PRELIMINARY KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT SETTLE THE LIBERTARIAN PROBLEM.
Some person might try to establish a distinction founded on the fact that the animal and the soul do not act unconsciously. If they know it by mere sensation, how far does that sensation contribute to the freedom of will? For sensation, limiting itself to perception, does not yield the percipient mastery over anything.[179] If they know it by knowledge, and if this knowledge contain only the accomplished fact, their actions are then determined by some other principle. If, even independently of desire, reason or knowledge make us perform certain actions, or dominate us,[180] to what faculty shall the action be ascribed, and how does it occur? If reason produce another desire, how does it do so? If reason manifest itself and liberate us by the process of calming our desires, the free will lies no longer in the action, but in intelligence; for every action, however much directed by reason, would then be something mixed, not revealing an unconfused free will.