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.

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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

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

See Examples For:

entelechy entelechies

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

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)

For Aristotle the soul is the entelechy of the body—that function or activity which makes a man of it.

From The Approach to Philosophy by Perry, Ralph Barton

Since the requirements of a new science would not allow a return to sheer scholasticism, it was necessary to find a fresh philosophy, in which entelechy and mechanism might be accommodated side by side.

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

But in order to distinguish those which have only perception from those which have also sentiment and memory, he will call the latter souls, the former monads or entelechies.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 by Various

Whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls.

From Religion and Science From Galileo to Bergson by Hardwick, John Charlton