Wishing, refusing and the good · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordVelle wills or wishes; nolle does not will or refuses.
In the Platonic TheologyFicino argues that intelligence is sought because it is good, whereas the good is not sought because it is intelligent.
In this edition“We both understand well and understand the Good” preserves bene et bonum.
A place to readDesire for the Good precedes rational prompting and explains desire for intelligence

Meaning

Velle wills or wishes; nolle does not will or refuses. Respuere rejects, and anteponere prefers or places before. The difference between adverbial bene and substantival bonum matters: understanding well and understanding the good are not the same grammatical claim.

Use in the book

Ficino argues that intelligence is sought because it is good, whereas the good is not sought because it is intelligent. People may prefer pleasure to contemplation or temporarily reject knowledge thought harmful. Such choices show, in his reasoning, that knowledge is not an unconditional final object. The Good as Good cannot be rejected because even refusal seeks some good in refusing. He therefore joins supreme necessity to supreme voluntariness: people will the Good so willingly that they want to be unable not to will it. This concerns the formal object of desire, not the correctness of every judgement about a particular beneficial thing, and it does not establish that every concrete action is coerced or uniquely determined. The father and homeland at the close describe a common source and desired end.

Places to read

I.6.18Desire for the Good precedes rational prompting and explains desire for intelligence
I.6.19Refusal of troubling knowledge, preference for pleasure, and the impossibility of rejecting the Good as such

Translation in this edition

“We both understand well and understand the Good” preserves bene et bonum. The double negative in “wish... to be unable not to will” is intentional; removing it destroys Ficino’s proposed conjunction of necessity and willing acceptance.

bene et bonum

bene et bonum. Printed forms: bene et bonum.

Well and the good. Ficino demands both good understanding and understanding the Good; the adverb and substantive have different functions. References: I.6.19. See Wishing, refusing and the good.

praefero / antepono

praefero / antepono. Printed forms: anteponant; anteponimus; praeferunt.

To prefer or place before. The Proem asks readers to reverse a preference for shadows; the final chapter distinguishes preference for pleasure over contemplation from the impossibility of preferring something to the Good as Good. References: Proem.9, I.6.19. See Wishing, refusing and the good.

respuo

respuo. Printed forms: respuere; respuimus.

To reject or refuse. Knowledge thought harmful may be temporarily rejected, whereas the Good precisely as good cannot be rejected within Ficino’s account of desire. References: I.6.19. See Wishing, refusing and the good.

velle / nolle

velle / nolle. Printed forms: nolle; velimus; velle; volumus; voluntaria; vult.

To will or wish, and not to will. The wish to be unable not to will the Good expresses Ficino’s proposed coincidence of necessity and willing acceptance, not coercion into one particular act. References: I.6.19. See Wishing, refusing and the good.

To will or refuse; willing cognition in the divine case. Opposing equal wills produce contradiction in the two-god supposition; voluntary cognition later characterizes divine action. References: II.2.14, II.9.13. See Will.