Contemplating Plato's Akrasia
A blog that tracks our passion project on Plato's akrasia.
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I know that I should eat carrots instead of a cookie at Collins Dining Hall. Eating carrots is better for my health. Yet I eat the cookie anyway. Though eating the Collins cookie is a simple (and now often missed) instance, this act against my own better judgment demonstrates akrasia, or weakness of will.
Plato tried tackling the idea of akrasia and virtue in general in a couple of his dialogues. In the span of our project, we explore questions like: What is akrasia and why is akrasia important? Are there any prescriptive measures we can take, or are we all doomed for a weakness in will? We hope that through studying the Platonic dialogues, we can further our understanding of the Platonic, Socratic, and Aristotelian concepts of virtue, and the role akrasia plays - if any.
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A unique aspect of ancient Greek philosophy, particularly Plato’s works, is how it is conveyed. In Socratic dialogues, individuals partake in discussions with the intent of reaching a deeper understanding of a concept. We intend to replicate this unique format for our own dialogues. The Gould Center passion project on Platonic philosophy has given us a perfect opportunity to do so.
Project Guidelines
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The dialogue that we write down is not the entirety of our conversations. If we recorded the entirety of our dialogue that we had over Zoom, each dialogue would be very long. Therefore, in our written dialogues, we will highlight the parts of our spoken dialogue that contributes to our working understanding of akrasia and conversations related to the topic.
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Our project on akrasia spans four weeks; we will produce two dialogues from each week.
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In order to consider multiple points of akrasia, we will also be discussing one modern article on the topic as well. If our discussion about the modern article produces something philosophically interesting, we will include a snippet of our dialogue as well.
About Us
Hello! Our names are Jack Stern and Kimi Adler. Currently, we are both sophomores at Claremont McKenna College, graduating in the Class of 2023. Since our passion project focuses on some of the works of Plato and Aristotle, two ancient philosophers, our project combines our interests in classics and philosophy.