The Will

The 'Will' is traditionally defined as a Causality obtaining between a thought, 'I will do X', and an event, X. The general acceptance of the existence of Will is demonstrated by the fact that if one resolves to e. g. raise their arm, but the arm does not move, some malfunction, e. g. neurological, is assumed to have occurred. But to some Philosophers, such an instance is proof of either the dubiousness, or even the illusoriness, of the existence of Will. For Hume, any case of Efficient Causality, 'A causes B', is no more than a constant conjunction of the perception of A and the perception of B, so, likewise, 'Will' is not an independently-existing connection inhering between a thought and a physical event. For Spinoza, mental and physical events are parallel and independent, so a thought could never cause a bodily movement. For Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Santayana, a thought is only an epiphenomenal expression of some physical process, so Willing is only an expression of some process that is transpiring independently of its being thought. In contrast, Formaterialism shows the conceptual inadequacies of the these accounts of the Will. In this System, the Material Principle is, in general, Becoming-Diverse, and Exposition, the Material Principle, is Thought-Becoming-Motion. Now, 'Will' is just another name for Exposition. So, as opposed to Hume's treatment, Will is a Material, not an Efficient, Cause, to which his analysis does not apply, and, insofar as Will precedes the Mind-Body abstraction presupposed by Spinoza and the Epiphenomenalists, their analyses are, likewise, irrelevant. More generally, the sincere resolution that 'I will do X', is the initiation of the doing of X, in which 'I will do' is the Material Cause, and 'X', which guides and shapes the performance, is the Formal Cause. Formaterialism might seem eccentric in the context of traditional Philosophy, but it explains a common event with greater fidelity than does the latter.