Akrasia e ignorância em Aristóteles

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze akrasia and ignorance from reading NE VII.3 in the light of three issues: (i) why do we sometimes act against our better judgment while when we know what we must do? (ii) how can we refer to akrasia in terms of ignorance; and, (iii) which object (teleutaia protasis) it is related to the akratic failure, i.e., which element of the practical syllogism lies in the akratic’s subject failure: it’s a failure of understanding the minor premise or a failure on conclusion of the act? While on the one hand there’s a Socratic opinion, from Protagoras Plato’s dialogue, that no one could act against what he knows to be correct, except by ignorance, then akrasia doesn’t exist at all; on the other hand, there’s an opinion that is entirely possible for someone, in an affected state, acts contrary to his better judgment, based on the arguments mentioned above and opinions about the phenomenon of akrasia our purpose here consist in analyze akrasia, as a conflict of desires, in order to understand why is it that despite the power of our practical intellect to leader us to practice good actions we are easily influenced by our appetites? In parallel to the Socratic argument on akrasia, we must point out in this context what kind of ignorance is linked to this phenomenon analyzed by Aristotle. At the end, we aim to explain in a suitable form how the appetite overcomes the boulesis acting as an obstacle for the intellect.