Will and Attempt

Making a decision, and executing it, are clearly distinguishable moments in behavior.  However, considerable confusion has been sown in the history of Philosophy because each has been called 'Will'.  One notable example of their co-presence is in Kant's doctrine--the causality of Pure Practical Reason vs. the capacity to choose to disobey it.  Initially, Kant seems satisfied that the former exhausts the term, but later realizes that, in a disruption of an apparent closure of his system, he must recognize the latter, as well, forcing him to distinguish them by the two terms 'Wille' and 'Willkur'.  In contrast, the former can be recognized as Spinoza's exclusive version of 'Will', and the latter, as Descartes'.  Similarly, the standard 'Free Will vs. Determinism' debate is frequently burdened by the failure to consider the possible equivocation.  Now, Schopenhauer's Will to Live clearly connotes Causality, as does Nietzsche's Will to Power, notably when he defines it at the 'discharge of strength'. On the other hand, Nietzsche also ascribes to that principle the creation of Values, whereby preference, and, hence, choice is expressed.  Thus, for example, whether Zarathustra's affirmation of Life is an instance of Freedom of Choice, as Existentialists argue, or a consequence of a more dominant tendency, as Determinists insist, seems to remain unsettled.  Still, as in the case of driving a vehicle, in which pressing the accelerator and turning the wheel are clearly separate, the distinction between making a decision, and executing it is plain.  Nevertheless, that distinction suppresses a more subtle one--between execution and an attempt at execution--which becomes exposed when the former fails.  So, underlying this chronic confusion regarding 'Will' is a pervasive neglect of attention to Attempt in behavioral processes.