Will is understood as the ability of an agent to reflect on and define aims freely, and to act upon and pursue them methodically and steadfastly. For the first time this volume examines in detail the historical development of the terminology and problems within the various philosophical schools (Stoics, Neo-Platonists, Peripatetics), as well as in Christian patristics, which led to the establishment of a philosophically "adequate" definition of will in Late Antiquity.