Abstract

In the Philebus, Socrates argues that some anticipatory pleasures can be false. The main argument for this claim at 38b6-41a4 has perplexed readers, however, and scholars have developed several different ways to understand the falsity of false anticipatory pleasures. Nonetheless, challenges remain for the existing interpretations. In this paper I argue that the anticipation argument should be read in conjunction with a distinction made later in the Philebus between intense pleasures mixed with pain and pure pleasures free from pain. I suggest that anticipatory pleasures taken in intense pleasures are false because they misidentify an intense pleasure as a genuine pleasure when in fact intense pleasures are inferior and non-genuine due to being mixed with pain. I contend that the example of a false anticipatory pleasure supports recognizing this kind of falsity, and that doing so helps to resolve several challenges that face existing interpretations.