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In her study of willing, Hannah Arendt moves from a discussion of Augustine as "the first philosopher of the Will' to a chapter entitled "Thomas Aquinas and the primacy of Intellect' (Arendt, 1978, 113–25). This would be misleading if it were taken to imply that the will is any less fundamental for Aquinas than it was for Augustine, or that there is any major divergence between them in regard to its nature.¹ Aquinas' account of the will is based primarily on Aristotle's concept of rational appetite (boulêsis) in its association with reason and the emotions; but at each critical point he develops his views in ways that draw directly on Augustine's own insights and concerns. I think that Terence Irwin is right in his claim that "[Aquinas] sets out from an Aristotelian position, as he conceives it, and seeks to show that Augustine's claims are all defensible within an Aristotelian framework' (Irwin, 2007, 434–5).²

DOI: 10.1057/9781137030979_9

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