Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Pleasure in early Greek ethics
- Chapter 3 Pleasure in the early physical tradition
- Chapter 4 Plato on pleasure and restoration
- Chapter 5 Plato on true, untrue, and false pleasures
- Chapter 6 Aristotle on pleasure and activation
- Chapter 7 Epicurus and the Cyrenaics on katastematic and kinetic pleasures
- Chapter 8 The Old Stoics on pleasure as passion
- Chapter 9 Contemporary conceptions of pleasure
- Chapter 10 Ancient and contemporary conceptions of pleasure
- Suggestions for further reading
- General Index
- Index of Greek and Latin Words and Expressions
- Index of Quotations from Ancient Authors
- Index of Quotations from Contemporary Authors
- References
Chapter 5 - Plato on true, untrue, and false pleasures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Pleasure in early Greek ethics
- Chapter 3 Pleasure in the early physical tradition
- Chapter 4 Plato on pleasure and restoration
- Chapter 5 Plato on true, untrue, and false pleasures
- Chapter 6 Aristotle on pleasure and activation
- Chapter 7 Epicurus and the Cyrenaics on katastematic and kinetic pleasures
- Chapter 8 The Old Stoics on pleasure as passion
- Chapter 9 Contemporary conceptions of pleasure
- Chapter 10 Ancient and contemporary conceptions of pleasure
- Suggestions for further reading
- General Index
- Index of Greek and Latin Words and Expressions
- Index of Quotations from Ancient Authors
- Index of Quotations from Contemporary Authors
- References
Summary
In this chapter I continue the discussion of Plato’s treatment of pleasure. As I mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 4, I will be focusing here on Plato’s distinction between true and untrue or true and false pleasures. Plato first introduces this distinction in Republic 9. It then becomes central to his discussion of pleasure in Philebus. In this respect, the treatment in Republic 9 reads like a rough draft of Philebus. Accordingly, I begin with the distinction between true and untrue pleasures in Republic 9.
Note that in the chapter title and in discussing Republic 9, I use the word “untrue” rather than “false.” This follows Plato’s usage. The distinction between an untrue and a false pleasure seems to be significant. In particular, it relates to a distinction between two truth-conceptions with which Plato operates and which I will explain in due course. Basically, in Republic 9 there seems to be a distinction between two ways in which a pleasure can be true and untrue: representationally and ontologically. In fact, there are multiple ways in which a pleasure can be representationally and ontologically true and untrue. Again, we will come to these distinctions below.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy , pp. 63 - 102Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012