Impure Intellectual Pleasure and the Phaedrus

Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (1):21-45 (2016)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper considers how Plato can account for the fact that pain features prominently in the intellectual pleasures of philosophers, given that in his view pleasures mixed with pain are ontologically deficient and inferior to ‘pure,’ painless pleasures. After ruling out the view that Plato does not believe intellectual pleasures are actually painful, I argue that he provides a coherent and overlooked account of pleasure in the Phaedrus, where purity does not factor into the philosopher’s judgment of pleasures at all; what matters instead is the extent to which a given pleasure fosters the philosophical life. I show that to argue, as James Warren has recently done, that Plato thinks intellectual pleasures are not per se painful is less successful than the Phaedrus account at explaining philosophers’ lived experiences of pleasure, which often involve pain.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Pleasure.Kelly E. Arenson - 2009 - In M. Gagarin (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press.
How to Explain Pleasure.M. Matthen - 2014 - British Journal of Aesthetics 54 (4):477-481.
Plato en aristoteles twee paradigma's Van genot.Gerd Van Riel - 2001 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 63 (3):493-516.
A definition of impure memory.Arnold Cusmariu - 1980 - Philosophical Studies 38 (3):305-308.
Malicious pleasure evaluated: Is pleasure an unconditional good?Irwin Goldstein - 2003 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 84 (1):24–31.
Impure placebo is a useless concept.Pekka Louhiala, Harri Hemilä & Raimo Puustinen - 2015 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 36 (4):279-289.
Myth and Philosophy in Plato’s Phaedrus by Daniel S. Werner.Doug Al-Maini - 2014 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (1):161-162.
Impure Sets May Be Located: A Reply to Cook.Nikk Effingham - 2012 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (4):330-336.
Phaedrus.Robin Waterfield (ed.) - 2009 - Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-08-26

Downloads
66 (#222,838)

6 months
7 (#176,166)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Kelly E. Arenson
Duquesne University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references