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. KeywordsPlato -Philebus -pleasure -the good life 1 IntroductionThe Philebus contains the most detailed and sophisticated treatment of pleasure in any Platonic dialogue. In contrast with other important treatments of pleasure in the Platonic corpus, the nature of pleasure and the role of pleasure in the good life are among the dialogue's central topics.' The account of 1 Cf. Republic 9, where Socrates' analysis of pleasure serves merely to bolster the claim that the philosopher's life is happiest.