AKRASIA IN THE EARLY MODERN THOUGHT
AKRASIA IN THE EARLY MODERN THOUGHT

Summary/Abstract: Medea’s famous words “I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse”1 fully illustrates men’s paradoxical way of acting known in the ancient Greek under the name of akrasia. Aristotle’s seventh book of Nicomachean Ethics put forward a subtle philosophical analysis of akrasia or the weakness of will, which became a standard reference for further discussions on this issue in antiquity. Largely interpreted as one person’s acting against his or her better judgment, akrasia continued to be a topic of interest in the Middle Ages, where started to be translated as ‘incontinentia’ (hence ‘incontinence’ as one of its English correspondents).

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