J. L. Austin’s Lecture Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics : Making Sense of Aristotle on Akrasia

Abstract

This piece selects from J. L. Austin's unpublished (and only recently retrieved) lecture notes on the Nicomachean Ethics pages relevant to the interpretation of book 7, chapter 3, which is central to his account of akrasia. It takes over many of the details of Austin’s treatment, and carries his thoughts further in two directions: (i) he suggests a tight relation between evaluation and desire that can be developed into one between prohairesis and action; (ii) he sees each lower stratum of Aristotle’s soul as relating to a higher as potentiality to actuality, with the danger of a relapse from higher to lower.