entelechy

American  

[en-tel-uh-kee] / ɛnˈtɛl ə ki /

noun

plural

entelechies

1. a realization or actuality as opposed to a potentiality.

2. (in vitalist philosophy) a vital agent or force directing growth and life.

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entelechy British  

/ ɛnˈtɛlɪkɪ /

noun

1. (in the philosophy of Aristotle) actuality as opposed to potentiality

2. (in the system of Leibnitz) the soul or principle of perfection of an object or person; a monad or basic constituent

3. something that contains or realizes a final cause, esp the vital force thought to direct the life of an organism

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Other Word Forms

• entelechial adjective

Etymology

Origin of entelechy

1595–1605; < Late Latin entelechīa < Greek entelécheia, equivalent to en- en- ² + tél ( os ) goal + éch ( ein ) to have + -eia -y ³

Example Sentences

In 1899, by fertilizing sea-urchin eggs with chemicals and producing young larvae, he struck a heavy blow at the popular vitalistic theory which maintained that some intangible "vital spirit" or "entelechy" was necessary to life.

From Time Magazine Archive

In particular, he picked out the Aristotelian "entelechy" to stop a gap in the philosophy of his own age.'

From Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil by Huggard, E.M.

An old peripatetic spoke up with confidence: "The soul is an entelechy, and a reason gives it the power to be what it is."

From Romans — Volume 3: Micromegas by Voltaire

Digby rejects an internal agent, entelechy, or the Aristotelian formal and efficient causes.

From Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 by Bodemer, Charles W.

It is the theory that there is some other element—call it entelechy with Driesch, or call it what you like—in living things than those elements known to chemistry and physics.

From Science and Morals and Other Essays by Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir