All action aims at the good. An inquiry into the fundamental principle of Plato's Theory of Action

• Applicant: Dr. Sebastian Odzuck
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 275066623

On several occasions Plato makes the claim that all our actions seek the good (=IT). Although all scholars have emphasized the importance of this claim, a systematic discussion of the IT and the problems it involves has not yet been made. My project aims at filling this gap through a thorough and careful examination of this claim. In my project I intend to show what exactly the IT asserts and to present a reconstruction of the arguments Plato presents for this claim. Does this claim for instance state, as many scholars have thought, that when we act, we seek to obtain things which we think are good, although in fact they might very well be not good at all? Or, does Plato mean to say that by acting we desire the good in a stronger sense, as all our actions aim at things that not only appear to be, but actually are good. If Plato indeed holds the latter view, then his thesis seems utterly absurd, since we quite often do and aspire things that we know are bad or that in the end turn out not to be good, although we thought differently. But also the weaker reading, according to which all action aims at things that merely appear to be good, is far from being self-evident. One possible objection would be to say that with my actions I can intentionally aim at bad things quite well - a position that indeed is held by contemporary philosophers. Nevertheless, Plato on several different occasions seems to presuppose that the IT is true and to present arguments for this claim. In my inquiry I will proceed in the following four steps: In a first step, I inquire into Plato's motivation behind discussing the IT. After that I deal with Plato's account of the teleological structure of action and examine the relation that in principle may exist between an action and the good by which this action is guided. In my third step, I discuss the different ways of understanding what the IT says according to the scholarly literature. In discussing the research on this topic I will develop my own reading of the IT. In the final step, I deal with those aspects of Plato's theory of desire that are relevant for my project in order to decide whether my reading of the IT is appropriate or another reading is more favourable. The claim underlying my project is that the IT is the fundamental principle of Plato's Theory of Action and that Plato holds this thesis throughout all phases of his work. Furthermore, I argue that an appropriate understanding of the IT is only possible if it is conceived as a thesis that relates to different forms of human desire in different ways.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants