In Plato's "Philebus" Socrates and Protarchus dispute whether pleasure, like belief, can be false. Their dispute illustrates a broader pattern of disagreement between them about how to evaluate pleasure. Of two contrasting conceptions of false pleasure-derived from work by Bernard Williams and by Sabina Lovibond respectively-false pleasure of the Lovibond type best answers the challenge to which Protarchus' resistance gives rise. Socrates' own example of false pleasure may be read in this way, in contrast to its prevailing interpretation, and this (...) alternative reading seems better suited to the argument's context, both immediate and distant. (shrink)

The argument in Plato's Philebus presents three successive formulations of the hedonist principle. Commentators often take Socrates' argument in the dialogue to be dealing solely with the third formulation, which states that pleasure, rather than intelligence, is closer in nature to the good. I argue that, nonetheless, in the dialogue Socrates remained concerned to provide a direct refutation of the first formulation, that is, of the straightforward claim that pleasure is the good for all living beings. ;Chapter One ascribes to (...) the Philebus a conception of intrinsic good, which is then shown to underlie the dialogue's notion of true pleasures. Chapter Two examines in detail the problem of the "one and many" concerning pleasure, and argues that this is the problem of forms in relation to other forms, rather than that of forms in relation to particulars. This interpretation is the one that is consistent both with Protarchus' understanding of hedonism in the dialogue, and with the dialogue's methodological passages, i.e., the passages on the "god-given method" and on the four ontological kinds. In Chapter Three, it is shown how division into forms is required by Socrates' conception of the nature of pleasure. Some of the forms of pleasure are ways in which falsity is admitted into the nature of pleasure. Three accounts of false anticipatory pleasures---those of Kenny and Gosling, Mooradian, and Penner---are examined in some detail. (shrink)

Una de las cuestiones más discutidas en el debate contemporáneo sobre el Filebo de Platón, es sin duda la de la posibilidad de los placeres falsos. En el contexto de esta discusión ha sido el pasaje 36c-41b, referido en particular a la falsedad de los placeres de expectativa, el que ha suscitado la mayor controversia y una gran variedad de interpretaciones. Las distintas posiciones se distinguen según hagan uso del criterio de verdad “ontológico”, “epistemológico” o “moral” para la comprensión de (...) la falsedad de las expectativas. En este trabajo intento mostrar que una comprensión correcta de los placeres de expectativa debe considerar la interacción de los distintos criterios de verdad y no hacer uso exclusivamente de uno de éstos. Mientras que la verdad ontológica de los placeres sirve a la determinación del contenido de las expectativas, la verdad epistemológica y la verdad moral confluyen en el tipo de verdad específico de este tipo de placeres. Para explicar este concepto de verdad consideraré como modelo la “verdad práctica” de Aristóteles. (shrink)

Pleasure, in the inclusive usages most important in moral psychology, ethical theory, and the studies of mind, includes all joy and gladness — all our feeling good, or happy. It is often contrasted with similarly inclusive pain, or suffering, which is similarly thought of as including all our feeling bad. Contemporary psychology similarly distinguishes between positive affect and negative affect.[1..

It seems an odd claim that knowing could be itself of intrinsic worth. Knowledge appears heavily, perhaps entirely reliant for its worth on the value of the objects known and the value of the ends...

This paper puts forward a new interpretation of the argument at Philebus 36c–40d that pleasures can be false. Protarchus raises an objection at 37e–38a, and in response Socrates presents the elaborate painter-scribe analogy. Most previous interpretations do not explain how the analogy answers Protarchus’ objection. On my account, Protarchus’ objection relies on the plausible intuition that pleasure is simply not in the business of assessing the world, and so it cannot be charged with doing so incorrectly. Socrates responds by demonstrating (...) that pleasure can be mistaken about the world, despite not making an independent assessment of it. The painter-scribe analogy demonstrates how pleasure comes to be mistaken about the world by reproducing the mistake of a judgment. Socrates persuades Protarchus that pleasure can be mistaken in part by preserving his intuition that pleasure itself is not the source of the mistake. (shrink)

