VI-The Philebus on Pleasure: The Good, the Bad and the False

Abstract

In Plato's Philebus Socrates and Protarchus dispute whether pleasure, like belief, can be false. Their dispute illustrates a broader pattern of disagreement between them about how to evaluate pleasure. Of two contrasting conceptions of false pleasure—derived from work by Bernard Williams and by Sabina Lovibond respectively—false pleasure of the Lovibond type best answers the challenge to which Protarchus' resistance gives rise. Socrates' own example of false pleasure may be read in this way, in contrast to its prevailing interpretation, and this alternative reading seems better suited to the argument's context, both immediate and distant.