Acrasia
Akrasia (; Greek , "lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment. The adjectival form is "akratic". Classical approaches The problem goes back at least as far as Plato. In Plato's ''Protagoras'' Socrates asks precisely how it is possible that, ''if'' one judges action A to be the best course of action, one would do anything other than A? In the dialogue ''Protagoras'', Socrates attests that akrasia does not exist, claiming "No one goes willingly toward the bad" (358d). If a person examines a situation and decides to act in the way he determines to be best, he will pursue this action, as the best course is also the good course, i.e. man's natural goal. An all-things-considered assessment of the situation will bring full knowledge of a decision's outcome and worth linked to well-developed principles of the good. A person, according to Socrates, never ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Faerie Queene
''The Faerie Queene'' is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books IIII were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IVVI. ''The Faerie Queene'' is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas it is one of the longest poems in the English language; it is also the work in which Spenser invented the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza. On a literal level, the poem follows several knights as a means to examine different virtues, and though the text is primarily an allegorical work, it can be read on several levels of allegory, including as praise (or, later, criticism) of Queen Elizabeth I. In Spenser's "Letter of the Authors", he states that the entire epic poem is "cloudily enwrapped in Allegorical devices", and that the aim of publishing ''The Faerie Queene'' was to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline". Spenser presented the first three books of ''The Faerie Queene'' to Elizabeth I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Circe
Circe (; grc, , ) is an Magician (paranormal), enchantress and a minor goddess in ancient Greek mythology and Ancient Greek religion, religion. She is either a daughter of the Titans, Titan Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse (mythology), Perse or the goddess Hecate and Aeëtes. Circe was renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs. Through the use of these and a magic wand or staff, she would Shapeshifting, transform her enemies, or those who offended her, into animals. The best known of her legends is told in Homer's ''Odyssey'' when Odysseus visits her island of Aeaea on the way back from the Trojan War and she changes most of his crew into swine. He manages to persuade her to return them to human shape, lives with her for a year and has sons by her, including Latinus and Telegonus (son of Odysseus), Telegonus. Her ability to change others into animals is further highlighted by the story of Picus, an Italian king whom she turns into a woodpecker for resisting her adv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ἀκρασία
Akrasia (; Ancient Greek, Greek , "lacking command" or "weakness", occasionally transliterated as acrasia or Anglicised as acrasy or acracy) is a lack of self-control, or acting against one's better judgment. The adjectival form is "akratic". Classical approaches The problem goes back at least as far as Plato. In Plato's ''Protagoras (dialogue), Protagoras'' Socrates asks precisely how it is possible that, ''if'' one judges action A to be the best course of action, one would do anything other than A? In the dialogue ''Protagoras'', Socrates attests that akrasia does not exist, claiming "No one goes willingly toward the bad" (358d). If a person examines a situation and decides to act in the way he determines to be best, he will pursue this action, as the best course is also the good course, i.e. man's natural goal. An all-things-considered assessment of the situation will bring full knowledge of a decision's outcome and worth linked to well-developed principles of the good. A p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic period (), and the Classical period (). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language. From the Hellenistic period (), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek, which is regarded as a separate historical stage, although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine. Dia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Resolution
Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual makes at New Year's Day * Dispute resolution, the settlement of a disagreement Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics and logic * Resolution (algebra), an exact sequence in homological algebra * Resolution (logic), a rule of inference used for automated theorem proving * Standard resolution, the bar construction of resolutions in homological algebra * Resolution of singularities in algebraic geometry Measurements * Resolution (audio), a measure of digital audio quality * Resolution (electron density), the quality of an X-ray crystallography or cryo-electron microscopy data set * Angular resolution, the capability of an optical or other sensor to discern small objects * Depositional resolution, the age difference of fossil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Richard Holton
Richard Holton is a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Peterhouse. He is known for his works on moral psychology and action theory. Holton is a Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # C .... Books * ''Willing, Wanting, Waiting'', Oxford University Press, 2009. References External linksPersonal website 21st-century British philosophers Philosophy academics Living people Fellows of the British Academy Academics of the University of Cambridge Princeton University alumni Fellows of Peterhouse, Cambridge Moral psychologists Moral philosophers Year of birth missing (living people) Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty {{UK-philosopher-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hyperbolic Discounting
