Disputatio:Liberum arbitrium

message: Quid significat haec locutio? Anglice: 'free judgment', 'free decision', 'free authority'? IacobusAmor 11:27, 28 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Significat "free will" vel "free choice in decision" vel  "free choice of will". 'Liberum arbitrium' tantum  vel fortasse plenius 'liberum voluntatis arbitrium' est terminus technicus philosophiae. cf google--123.192.69.44 16:57, 28 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: :<<The Latin term arbitrium means that whereby a thing is chosen, judged or decided.  As such it can be rendered as choice, judgment or decision. Though, Neil Lewis in his article on Grosseteste, says:
replies: text: ::<<“Like most medieval thinkers Grosseteste typically uses the term ‘free decision’ (Liberum arbitrium) rather than ‘free will’ (libera voluntas).  This notion involves a duality, the term ‘free’ pointing to the will and ‘decision’ to some kind of rational judgment,” the proper distinction appears in this, that arbitrium refers to that whereby a thing is chosen, judged or decided, in deed, where as choice, judgment and decision, per se, are acts of the intellect distinguishing in an intellectual act between two or more beings or acts.

text: :<<In addition, in English there is a long tradition of rendering liberum arbitrium as “free will” rather than as “free judgment”, “free decision” or “free choice”.  This is seemingly because in Latin libera voluntas signifies properly in the real order (“a free will”) rather than in the genus of qualities of power (“free will”). . . .

text: :<<Thus to walk along in the common tradition of Latin and English Scholasticism, liberum arbitrium will be rendered as “free will”; and to distinguish this from libera voluntas, the latter will always be rendered with a definite or indefinite article (“a free will”, “the free wills”, etc.); even though this presents a small obstruction to the authentic understanding of thought of St. Bonaventure, if one does not keep these distinctions in mind.>> ~ Fons.

text: :So who now will write the article Libera voluntas? And how would Cicero render free will anyway? IacobusAmor 02:56, 29 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: ::You can include it as a section of liberum arbitrium which is the proper latin translation of the concept, rather than a word by word translation. The writer is wrong in implying that the latin term is somehow defective. Free will and free choice ARE the same thing. The freedom in freewill is in the act of choosing freely between two alternatives. The freedom of choice is what makes humans different than animals. It makes no sense whatever to say free will in any other sense, because then freedom would mean only freedom from outside coercion, which is political freedom.Cf Ayn Rand--123.192.69.44 04:46, 29 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: :::De "Free will and free choice ARE the same thing."—Maybe to you & me, but if a philosopher as important as Grosseteste ("the real founder of the tradition of scientific thought in medieval Oxford, and in some ways, of the modern English intellectual tradition") held that they are not the same thing, an encyclopedia has to recognize that. IacobusAmor 10:12, 29 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::Although it is hard for me to make out what Grosseteste is saying, his sentences being so convoluted. Nevertheless, it would seem that, if his viewpoint is that free will is different than free choice, then his viewpoint  issort of fringe from the point of philosophy as a whole. All the wikis free will articles ignore him including the english one, which use the english term but explain the meaning of free will conventionally including viewpoints against and for it. And furthermore all the romance language wikis use the term directly derived from the latin term. Non of them even gives a term like "free will" as an alternative.--123.192.69.44 13:15, 29 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::Looking again at the text offered above, I am convinced that Grosseteste is not staking out a new position saying that free will is different from liberum arbitrium, but rather he is explaining to his english reader that libera voluntas in latin (of st. bonaventure) means "a free will" as opposed to the specific quality/characteristic that one normally refers to by the english term "free will" (a term established by tradition in english to signify the same quality named in latin by liberum arbitrium.)--123.192.69.44 14:56, 29 Iunii 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: "Liberum arbitrium"