YASMIN TAMARA JUCKSCH

The overall aim of the present study is to discern and detail the primary cause(s) of the evils presented in the Platonic work, distinguishing them from their secondary causes and from what may be considered as their effects or residues. Furthermore, this study also investigates whether there is, despite the absence of systematic treatment of the topic throughout the corpus, a possible univocal lógos that accounts for the multiplicity of categories of evils and, thus, enables the discernment between evils and goodness. To this effect, it was necessary to examine whether evil has a unique or diverse ontological nature for Plato, that is, whether it should be understood as pure negativity or whether it may be related to a positive ontological power that is rooted, for example, in corporeality or in the body, in Necessity, or in ideal paradigms. Thus, this research aimed to understand – given the exuberant diversity of interpretative divergences regarding the topic and considering the profound interconnection between cosmology, metaphysics, psychology, epistemology, and ethics in the Platonic thought –, whether there are signs or evidence of one or more primary causes of the evils experienced by the soul and, based on this, which evils may be prevented or repaired. To this end, the first step was to filter the evils that are effectively considered as such by Plato, distinguishing them from those that may be seen as goodness in other contexts or that are merely effects or conditions of possibility of the first ones. The second step was to investigate, based on the analysis of dialogues representing the three periods established by traditional chronology, where the primary causes of these evils and their secondary reflections may in fact be located. This journey began with the search for the causal roots of the evils that were supposedly located in the cosmology and psychogenesis of the Timaeus, associated by interpreters with pre-cosmic chaos, with the ontological distance between being and becoming, with Necessity, or with χώρα; besides, the possibility of the existence of one or more metaphysical forms of evil was also considered. Finally, the problem of psychic, moral, and anthropological evils was assessed in dialogues representing the topic within the three periods of the Platonic work, mainly based on the Platonic formulation of the supreme evil in the Phaedo, seeking to understand, again, which among these are considered effective evils in the Platonic work, what relations are established between them, and what are the causes (or the cause) to which they are due. Ultimately, a proposal to outline the causal and subordinate relation between the various evils contemplated in the research was presented, introducing the conclusive assertion that it is not possible to find textual evidence to validate the idea that the causes of the evils experienced by the soul may be found regardless of it. Therefore, this study aimed at asserting that the only possible reversibility of evils is centered on the self-demiurgical (re)composition of the psychic cosmos in opposition to the chaos generated by ignorance and vices, which are, in turn, originated from a fundamental mistake in the relationship between the soul and being (τό ὀν) and becoming, a mistake that is both cognitive and affective.