precapitulate

English

Etymology

From pre- +‎ capitulate.

Verb

precapitulate (third-person singular simple present precapitulates, present participle precapitulating, simple past and past participle precapitulated)

1. To preemptively capitulate.
   • 1947, Accent: A Quarterly of New Literature, Volumes 8-9‎, volumes 8-9, Accent, page 188:

     It is clear that he also reads PM, which is probably what enables him to "precapitulate to a point the history of most intelligent and sensitive men today."

   • 1989 May 18, David Gooding, Trevor Pinch, Simon Schaffer, “Justification and experiment”, in The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences‎, illustrated, reprint edition, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 312:

     Worse, rational reconstruction philosophers have tended to think of all phases of the research process in terms of the logical structure of the final products of research as expounded in the latest textbook. To coin a term, formalists have assumed that history must ‘precapitulate’ their logic. Historically-sensitive writers (‘historicists’) have retorted that any legitimate logic must simply recapitulate (report) previous investigation. I exaggerate to make a point. However, some sociologists have treated even the writing up of results for publication as the creation of an artifact (in the pejorative sense), in so far as the paper is not merely an historical report of the laboratory work done.

   • 2009 June 15, Timothy Leary, “CASTES”, in Evolutionary Agents‎, Ronin Publishing, →ISBN, page 29:

     DNA has given us the equipment to recapitulate–precapitulate the major DNA solutions—past and future. But more than that, DNA has given us access to both CNS and RNA (ribonucleic acid) equipment so that we can creatively re-imprint each of the twenty-four CNS Beta Realities and then restructure our structural caste.

   • 2012 December 6, Diderik Batens, Jean-Paul van Bendegem, “Discovery and Experiment”, in Theory and Experiment: Recent Insights and New Perspectives on Their Relation‎, illustrated edition, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 36:

     In fact, the one-pass fallacy is, in a sense, just the genetic fallacy or its opposite, which we might dub the teletic fallacy (from telos) – the fallacy of thinking that the origins of a thing must anticipate or "precapitulate" its ultimate character. The beginning must presage the end. This is easy to see in the case of historical methodologies. If a certain experiment was not considered a crucial experiment by the scientific community which performed and licensed it, then it is not crucial period. If a problem solution originated as a conjecture supported by some predictive tests, then it remains forever a conjecture subject only to consequential support. If this is anti-whiggism, it is excessive.

   • 2013 January 23, Joshua Morris, Acorns: Windows High-Tide Foghat, Volume 4‎, volume 4, iUniverse, →ISBN:

     Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: individual evolution repeats species evolution. Greta sages precapitulate, the central nervous system as communicating via RNA with DNA.

   • 2016 April 8, Koral Ward, Augenblick: The Concept of the 'Decisive Moment' in 19th- and 20th-Century Western Philosophy‎, reprint edition, Routledge, →ISBN:

     Husserl's ‘now’ moment is a ‘passive’ synthesis rather than ‘active’, the ego is the recipient, it does not actively take part. But in seeing the possibility of seizing an opportunity in a moment, we begin to mark the moment as decisive, it is transformed into something which can shape one's past and future. We might say it brings the ability to ‘preconstitute’ and ‘precapitulate’¹³ our future, if we are able to think of it as extending itself out from the ordinary temporal reach of our notions of time.

   • 2017 April 8, Michael Bull, “Sex, Lies, and Murder: Acts II & III”, in BibleMatrix.com‎, archived from the original on 16 September 2025:

     Being the Joshua/Atonement stanza of this cycle, the fact that the seven steps seem to recapitulate (or precapitulate?) the pattern of dominion is interesting. Situated at the very “gate” of Canaan, was this offer a temptation to be resisted like the plunder of Jericho (Joshua 6:18), or was it sin crouching at the door, the violence of Cain as “keeper” or shepherd over his brother (Genesis 4:7-8)? For Jacob, it was neither. He was waiting on God. For his sons, however, it was both. What Yahweh was offering freely they would take by force.

   • 2022 December 26, Václav Mikolášek, “Foreword”, in The History, Theory and Community of Gestalt Therapy: Exploring the New York Institute‎, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:

     And this brings me to the book at hand. This introduction is prefatory. It will not precapitulate or summarize the book to come. Among the introduction's purposes is to suggest that “If you think you know who we are, think again” and to consider what brings you to take a look at us at all. And if this is your first look at us or if you come to this book unfamiliar with the world of gestalt therapy, then consider this introduction as an idiosyncratic welcome.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:precapitulate.