Father Kenny on False Pleasures

Abstract

IN PHRONESIS vol. 5 no i. Fr. Kenny produces some objections to an article of mine in the preceding number on the discussion of false pleasure in the Philebus (36c-4ib), and offers an alternative interpretation. On one point I think he may be right, and that is where he objects to the way I connected the first type of false pleasure with the second or third. I am not sure about this. The fact that Socrates allows his analysis (44a4 seq) to apply to present pleasures does not show that his concern is not with anticipatory ones, (as witness 39c); and the passage at 44a4 is part of a discussion whose points are to be used of people who, in great pain, consider release from it a pleasure. It must be admitted, however, that while there is mention of anticipation in that passage Socrates has become more interested in the concomitance of pain and pleasure and there is an almost imperceptible slide from talk of false to talk of mixed pleasures. For the rest, I think Fr. Kenny is largely wrong. I cannot treat of all his arguments, so I shall first make a few points about the analogy of pleasure and belief, then some on the importance of the Mcypoipo;, and finally bring out an important underlying issue on Plato's general theory of pleasure which, I think, predisposes each of us to his own interpretation. This last issue I shall not argue, but merely show its importance.