FT24004: The Will in the Present

     The will is located in the present. It is not an integral part of our history and it isn't clear what the future holds. The will is a fundamental part of an individual and exist at the same time as we think. Our present does not stay the same and our will is fundamentally different in different parts of our life. Our actions are provoked by our will and commands us to focus on certain things rather than others.

    Philosophers attribute certain qualities to the will and what motivates it--re: Nietzsche et al. These qualities seem to exist prior to any formation by experience and experience can even tarnish the will. Yet we also see the will develop in philosophies like Hegel. We experience as we will and this experience we have to understand and see how it fits with our willing. Hegel has a passage contrasting the will of the heart vs. the will of the world which focuses us on how we actively have to measure our will with reality.

    This constant reoccurring projection of our will into the present has an iterative nature and each present vanishes into another present. If there were no source of change each present would be the same present much like some coral in a the sea staying the same until it dies. Defining the self as the will is problematic in that it doesn't account for why this will changes and why we choose to disregard our will much like how Hobbes defines the our contract in society. 

    With our experiences, we filter these presents differently even if there is no fundamental change in what we will. There has to be some connectivity with the past that forms our present--even if the present us is what is most real meaning what we exist in. The shaping process of our intellect is very much the accumulation of past experiences. The past shape is also a limited shape and this contrasts with present which opens itself to many possibilities. The present using the past shape to slightly nudge the past shape is a part the will plays in but does not define a person fully.

    The will as a thing separate from anything else cannot be subject to ethics. Alone it has no account for where it has been and where it needs to go. We can account for this because the will is integrated into how we think and our memory of the past. Even though our wills are important in our existence in the present it is not what makes us ourselves.

FT24002: The Will and Nihilism

    The will is central in many philosophies as it is a locus of our self particularly in the present. Many try to ascribe an innate character to the will. For Nietzsche it is the will to power and for Schopenhauer it is the will to procreate. These philosophies of the will also describe the denaturing of the will as a form of nihilism. Remarkably, one can go on with a denatured will, but in shadowy way that ethically blocks the person from reaching an eudaimonic conclusion. 

    Schopenhauer and Nietzsche also see Christianity as flipping of the will. For Nietzsche, loving each person equally hinders the will to power over others. Schopenhauer also sees a flipping Christianity in terms of chastity. This chastity flips the procreative element of the will and shows a will that wants to end life.

    A more recent philosopher, Foucault, also see an important element of the sexual life but in a way that makes a person more radical and differentiates into an individual. He does not agree with Schopenhauer that this is a reduction of the will but the will itself. Foucault's views on sexuality have little to do with causing life. To this end it is interesting that the chastity of Christianity and the abundance of sex with Foucault are related in what philosophers of the will report as nihilism in Schopenhauer's system. 

    However in these cases, the will's temporal nature does not describe a person from birth to death. One's will is often a small slice of someone's life that is under continual flux. The ideas of Aristotle have a broader out look where Society is a container of all our wills past and present. In the Aristotelian view we have to moderate our wills to fit into our society so that at the end of our careers we can achieve our goals while being in good repute with our neighbors. 

    Individualistic philosophers tend to see nihilism as a denatured will that an individual recognizes as insufficient while a societal view of ethics puts society as the judge of the will. If society judges one's will, it is possible for an individual to will but not recognize the quality of their will. An individual that is judging the quality of their will doesn't look to society for approval and many ways sees society as an obstacle in their willing.