THE ONTOLOGY of PLEASURE in the PHILEBUS and the REPUBLIC False Pleasures in the Philebus Are an Issue Which Has Generated A

COLLOQUIUM 2

THE ONTOLOGY OF PLEASURE IN THE PHILEBUS AND THE REPUBLIC

ÁLVARO VALLEJO CAMPOS

ABSTRACT The main thesis of this paper is that Plato adopts in the Republic and the Phile- bus a normative perspective in relation to pleasure. Normative signifies that he defines concepts such as temperance, love or pleasure in a sense which prescribes how things should be, in accordance with an objective standard, in contrast to the actual order of things or to what people normally think that constitutes a particular instance of these concepts. This objective standard is what Plato calls the nature of pleasure. In the first part of the paper I propose as a hypothesis to consider this objective standard a Platonic form and, from this standpoint, I discuss the alleged unlimited and genetic character of pleasure, and its place in the rank of goods, offering an alternative reading of this pas- sage, which I consider does not reflect Plato’s ultimate opinion about pleasure, but the terms in which the question has been settled in the dialogue by the op- posed defenders of pleasure and knowledge. In the second part I offer an alternative interpretation of Plato’s theory of false pleasures, which, in accordance with that objective standard, is founded on an ontological theory of truth.

False pleasures in the Philebus are an issue which has generated a great deal of secondary literature concerning this Platonic dialogue. But if we wish to elucidate the philosophical value of the term “false” as referring to pleasures, it is necessary to have a clear concept of what Plato means by a “true” pleasure. The main thesis which I would like to propose is that Plato has a normative and not a merely descriptive concept of pleasure and that when he uses the expression “false pleasures” he is referring to this theoretical background. A normative concept of pleasure, as in many other cases which are mentioned in Plato’s dialogues, such as love or temperance, means that Plato, in contrast to the actual order of things or to what people normally think that constitutes a particular instance of these concepts, does not want to leave things as they actually are. Normative signifies that he defines these concepts in a sense which prescribes how things should be, instead of accepting the world of appearances as it is. On the contrary, when I use the term descriptive, I am thinking, for example, of Aristotle’s method in ethics, where he says that the aim is to “set the phenomena before us” and then to “resolve the difficulties and leave the reputable opinions undisturbed”

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(Nicomachean Ethics VII 1, 1145b3-7).1 Descriptive means in this sense that no standard is presupposed independently of what is considered the common moral sense of a given community: the moral philosopher has to describe the principles which underlie the normal ethical practices and, at most, can criticize them examining their mutual coherency in accordance with the most prestigious or valid éndoxa. But this is not Plato’s method. The fundamental lesson of the Philebus, in relation to pleasure, is that not every particular which receives the name of pleasure reflects the real nature of pleasure, the same as the Phaedo affirms that not every thing denomi- nated as equal is really equal, but only an appearance of it, or that not any instance of temperance “as it is called in the popular sense” (Phd. 68c8-9) is really temperance. Although I believe that this normative concept of pleasure could function independently of ontological implications, it would be strange that Plato could disregard the question of an ideal form of pleasure. Therefore, I would like to explore first the possibility of this ontological issue. Secondly, I will show the ideal conditions stipulated by Plato as requirements of a true pleasure and finally, in accordance with this, the explanation which we could offer of those cases described as false pleasures in the Philebus in terms of the normative model proposed.

I. The Ideal Form of Pleasure

I am convinced that we must also apply to Plato’s concept of true pleasure the general principles of his ontology. In this sense, I would condense the innermost core of this ontology by saying that it is an “ontology of es- sence.”2 This means that for Plato it is not the mere existence of things ______

1 W. D. Ross translation. For the opposition between Plato and Aristotle on this point, see, e.g., Nussbaum 1989, ch. 8. One anonymous referee of my paper correctly points out that the concept of F is normative in my view if there is an objective standard that a thing must satisfy in order to be an F. In accordance with my unitarian view of Plato’s philosophy, about which I cannot argue at length in this paper, this standard is naturally an ideal form and, so, to elucidate whether for Plato all concepts would be normative in this sense, we should have to tackle the question of the extent of the world of forms. However, the aim of my distinction between normative and descriptive concepts is not to indicate differences in how Plato can solve dif- ferent philosophical questions, but rather between, on the one hand, Plato’s perspective, which examines things as they should be and not as they are, and on the other hand, more realistic views, without a transcendent standard, however it may be conceived, such as Aris- totle’s method in ethics. 2 I use this expression in the sense proposed by Etienne Gilson in his works, e.g., Being and Some Philosophers. See Gilson 1996, 34-44.