akrasia also spelled acrasia, Greek term for weakness of will. Akrasia is a character flaw, also called incontinence, exhibited primarily in intentional behavior that conflicts with the agent’s own values or principles. Its contrary is enkrateia (strength of will, continence, self-control). Both akrasia and enkrateia, Aristotle says, ‘are concerned with what is in excess of the state characteristic of most people; for the continent abide by their resolutions more, and the incontinent less, than most people can’ (Nicomachean Ethics 1152a25–27). These resolutions may be viewed as judgments that it would be best to perform an action of a certain sort, or better to do one thing than another. Enkrateia, on that view, is the power (kratos) to act as one judges best in the face of competing motivation. Akrasia is a want or deficiency of such power. (Aristotle himself limited the sphere of both states more strictly than is now done, regarding both as concerned specifically with ‘pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions arising through touch and taste’ [1150a9–10].) Philosophers are generally more interested in incontinent and continent actions than in the corresponding states of character. Various species of incontinent or akratic behavior may be distinguished, including incontinent reasoning and akratic belief formation. The species of akratic behavior that has attracted most attention is uncompelled, intentional action that conflicts with a better or best judgment consciously held by the agent at the time of action. If, e.g., while judging it best not to eat a second piece of pie, you intentionally eat another piece, you act incontinently – provided that your so acting is uncompelled (e.g., your desire for the pie is not irresistible). Socrates denied that such action is possible, thereby creating one of the Socratic paradoxes. In ‘unorthodox’ instances of akratic action, a deed manifests weakness of will even though it accords with the agent’s better judgment. A boy who decides, against his better judgment, to participate in a certain dangerous prank, might – owing to an avoidable failure of nerve – fail to execute his decision. In such a case, some would claim, his failure to act on his decision manifests weakness of will or akrasia. If, instead, he masters his fear, his participating in the prank might manifest strength of will, even though his so acting conflicts with his better judgment. The occurrence of akratic actions seems to be a fact of life. Unlike many such (apparent) facts, this one has received considerable philosophical scrutiny for nearly two and a half millennia. A major source of the interest is clear: akratic action raises difficult questions about the connection between thought and action, a connection of paramount importance for most philosophical theories of the explanation of intentional behavior. Insofar as moral theory does not float free of evidence about the etiology of human behavior, the tough questions arise there as well. Ostensible akratic action, then, occupies a philosophical space in the intersection of the philosophy of mind and moral theory. See also ACTION THEORY, INTENTION , PRACTICAL REASONING , VOLITIO. A.R.M. akcara (Sanskrit, ‘imperishable’), the highest reality in a variety of Hindu thought systems. From earliest times it also meant ‘syllable’, reflecting the search for the ultimate reality by Vedic priest-thinkers and the early primacy given to the sacred utterance as the support of the ritual order of the universe, later identified as the syllable Om. In later texts and the systematic thinkers it refers to the highest reality, which may be a personal supreme being or an impersonal absolute, such as the Highest Self (paramatman) of Shankara (700–50). Non-technically, it can be used in any thought system of any entity believed to be imperishable. R.N.Mi.