Introduction:

The Will and the Intellect, two fundamental powers that work in the spirit of men, determining in one way or another their choices, have been developed and understood in different ways by different philosophers throughout history, among them, the medieval philosophers St. Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, whose thinking on these matters is analyzed in this article, from references such as the "Theological Summa" of Aquinas, "Giovanni" of Duns Scoto, "A bibliographical introduction" by Todescan, and" The life of the spirit" by Arendt, among others.

Objective:

The objective of this article is to analyze the concepts of Will and Intellect within the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, in order to identify the points of encounter and disagreement between both authors.

Material and methods:

This analysis is part of a qualitative research with a hermeneutic approach, which used documentary review as an instrument of interpretation.

Results:

It was established that the main difference between the thinking of both authors, refers to the primacy that one power has over the other: in Thomas Aquinas the intellect over desire, while in Duns Scotus the will prevails over the intellect.

Conclusions.

For the effects of the prevalence of one power over the other, issues such as free will play a fundamental role and, above all, the way in which both powers act in the psyche of man at the moment of decision making.

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