The topic of my dissertation is the hedonic calculus. The hedonic calculus presupposes that pleasure and pain come in amounts amenable to addition, subtraction, and aggregation operations. These operations are ones that utilitarianism and related normative ethical theories treat as central to moral phenomena. The first chapter is an introduction to the problem--in it, I explain what the hedonic calculus is, why it is important, and why it has recently come under disfavor. The second chapter explores the nature of hedonic (...) phenomena, arguing that pleasure and pain are propositional attitudes; they are not feelings or feeling-tones, nor are they fundamentally a matter of desire or motivation. The third and fourth chapters concern the nature of quantitative phenomena. I argue that quantities are determinate properties whose determinables enter into greater-than, less-than, or equal-to relationships that are homomorphic with the structure of the real number line. These structures include the presence of a unique order; the possibility of equal intervals; and a natural, non-arbitrary zero point. The fifth chapter is a defense of the thesis that there are exactly three relations of quantitative comparison from a recent attack. I argue that apparent instances of being on a par are in fact instances of vagueness or complexity and do not threaten the truth of the trichotomy thesis. The sixth chapter addresses arguments that pleasure and pain fail to meet these formal conditions. One argument stems from the observation that pleasures and pains are essentially transient and ephemeral. Another argument proceeds from the observation that interpersonal comparisons of pleasure and pain appear to be impossible. A third, closely related to the first two, argues that pleasure and pain are too heterogeneous to be quantitative. A final argument holds that, for a variety of reasons, the various mathematical operations constitutive of quantitativeness are not applicable to pleasure or pain. I argue that each argument suffers from at least one fatal flaw. Some arguments crucially involve a failure to distinguish between the existence of a quantity and our ability to perform reliable measurements of it. Others involve false analogies between hedonic and other sorts of phenomena. The seventh chapter addresses arguments in favor of the legitimacy of the calculus. Many philosophers, such as Bentham, Mill, Ross, and Plato, seem to assume, without any serious argument, that pleasure and pain are quantitative. Others attempt to argue that, for example, two people enjoying something must involve more pleasure than if just one person were enjoying it. A third type of argument rests on the claim that it is sometimes rational to be indifferent between a longer lasting, less intense episode of pleasure and a more intense but shorter episode. This suggests that since duration is clearly quantitative, intensity must be, too, because if it were not, there could be no equivalence between the brief but intense and the lengthy but mellow episodes. Several of these arguments are unsound or question-begging. Finally, I present an argument in favor of the hedonic calculus that I endorse, along with possible objections and my replies. I begin by acknowledging the central point of the "hedonic trade-offs" argument, and then proceed, via reductio, by pointing out the various absurd or unpalatable consequences of the denial of the thesis that pleasure and pain are quantitative. (shrink)

RESUMEN En este trabajo defendemos la siguiente tesis: la argumentación dada en el Filebo sobre los placeres falsos está fundamentada en la exposición de una fisiología ad hoc del alma. Para desarrollar tal idea realizamos el siguiente recorrido. Primero, exponemos dos definiciones de placer y dolor. Luego pasamos al estudio de los conceptos de memoria, sensación y deseo. Como tercer punto, por una parte, analizamos tres argumentos: el de la semejanza entre placer y opinión, el de los placeres falsos por (...) anticipación y el de los placeres falsos por apariencia sobreestimada. Por otra parte, analizamos, partiendo de la exposición precedente, las definiciones ya dadas de las afecciones psíquicas y las relaciones que tienen entre sí, entendiendo estas definiciones y relaciones como la fisiología del alma. Terminamos explicando qué lugar ocupa esta fisiología dentro del objetivo general del diálogo. ABSTRACT In the present work, we defend the following idea: the argument given in Philebus on false pleasures is based on an ad hoc physiology of the soul. To develop this idea, we proceed as follows: first, we introduce two definitions on pleasure and pain ; after that, we study the concepts of memory, perception, and desire ; thirdly, on one hand, we analyze three arguments: the relation between opinion and pleasure, false pleasures by anticipation, and false pleasures by an overestimated appearance ; on the other hand, we analyze, based on the preceding points, the definitions already given on psychic affections and the relations between them, understanding this definitions and relations as the soul's physiology. We end explaining the place given to this physiology in the dialogue's general frame. (shrink)