Saber, ação e afeto: o problema da acrasia em Aristóteles e Espinosa

Abstract

A passage from Book VII of the Nichomachean Ethics and another from the De Anima by Aristotle allow us the demonstrate that the Philosopher is very near to the "solution" that Spinoza offers to the problem of the akrasia  (incontinence or weakness of the will). Circumscribing such problem into the field of appetite and pleasure (epithymia), introducing the notions of desire (oréxis) as the motor or practical action, Aristotle points to an idea of an affective knowledge that, however, will only be completely developed much later, by the theory of affections present in Spinoza´s Ethics. We shall see that in the latter the problem of akrasia acquires another statute and "solution". But if the solution of the problem was not completely formulated by Aristotle, we shall try to show that, embryonically, it was already there, and so Aristotle can be seen as a precursor of Spinoza´s theory of knowledge.