ABULIA AND IMPULSIVENESS REVISITED - A CONCEPTUAL HISTORY

Historical analysis suggests that the decline and fall of the will was due not to any major piece of empirical work demonstrating that the c oncept was unsound but to general changes in philosophical fashion, an d to the temporary influence of the anti-mentalistic tenets of behavio rism and the anti-volitional assumptions of psychoanalysis. Clinical d isorders like abulia and impulsiveness share conceptual features that 19th-century alienists captured well in their clinical category of dis order of the will. Current accounts, which include semi-explanatory co ncepts such as ''drive'' ''motivation'' or frontal lobe ''executive'' are not conceptually better than the old notion of will nor are they s uperior as correlational variables for neurobiological studies. It is suggested that the will, updated according to modern work in the philo sophy of action, be re-adopted as a research category in current psych iatry.