Open AccessThe Place of Flawed Pleasures in a Good Life. A Discussion of Plato’s Philebus
Author(s) -
Jan Szaif
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plato journal/plato
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2183-4105
pISSN - 2079-7567
DOI - 10.14195/2183-4105_22_10
Subject(s) - pleasure , epistemology , eudaimonia , pain and pleasure , inclusion (mineral) , philosophy , perspective (graphical) , aesthetics , psychology , social psychology , computer science , neuroscience , artificial intelligence
The Philebus describes the “good” that enables human eudaimonia as a “mixture” in which cognitive states have to be combined with certain types of pleasure. This essay investigates how the various senses of falsehood that Plato distinguishes are applied to the question of the hedonic “ingredients” of the good. It argues that his theory allows for the inclusion of certain virtuous pleasures that are deficient with respect to truth: either qua “mixed pleasures” lacking in truth (genuineness) on account of the compresence of their opposite, pain, or because they are based on mistaken anticipations arising in the pursuit of virtuous and reasonable goals.