AKRASIA, WEAKNESS OF THE WILL AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOOD
AKRASIA, WEAKNESS OF THE WILL AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE GOOD

Summary/Abstract: The phenomenon of akrasia (committing wrong actions while knowing them to bewrong, also known as weakness of the will or incontinence) has puzzled philosophersat least since the time of Socrates, who nevertheless concluded that it is neverinstantiated in reality, since according to him any person who has knowledge of thegood will always act rightly, and thus the only reason people ever commit wrongdeeds is ignorance. Many other philosophers, including Aristotle, have thought thatacratic actions exist and are actually quite frequent, and they have tried to explainakrasia in a way that stays true to those appearances. In this article the position ofAristotle on this topic is presented and then contrasted with that of DonaldDavidson; after finding similarities in both approaches, a hypothesis about therelation between akrasia and the emotions is defended, and temporary forgetfulnessis proposed as the underlying mechanism through which this phenomenon operates.

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