The invention of the modern subject (continued) : will and action (10)

Second hour: the anti-Pelagian obsession that is conceptually at work in Christianity strives to detach rectitude of judgment and uprightness of will. In our current state of extreme theological inculturation - indeed, inculturation altogether - the Pelagian crisis no longer makes sense. For the medievalists, it was not a thing of the past. After a brief return to the condemnations of 1277 and the denunciation of "Pelagius' error" in censuring proposition 130 (166), assuring that "if reason is right, the will is right", we turned to Buridan's Questions on Metaphysics, where he takes a position close to the "definition of a free agent", attacked by Hobbes and defended by Bramhall. Having put in place the conceptual elements necessary for a rigorous definition of action: estimation, advice, "pleasures" (complacentia) and "displeasures" (displacentia), he confronts the central question posed by the censure of 1277: does the will necessarily pursue what practical reason has concluded? As Buridan argues that the will "necessarily accepts" the good proposed to it as an end by an "absolutely certain judgment"(certum omnino), the problem rebounds and becomes more complicated. It becomes: is there practical certainty? The rest of the lesson was devoted to this question, presenting the Buridanian theory of "firm belief" and "absence of fear"(exclusio formidinis), and the distinction between modes of certainty. We then turned to a second question: is complete self-determination of the will possible? and began to analyze Buridan's answer: the will is not alone with the intellect, a formula whose meaning we reserved until the next lecture.