Philosophy

Anabel Maldonado

October 3, 2012

To Aristotle, akrasia means giving into pleasures knowing they are wrong yet still doing it. The intellectual part of the being knows that it is not correct but because that part has little control it is not listened to. Aristotle believes that being an akrasiatic is being a slave to yourself and if not yourself to someone or something that brings youpleasure. Letting your emotions control your actions over your intellect just to please your desires. In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics he defines akrasia as “The person who is prone to be overcome by pleasures is incontinent” (Irwin and Irwin 109). Aristotle states that akrasia is some sort of weakness that is not vice or ethicalness. Yet knowing that what you are doing is wrong you must have somesort of knowledge. Aristotle tries to define knowledge in order to figure out if the akrasiatic had the correct belief of the ethically approved decision at the time of the wrongdoing. He then breaks akrasia into two parts. There is impetuosity, which is acting forcefully without rationally thinking about the right thing to do. “The intemperate person, as we said, is not prone to regret, since heabides by his decision [when he acts]” (Irwin and Irwin 110). Then there’s weakness, which is thinking about it and knowing the correct thing to do but yet still going against your better judgment. “One of the states mentioned [i.e., the decision to avoid pain] is more a species of softness, whereas the other person is intemperate” (Irwin and Irwin 109).
As an akrasiatic person you have no cure foryour disordered soul. To start off the akrasiatic person must first accept they have a problem in order to face or overcome it. Aristotle says “He is intemperate; for he is bound to have no regrets, and so is incurable, since someone without regrets is incurable” (Irwin and Irwin 109). For example, it’s like AA. In order to get help you first have to admit you have a problem. You want to betteryour being by accepting a flaw and wanting to correct it. That is not the case with akrasiatic people.

In The Allegory of the Cave, Socrates believes that in order to reach the Form of the Good you must see the true reality. Having someone pour information in your head is not a form of learning, hence there is no true education. Education is what will make humans closer to the Form of the Good.In this story the prisoners inside the cave are only shown shadows casted in front of them and are not allowed to move their eyesight anywhere else. To these prisoners the shadows shown to them since birth is their reality. They know of none other but what is given to them. When one of the prisoners is freed and forced to look at how the shadows were made using the fire and statutes he is shockedand angry; his eyes were constantly in the darkness and not accustomed to the bright light of the fire. He accepts that as a reality because he is experiencing it. He has not the minimal idea that outside that cave is an entire world full of reality he has not thought of. The prisoner is then forced outside the cave into the real world and is blinded by the sun and is only looking towards theshadows. He realizes that the sun is the one allowing everything on this earth to be. Learning and understanding is part of the education process that a human should go through in order to reach the Form of Good. If the prisoner had a choice in going back to the cave and continuing his life steady and happily as before instead of staying outside the cave knowing that there is a chance at failure, hewill most likely choose the life outside the cave because he knows of a greater reality and he wants to share this reality with his fellow prisoners.
Now, in Plato’s the Euthyphro, Socrates tries and make Euthyphro understand that his beliefs are not solid for his answers to Socrates questions are always proved wrong. Socrates is said to be one of Euthyphro’s friends; Euthyphro even says that...