Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-18T16:01:48.753Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Contemporary conceptions of pleasure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

David Wolfsdorf
David Wolfsdorf
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
Get access

Summary

I will conclude this study with an examination of the ancient contributions in relation to contemporary conceptions of pleasure. To that end, this penultimate chapter presents an overview of contemporary treatments of pleasure. As with my discussions of the Greek material, my treatment of the contemporary material is, among other things, intended to underscore the historical nature of the contributions – and this is so, even while some of the history here is very recent. In the course of the chapter, the reader will also notice many points of comparison with the ancient material. To facilitate the exposition, I note some of these points, but relegate them to footnotes. Once again, I return to the points of comparison, which will be the focus of the discussion, in the final chapter.

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL EXAMINATION OF PLEASURE IN THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

In the first half of the twentieth century, philosophical discussion of the identity question was sparse. Contrast the work of psychologists who had been examining the nature of pleasure extensively since the end of the nineteenth century, that is, since the work of Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) and Edward Titchener (1867–1920). It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that philosophers began a concerted examination of the identity and the related kinds question. Accordingly, I will refer to this period of philosophical investigation of pleasure as the “contemporary” period.

Type
Chapter
Information
Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy , pp. 214 - 268
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beebe-Center, J. G., The Psychology of Pleasantness and Unpleasantness, Van Nostrand, 1932CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Magda, Emotion and Personality, Columbia University, 1960, vol.Google Scholar
Penelhum, Terence, “Pleasure and Falsity,”American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964) 81–91;Google Scholar
Barton Perry, David, The Concept of Pleasure, Mouton, 1967.Google Scholar
Austin, D., ed., Reidel, , 59–81; it is reprinted in Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert, Cambridge University Press, 1997, 82–105.Google Scholar
Davis, Wayne A, “A Causal Theory of Enjoyment,” Mind 91 (1982) 240–256;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, Richard, “Davis on Enjoyment: A Reply,” Mind 92 (1983) 568–572;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Wayne A., “Warner on Enjoyment: A Rejoinder,”Philosophy Research Archives 12 (1986–1987) 553–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard, “Pleasure and Belief,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplementary volume, 33 (1959) 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Symposium: Pleasure,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 28 (1954) 135–146CrossRef
“Pleasure,” in Dilemmas, Cambridge University Press, 1954, 54–67Google Scholar
“Symposium: Pleasure,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 28 (1954) 147–164
Lyons’s, William remarks: “The nineteenth-century psychologists felt that they had to construe psychological items as entities or occurrences if they were to make psychology into a dynamic Newtonian science with proper mechanistic causal laws. It was this imposition of a Newtonian mechanistic strait-jacket which led psychologists into the category mistake of thinking of pleasure as an isolatable sensation when it is not” (Gilbert Ryle: An Introduction to His Philosophy, Harvester Press, 1980, 159).Google Scholar
Lyons, (1980) 196–201; Julia Tanney, “Gilbert Ryle,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, §§2, 8
Gallie, (1954) 147–164; U. T. Place, “The Concept of Heed,”British Journal of Psychology 45 (1954) 243–255;Google Scholar
Penelhum, Terence, “The Logic of Pleasure,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17 (1957) 488–503;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, Gerald E., “Ryle on Pleasure,”Journal of Philosophy 54 (1957) 181–188;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, Anthony, “Pleasure,” in Action, Emotion, and Will, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963, 127–150
O’Shaughnessy, R. J., “Enjoying and Suffering,”Analysis 26 (1966) 153–160;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, William P., “Pleasure,”The Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Macmillan, 1967, 341–347;Google Scholar
Quinn, Warren S., “Pleasure – Disposition or Episode?”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 28 (1968) 578–586;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puccetti, Roland, “The Sensation of Pleasure,”British Journal of Psychology 20 (1969) 239–245;Google Scholar
McClosky, Mary A., “Pleasure,”Mind 80 (1971) 542–551;Google Scholar
Momeyer, Richard M., “Is Pleasure a Sensation?”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 36 (1975) 113–121;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olds, James, “Pleasure Centers in the Brain,” Scientific American, Oct. (1956) 105–116;
Lilly, John C., “Learning Motivated by Subcortical Stimulation,” in Electrical Studies on the Unanaesthetized Brain, Ramey, E. R. and O’Doherty, D. S., eds., Paul B. Hoebner, 1960, Chapter 4.Google Scholar
Nowell-Smith, P. H., Ethics, Penguin Books, 1954, 112–113Google Scholar
Warner, Richard, “Enjoyment,”Philosophical Review 89 (1980) 507–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warner, Richard, “Davis on Enjoyment,”Mind 92 (1983) 568–572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Wayne A., “Warner on Enjoyment: A Rejoinder,”Philosophy Research Archives 12 (1986–87) 553–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manser, A. R., “Pleasure,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61 (1960–1961) 223–238CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovibond, Sabina, “True and False Pleasures,”Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 90 (1989–1990) 213–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William S., “What Is it Like to Like?”Philosophical Psychology 19 (2006) 743–765.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, Daniel, “Why You Can’t Make a Computer that Feels Pain,” in Brainstorms, MIT Press, 1978, 190–229Google Scholar
Melzack, R. and Casey, K. L., “Sensory, Motivational, and Central Control Determinants of Pain: A New Conceptual Model,” in The Skin Senses, Kenshalo, D., ed., Thomas, 1968, 223–43.Google Scholar
Pitcher, G., “Pain Perception,”Philosophical Review 79 (1970) 368–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, Hackett, 1981, 127, cited from Feldman [1988]).Google Scholar
Mason, Elinor, “The Nature of Pleasure: A Critique of Feldman,”Utilitas 19 (2007) 279–287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berridge, Kent, “Pleasure, Pain, Desire, and Dread: Hidden Core Processes of Emotion,” in Kahneman, D. et al., eds., Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, Russell Sage, 1999, 525–557;Google Scholar
Kent, Berridge and Robinson, T., “What is the Role of Dopamine in Reward: Hedonic Impact, Reward Learning, or Incentive Salience?”Brain Research Reviews 28 (1998) 309–369.Google Scholar
Bramble, Ben, “The Distinctive Feeling Theory of Pleasure,”Philosophical Studies 156 (2011), available at present only online.Google Scholar
Broad, C. D., Five Types of Ethical Theory, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1930, 229Google Scholar
Dunker, K., “On Pleasure, Emotion, and Striving,”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1 (1941) 391–430 (cited by Smuts).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feibleman, J. S., “A Philosophical Analysis of Pleasure,” in The Role of Pleasure in Behavior, Heath, R. G., ed., Littlefield Adams, 1995, 250–278.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×