge, discern, reason, suppose, contemplate, compare, distinguish, evaluate, consider, combine, etc., etc. — Manuel

That either/or always happens in the context of intellect:

This is owing to the fact that willing is merely a matter of being able to do or not do the same thing, that is, of being able to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun; or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved in such a way that we sense that we are determined to it by no external force. — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

For Descartes, 'modes of thought' include all the processes we experience from sensation, to emotion, to conceptual reasoning, and so on. The either/or of choosing happens in the case of the least important matters up to the most important decisions. That is where the element of 'indifference' is seen in relation to orders of freedom:

However, the indifference that I experience when there is no reason moving me more in one direction than in another is the lowest grade of freedom; it is indicative not of any perfection in freedom, but rather of a defect, that is, a certain negation in knowledge — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

Maybe it would help if you gave a definition of the will as expressed by a philosophy that rings true for you. The concept has been approached many different ways and those ways have prompted very different 'psychological' perspectives.

I am reading Descartes as saying will is freedom of choice rather than him speaking of " having freedom of the will. The latter suggests there could be an unfree will. In this context, I read that as a contradiction in terms.

My question is, do all aspects of natural knowledge play a role in the will? — Manuel

I think that D is saying it will always help in making better choices but the inclusion of 'divine grace' in the statement is important too. We did not give ourselves freedom of choice nor what is our Good. The freedom of choice is a condition discovered through the limits of our intellect:

Were I always to see clearly what is true and good, I would never deliberate about what is to be judged or chosen. — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

A bathrobe and the dynamic of cultural evolution will help bring that technology into a better light.

Descartes is saying he is not in a position to compare "wills" of beings as a capacity in the way differences in knowledge and ability can be. As a freedom of choice, the experience between selecting to do or not do, to affirm or not affirm any option is one that does not feel forced upon him by an exterior cause. In the theological registers Descartes was working within, that freedom of choice was related to the sin of choosing to turn away from God. From Augustine to Anselm, the freedom is a critical moment where we can err. Descartes is making a striking move by combining the choosing between true and false ideas and good and bad actions as instances of one "will." While Anselm may not approve this expression as a matter of faith, I think he would not object to:

Nor indeed does divine grace or natural knowledge ever diminish one’s freedom; rather, they increase and strengthen it. However, the indifference that I experience when there is no reason moving me more in one direction than in another is the lowest grade of freedom; it is indicative not of any perfection in freedom, but rather of a defect, that is, a certain negation in knowledge. — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

This approach does call for asking what freedom of choice is and what counts as an external cause. Spinoza's Ethics got to work with calling the first an illusion and the second a category mistake.

These sound to me to be strongly inclined to moral considerations, I master my will in order to change my desires so as to make them adequate for the task at hand. This is what I ought to do. — Manuel

I don't think Descartes is saying the will can be mastered. The reason he cannot experience the difference between his will and that of God's is because he can only directly know his own freedom. That freedom does include selecting between options that range from the indifferent to the most important:

For although the faculty of willing is incomparably greater in God than it is in me, both by virtue of the knowledge and power that are joined to it and that render it more resolute and efficacious and by virtue of its object inasmuch as the divine will stretches over a greater number of things, nevertheless, when viewed in itself formally and precisely, God’s faculty of willing does not appear to be any greater. This is owing to the fact that willing is merely a matter of being able to do or not do the same thing, that is, of being able to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun; or better still, the will consists solely in the fact that when something is proposed to us by our intellect either to affirm or deny, to pursue or to shun, we are moved in such a way that we sense that we are determined to it by no external force. In order to be free I need not be capable of being moved in each direction; on the contrary, the more I am inclined toward one direction—either because I clearly understand that there is in it an aspect of the good and the true, or because God has thus disposed the inner recesses of my thought—the more freely do I choose that direction. Nor indeed does divine grace or natural knowledge ever diminish one’s freedom; rather, they increase and strengthen it. However, the indifference that I experience when there is no reason moving me more in one direction than in another is the lowest grade of freedom; it is indicative not of any perfection in freedom, but rather of a defect, that is, a certain negation in knowledge. Were I always to see clearly what is true and good, I would never deliberate about what is to be judged or chosen. — ibid. Fourth Meditation page 38

which is what he has control over after all, we cannot will to change the world, we can will to change ourselves, in order to try and have an effect on the world, however small this change may be. — Manuel

The "increase in natural knowledge" increases our power and effect upon the world.

Lacan does not express himself in the way you ascribe to him.

In the same way, when I write, the intention should not be the desire to be understood, — Levon Nurijanyan

Noted.