ABSTRACT
The general introduction to the volume sketches the systematic and historical background against which the chapters and their interrelations are to be understood. It suggests that two factors are crucial to voluntarism: the conception of the will as a self-determining power, and a strong modal conception of contingency. It is argued that the strong connection between these two factors explains the wide range of areas in which voluntarist approaches have been applied, including theory of action, ethics, metaethics, and metaphysics. It then outlines the development of three varieties of voluntarism in medieval and early modern thinking: psychological, ethical, and theological (or metaphysical). These also serve to determine the main parts of the whole volume. Against the backdrop of this distinction, the chapters are then presented in their thematic and conceptual interrelations to show that the present volume is much broader in scope than other investigations of voluntarism, which usually focus on only one of its varieties. The volume also covers the period from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth, thus making possible new insights into the development of voluntarism across eras.