In economics, hyperbolic discounting is a time-''inconsistent'' model of delay discounting. It is one of the cornerstones of behavioral economics and its brain-basis is actively being studied by neuroeconomics researchers. According to the discounted utility approach, intertemporal choices are no different from other choices, except that some consequences are delayed and hence must be anticipated and discounted (i.e., reweighted to take into account the delay). Given two similar rewards, humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to ''discount'' the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay. In the financial world, this process is normally modeled in the form of exponential discounting, a time-''consistent'' model of discounting. Many psychological studies have since demonstrated deviations in instinctive preference from the constant discount rate assumed in exponential discounting. Hyperbolic d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Ainslie (psychologist)
George W. Ainslie is an American psychiatrist, psychologist and behavioral economist. Unusual for a psychiatrist, Ainslie undertook experimental animal research in operant conditioning, under the guidance of Howard Rachlin. He investigated inter-temporal choice in pigeons, and was the first to demonstrate experimentally the phenomenon of preference reversal in favor of the more immediate outcomes as the choice point between two options, one delivered sooner than the other, is moved forward in time. He explained this in terms of hyperbolic discounting of future rewards, derived from ideas that Rachlin and others had developed from Richard Herrnstein's matching law. Ainslie then integrated these ideas with earlier experimental and theoretical work on inter-temporal choice, for example the studies of Walter Mischel on delay of gratification in children. In his book ''Picoeconomics'' (1992) he attempted to account for these ideas, and also facts about addiction that he was conc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emotion
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity. Research on emotion has increased over the past two decades with many fields contributing including psychology, medicine, history, sociology of emotions, and computer science. The numerous theories that attempt to explain the origin, function and other aspects of emotions have fostered more intense research on this topic. Current areas of research in the concept of emotion include the development of materials that stimulate and elicit emotion. In addition, PET scans and fMRI scans help study the affective picture processes in the brain. From a mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as "a positive or negative experience that is as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans. Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality. Reasoning is associated with the acts of thinking and cognition, and involves the use of one's intellect. The field of logic studies the ways in which humans can use formal reasoning to produce logically valid arguments. Reasoning may be subdivided into forms of logical reasoning, such as: deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and abductive reasoning. Aristotle drew a distinction between logical discursive reasoning (reason proper), and intuitive reasoning, in which the reasoning process through intuition—however valid—may tend toward the personal and the subject ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often held that different mental states compete with each other and that only the strongest state determines behavior. This means that we can be motivated to do something without actually doing it. The paradigmatic mental state providing motivation is desire. But various other states, such as beliefs about what one ought to do or intentions, may also provide motivation. Motivation is derived from the word 'motive', which denotes a person's needs, desires, wants, or urges. It is the process of motivating individuals to take action in order to achieve a goal. The psychological elements fueling people's behavior in the context of job goals might include a desire for money. Various competing theories have been proposed co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Practical Reasoning
In philosophy, practical reason is the use of reason to decide how to act. It contrasts with theoretical reason, often called speculative reason, the use of reason to decide what to follow. For example, agents use practical reason to decide whether to build a telescope, but theoretical reason to decide which of two theories of light and optics is the best. Overview Practical reason is understood by most philosophers as determining a plan of action. Thomistic ethics defines the first principle of practical reason as "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." For Kant, practical reason has a law-abiding quality because the categorical imperative is understood to be binding one to one's duty rather than subjective preferences. Utilitarians tend to see reason as an instrument for the satisfactions of wants and needs. In classical philosophical terms, it is very important to distinguish three domains of human activity: theoretical reason, which investigates the truth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |