Annotation
FALL TERM 2023
BA module+Erasmus
Tuesday, 10:50-12:25 (in English) e-mail me for consultation or questions: anna.tropia@ff.cuni.cz
Is human Will able to will whatever object, or must it conform to the judgement of reason? Are all our acts tending towards goodness, or is our individuality able to impose itself as the sole horizon of our acts? And in what eventually freedom of the human Will consist? These are the main questions that the texts we are going to read confront with. Our focus will be the elaboration by medieval philosophers of a special case, the hatred of God (odium Dei). According to a long-term philosophical tradition in fact, it is not possible to hate God, because, as God is the greatest good, this would correspond to hate goodness itself. According to such tradition, which is exemplified by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, hating what has been recognized as good is simply not possible. Therefore, it is impossible to hate God. But from the second half of the 13th century, the human Will and its freedom to act assume a new skin in the accounts of Franciscan philosophers such as John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. According to them, Will can reject goodness, and want also what is not good. The demarcation between Intellect and Will will be the main object of this course.