Abstract

It is generally agreed that the ancient Greeks did not have a concept of will and that it was St. Augustine who discovered the faculty, which he called voluntas. Yet Cicero was already using voluntas not only in his letters and speeches, but also in his philosophical works as a translation for a number of different Greek words. One wonders what the word meant to Cicero. Did Augustine change the word radically in using it to name a faculty of soul? This dissertation is an attempt to answer such questions, and thus to contribute something to the discussion of the history of the concept of will, by a close analysis of Cicero's use of the word voluntas. ;After an introductory review of the historical problem of the will, each chapter is a study of Cicero's use of voluntas in one genre. In each genre,voluntas ranges in meaning from a desire for a specific end or intention to perform a specific deed to a general attitude. The use in the letters and speeches makes clear that voluntas is a mental phenomenon occurring often in conjunction with intellectual acts but not itself strictly intellectual. Neither is voluntas simply one of the irrational passions. It is a desire or inclination arising from within, undetermined by natural temperament, external compulsion, or the demands of an obligation. Unusual uses of the word in the philosophical works are natural extensions of the ordinary meaning of the word. Cicero renders several Greeks terms--including boulesis, proairesis, and hekon--with voluntas. In each case, the normal meaning of voluntas as an undetermined desire or intention makes it an accurate translation of the Greek, though it has connotations which each of the Greek words separately does not have. ;In the concluding chapter, examination of Augustine's reflections on voluntas in the Confessions shows that Augustine's use of voluntas does no violence to the word as it has been used in the works of Cicero. Cicero, by translating various Greek words with the one word voluntas, has made possible the abstract philosophical use of the word to cover several functions or phenomena with separate Greek names