Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Plato on Pure Pleasure and the Best Life

Plato on Pure Pleasure and the Best Life Abstract In the Philebus , Socrates maintains two theses about the relationship between pleasure and the good life: (1) the mixed life of pleasure and intelligence is better than the unmixed life of intelligence, and: (2) the unmixed life of intelligence is the most divine. Taken together, these two claims lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the best human life is better than the life of a god. A popular strategy for avoiding this conclusion is to distinguish human from divine goods; on such a reading, pleasure has merely instrumental value, and it benefits human beings only as a result of their imperfect nature. I argue that certain ‘pure’ pleasures are full-fledged, intrinsic goods in the Philebus , which are even worthy of the gods (thus Socrates ultimately rejects thesis 2). This positive evaluation of pure pleasure results from a detailed examination of pleasure, which reveals that different types of pleasures have fundamentally different natures. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Phronesis Brill

Plato on Pure Pleasure and the Best Life

Phronesis , Volume 59 (2): 113 – Mar 4, 2014

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/plato-on-pure-pleasure-and-the-best-life-GwZc337Yud

References (12)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0031-8868
eISSN
1568-5284
DOI
10.1163/15685284-12341263
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract In the Philebus , Socrates maintains two theses about the relationship between pleasure and the good life: (1) the mixed life of pleasure and intelligence is better than the unmixed life of intelligence, and: (2) the unmixed life of intelligence is the most divine. Taken together, these two claims lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the best human life is better than the life of a god. A popular strategy for avoiding this conclusion is to distinguish human from divine goods; on such a reading, pleasure has merely instrumental value, and it benefits human beings only as a result of their imperfect nature. I argue that certain ‘pure’ pleasures are full-fledged, intrinsic goods in the Philebus , which are even worthy of the gods (thus Socrates ultimately rejects thesis 2). This positive evaluation of pure pleasure results from a detailed examination of pleasure, which reveals that different types of pleasures have fundamentally different natures.

Journal

PhronesisBrill

Published: Mar 4, 2014

Keywords: Plato; Philebus ; pleasure; the good life

There are no references for this article.