From voluntary to relational action

responsibility in question

Kenneth J. Gergen

pp. 193-208

in: Sabine Maaßen, Barbara Sutter (eds), On willing selves, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Abstract

Concern with the animating source of bodily movement has occupied human inquiry for centuries. What is the source of human action, and what is the nature of its departure during death? This was indeed the question posed by Aristotle in his writings about psychology and the will. As he saw it, there is an active force within the person that is responsible for bodily animation. To this force he assigned the concept of what is sometimes translated as 'soul". To the soul is ascribed the "power of producing both movement and rest" (p. 127). It is this originary font of action (arche) within the individual which, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes as the basis of willed or voluntary behavior. Aristotle's question remains ours today, as we ponder the question of voluntary agency. And, indeed, one may conclude that Aristotle's conclusion continues to be very much alive.

Cited authors

Aristoteles