Object of thought, Object of the will / Objet de la pensée, Objet de la volonté :: From Richard Rufus of Cornwall to Anton Marty

Human beings contain within themselves different powers or faculties: they feel, imagine, think and even will. Without harming the unity of the soul, these powers are diverse and maintain multiple relations amongst themselves: thought can refer to the senses or the imagination; and the will can listen to reason’s advice. The question of the superiority of the will or the intellect in the human being has been dealt with at length. This book, resulting from a collective effort, would like to take up this question in a new light by considering the relations between the intellect and the will from the perspective of their object. Is the object by which we think the same as the object aimed for by the will? What is the strange object considered by the intellect and that does not seem identified with an exterior thing? Does the will then submit itself to an intellect by borrowing objects that the latter has constituted? These questions will be dealt with, among others, over a long period, from the origin of the concept of the object in the 13th century to its reprise in Austro-German philosophy, without neglecting the Classical Age.