ABSTRACT
The author discusses several significant historical events that are worth keeping in mind when looking at accounts of free will. He explores the primary concern is with the will's freedom, primary concern will also be with choice, since it is in making choices that the will's putative freedom would be exercised. He appears that voluntarist accounts that emphasized human freedom became more prevalent after the condemnations. The Franciscan order of which he was a part was known for emphasizing the will and its freedom, but Ockham went significantly beyond the more standard Franciscan views and certainly went well beyond anything demanded by the Condemnation of 1277. The guiding question of the relevant section is whether "the nature of the possible exists." Adopting the scholastic method, Crescas first presents a series of arguments for an affirmative answer, then a series of arguments for a negative answer, before finally offering his own resolution of the issue.
