Powstawanie pojęcia woli u Platona: boulesthai, boulesis i airesis w Hippiaszu Mniejszym

The article is an analysis of an early Platonic dialogue, the Hippias Minor, regarding the use of the concepts boulesthai, dynamis, and episteme. I argue that Plato constructs the dialogue on a three-fold structure (as opposed to the majority of scholars, who divide it into two parts). The aim of the elenchus and the three aporias found in it is to challenge the reductionist moral psychology of the Sophists (represented by Hippias), which does not distinguish between the concepts of act and motivation. I argue further that Socrates’ apparently fallacious reasoning, purportedly relying on an equivocation, is in fact logically sound, since the distinction between act and motivation does not yet exist. It is precisely the introduction of this distinction that is the aim of the Platonic Socrates in the dialogue. This goal, however, is not reached in the dialogue, which is typical of an aporetic dialogue. Yet, strong affinities between the reasoning of Socrates in the Hippias Minor and the Gorgias indicate that the earlier dialogue is the initial point for the development of Plato’s complex theory of moral action, which was put forward in the Gorgias.