Abstract

The goal of this essay is a twofold one. My first task is mainly negative: I want to show that the heated debate over whether pleasure is a sensation misallocates the central task in understanding pleasure and has been based on an unexamined conception of sensation, despite the long philosophical tradition and topical opinions that hold the opposite . My second task is to bring out attention to a relatively uncharted territory in our investigation of pleasure. I shall argue, Gilbert Ryle's Aristotelian insight on the pleasure in intelligent activities, when properly understood, should have led us, and Ryle himself, to investigate pleasure in connection with intentional action and practical rationality.