anancasms

Noun

anancasm (countable and uncountable, plural anancasms)

1. (obsolete) Obsessive-compulsive behaviour.
   • In general, there have been three methods of approach to the treatment of anancasms: (1) analysis of the symptoms to discover their meaning to the patient, (2) study of the personality, particularly of the fundamental insecurities, fears, dissatisfactions, dependencies and hostilities, (3)...1941, George Blumer, The Therapeutics of Internal Diseases, volume 5, page 144
2. In the philosophy of Charles Peirce, a mode of evolution occurring by mechanical necessity.
   • If the development of ideas under the influence of the study of external facts be considered as external anancasm, — it is on the border between the external and the internal forms, — it is, of course, the principal thing in modern learning.1923, Charles Sanders Peirce, Chance, Love and Logic: Philosophical Essays, page 294