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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Aristotle and Grice on "ἐφ' ἡμῖν "

For the Greeks, and particularly for Aristotle, the term closest to the modern complex idea of free will was ἐφ ἡμῖν - "on us" or "depends on us." In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle said,

εἰ δὲ ταῦτα φαίνεται καὶ μὴ ἔχομεν εἰς ἄλλας ἀρχὰς ἀναγαγεῖν παρὰ τὰς ἐν ἡμῖν, ὧν καὶ αἱ ἀρχαὶ ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ αὐτὰ ἐφ' ἡμῖν καὶ ἑκούσια.

"But if it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions, and if we are unable to trace our conduct back to any other origins than those within ourselves, then actions of which the origins are within us, themselves depend upon us, and are voluntary."[9]

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