ABSTRACT
The question of free will is, of course, a central topic in medieval philosophy, standing at the vertex of many different discussions that touch on the distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy. On the one hand, the question of freedom involves a clear definition (by opposition) of nature and natural processes, a key point for natural sciences. ‘Free actions’ and processes must be clearly or at least sufficiently distinct from natural processes, so both natural theology and human agency are highlighted by the very definition of the free. Still, as we shall see, it would be incorrect to simply equate ‘contingent’ actions or processes with ‘free’ and ‘necessary’ with ‘natural’. Precisely, on the other hand, the definition of freedom has a pivotal role in determining the complex and foundational issues of agency and ethics. From the point of view of the philosophy of mind, freedom has to do with a constitutive mode of our very form of being (or at least with the way we perceive it), having thus an enormous impact on the way we ‘own’ and ‘deal with’ ourselves (what Stoics called oikeiosis). Furthermore, medieval philosophy takes freedom into account within the much larger horizon of theology, for the Godhead is free.
