Robert Halifax´s Theory of the Will and Its Impact at Vienna

The robust development of logic, mathematics, optics, and physics in sum, of nearly all natural sciences at the University of Oxford in the 1330s is known to have paved the way for a novel approach to theories of motion and the will. This project proposes to investigate two aspects of this novel approach: voluntarism in the work of Robert Halifax ( 1349), and voluntarism in commentaries on the Sentences at the University of Vienna in the first half of the 15th century. It intends to edit and to analyse two questions from Robert Halifaxs Questions on the Sentences, as well as several texts, which originated at the medieval University of Vienna. Indeed, many particular aspects of the Oxford variety of voluntarism initiated by Richard Kilvington continued in the work and thought of Robert Halifax. Halifax enjoyed some popularity at the University of Paris, which can be considered as the starting point of his reception on the Continent. From this point of view, it is a matter of importance that the Viennese scholars seem to have developed a complex approach to voluntarism, particularly in commentaries on the Sentences penned at the Faculty of Theology.