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SAARINEN, Risto. Weakness of Will in Renaissance and Reformation Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. viii + 248pp. Cloth, $80.00-This book continues the author's earlier study Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought: From Augustine to Buridan (New York: Brill, 1994), although it stands on its own. It aims to demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of some, "the classical problem of weakness of will was the source of lively debates and significant innovations during the Renaissance and the Reformation. . . . The study of these debates and innovations sheds light on the general understanding of the human condition during the formative period between medieval times and early modernity." The author is primarily concerned with the reception history of Aristotle's concept of akrasia and of St. Augustine. The book covers both philosophical and theological ground.
The first chapter provides an overview of the prior history of the question, discussing Plato and Aristotle, Stoicism, St. Paul, and St. Augustine, the "Medieval Aristotelians" Thomas Aquinas and Walter Burley, the "Medieval Voluntarists" Walter of Bruges and Henry of Ghent, and the "Medieval Syntheses" of Albert the Great and John Buridan. At the end of this chapter the author categorizes various "models of akrasia " which he will use throughout the rest of the book to characterize the various authors studied. There are the two "Platonic models," namely the "Socratic-Platonic" model, which...