Aristotle on Acrasia
In recent years several scholars have attempted to develop a (minority) interpretation of Aristotle’s account of acrasiain Nicomachean Ethics Book 7 chapter 3 in which at least one acrates arrives at the conclusion that, for example, they should not eat a particular cake before them and says (but does not know) ‘I should not eat this’ while, at the very same time, swayed by desire or passion, they eat it.
In this talk, David Charles shall attempt to fill the major gap in this interpretation by presenting this acrates’ grasp of the good conclusion as a failure in an inextricably desiderative form of knowledge, conviction and belief. This is, Charles shall suggest, a failure in a distinctive type of practical knowledge, not to be analyzed either as a failure in intellectual knowledge or as a failure of desire or as a combination of the two. As such, it is, in its nature, uniquely vulnerable to the impact of desire, emotionally charged memory and anticipation.
About the Speaker
David Charles is Howard H. Newman Philosophy Professor at Yale University. He has previously been Colin Prestige Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford, and Research Professor in Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford. He focuses his research on ancient philosophy, especially on Aristotle’s philosophy, and on philosophy of mind. Most recently, Charles has published a book titled The Undivided Self: Aristotle and the ‘Mind-Body Problem,’ which argues that Aristotle regarded many psychological phenomena as inextricably psycho-physical.