entelechy

American  

[en-tel-uh-kee] / ɛnˈtɛl ə ki /

noun

entelechies plural

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

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

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• entelechial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• entelechies
  plural

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

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

Thought is an entelechy, an organic whole, in which every process conditions and is conditioned by every other.

From A Short History of Greek Philosophy by Marshall, John

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

From Ulysses by Joyce, James

And inasmuch as intelligence is essential activity, as the soul is the entelechy of the body, therefore the happiness of man can not consist in a mere passive condition.

From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by Cocker, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin)