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.

Subtle fluids play a great part in Lamarck's biology: they take the place of the soul or entelechy which the vitalists would postulate to explain organic happenings.

From Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology by E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell

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

But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under everchanging forms.

From Ulysses by Joyce, James