ABSTRACT
The philosophical theory of human action begins with Plato. In a passage in the Phaedo he presents Socrates as making fun of Anaxagoras for announcing that he would explain the structure of the universe as ordered by mind for the best, and then producing a physical theory of it. If the fundamental idea of the Socratic tradition is sound, that human actions are distinguished from the rest of human behaviour as being explained by their doers' propositional attitudes, any acceptable investigation of human action must be Socratic. However, the scope of such an investigation may well extend beyond human action. Human beings do not have at birth the capacity either to take propositional attitudes, or to govern their actions by those they take. Any Socratic identification of human actions with doings explained by their doers' propositional attitudes may be interpreted differently according to the different opinions that are held about the ontological category to which doings belong.
