akrasia
nounUK /əˈkɹeɪ.zɪ.ə/ · US /əˈkɹeɪ.zi.ə/
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓κρᾰσῐ́ᾱ (ăkrăsĭ́ā), a variant of ᾰ̓κρᾰ́τειᾰ (ăkrắteiă, “lack of power, debility, impotence; lack of self-control, incontinence; self-indulgence”), from ἀκρατής (akratḗs, “having no authority, powerless; unable to exercise self-control, incontinent”) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). Ἀκρατής (Akratḗs) is derived from ᾰ̓- (ă-, prefix forming terms having a sense opposite to the stems or words to which it is attached) + κρᾰ́τος (krắtos, “might, strength; dominion, power”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kret- (“insight, intelligence; strength”)) + -ής (-ḗs, suffix forming third-declension adjectives). Doublet of acratia.
Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences Lack of physical or (especially) mental strength; poor willpower; also, the tendency to act contrary to one's better judgment; (countable) an instance of this.
- His [Homer's] Olympian gods live by passion and propensity rather than by principle; their besetting sin is a fault of inclination to what they like, not of absolute malignity; it belongs to the akrasia, not the absolute kakia of Aristotle.1887 June, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “The Great Olympian Sedition”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LI, London: Isbister and Company […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 762:
- The Atasthalié of Homer seems to hold to his Atè a relation resembling that between the kakia and the akrasia of Aristotle: the one indicating innate mischief, the other only inadequate means of defence against evil when it solicits from without.1890, W[illiam] E[wart] Gladstone, “Section IV: Rudiments of Ethics”, in Landmarks of Homeric Study […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, subsection IV, page 91:
4 more examples
- What I think this depicts is a relationship between the reasons we have to act and the action we do. This problem of acrasia suggests that sometimes we have those reasons. We think smoking is bad for health so the action we would expect is that we would refrain from smoking. Instead, we smoke.1972 summer, Arthur Cody, “Weakness of the Will”, in Synergist: A Publication of the Office of Academic Affairs, volume 5, number 2, Chicago, Ill.: Northeastern Illinois University, →OCLC, page 115:
- So when the badness of a poor doctor or actor is said to be 'similar by analogy' to badness proper[…], and this is used to shed light on the 'similarity' between acrasia proper and the acrasias in respect of anger, honour, and gain[…], the thought must be that a bad doctor stands to doctoring more or less as a bad man stands to action, while a choleric acratic stands to anger more or less as an acratic proper stands to bodily pleasure.1989, A[nthony] W[illiam] Price, “Aristotle on the Varieties of Friendship”, in Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, page 144:
- Augustine's original interpretation of our human condition is that we struggle and fail to do what we want to do and know that we ought to do – the classical problem of weakness of will or acrasia. […] We recognize acrasia in ourselves […] it is an acrasia which is tied to specific weaknesses: the man who yearns for vodka, and who tries and fails to limit his vodka-intake, may have no serious difficulty in avoiding over-eating.1994, John M[ichael] Rist, “Soul, Body and Personal Identity”, in Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 2000, →ISBN, page 137:
- If there are six severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of full-blooded akrasia, then perhaps the way to classify the varieties of akrasia and non-akrasia is by means of the statistical array generated by considering the permutations of the six conditions of akrasia. […] Examining this array may make it clear which types of akrasia logically cannot occur; what the range of possible partial akrasias is; and what kinds of cases are not akrasias at all.1995, T[imothy] D[avid] J[ohn] Chappell, “The Varieties of Akrasia”, in Aristotle and Augustine on Freedom: Two Theories of Freedom, Voluntary Action and Akrasia, London: Palgrave Macmillan, published 1998, →DOI, →ISBN, part I (Aristotle), page 98:
- Derived terms
- akratic, akratically