Type Of Pleasure Research Articles

Теоретико-методологічне підґрунтя феномену економіки вражень

The article examines the origin of the theory of the economy of impressions, identifies related economic theories, which are its preliminary basis for development. It is determined that foreign scientists pay more attention to the research and development of the economy of impressions, while domestic scientists have recently begun to disseminate the provisions of the economy of impressions, believing that they are intended to form an attitude towards an economic entity that produces wares and provides services. Such an attitude, according to most researchers, can be considered as an innovative instrument for competition between manufacturers. Therefore, the aim of the article is to present the results of the theoretical and methodological provisions of the economy of impressions as a certain sufficiently progressive new phenomenon (emergence, process, model) in the field of economic relations. The article provides a logical sequence and interconnection of the theoretical and methodological basis for the formation of the essence and content of the concept of the economy of impressions, which allowed to conclude that it is a complex phenomenon that develops not only on the basis of economic achievements, but also on the basis of managerial, marketing, social, psychological aspects, which should be taken into account in the process of its use and development. It is defined that the impressions of consumers and partners are formed on the basis of trust in certain economic entities, on reputational signals (reputation of the seller’s / manufacturer’s platform) and trusting beliefs, which together significantly increase the cost of products and services and contribute to the development of a certain industry of impressions. The main conclusions of the article are that the development of the economy and evolutionary changes in the models of consumer behavior contributed to the gradual development of the economy of impressions and the strengthening of its influence on improving the efficiency of enterprises. It is noted that the essence of the concept of «economy of impressions» should reflect a complex system of mutual influence of technical-technological, financial-economic, social, psychological, ethical relations between producers and consumers of goods and services at the post-industrial stage of social development. Due to the unification of various industries of impressions, a synergistic effect arises, which contributes to the formation of various types of pleasures, sensations, emotions, the accumulation of individual consumer experience, for which consumers are willing to pay an increased price. The object of research of the economy of impressions is structured, which consists of the processes of improvement: doing business in the context of a new paradigm, innovative development of an industry of impressions, personal experience of consumers and partners, formation and dissemination in society of a complex information and social memory based on attractiveness, brands and reputation of economic entities.

Exposition and Analysis of the Formation and Shaping of the Foundations of Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism (1748-1832)

Hedonism, with its various forms and types of pleasure, has been endorsed, criticized, and challenged by many moral philosophers throughout history. One of the most popular and influential ethical schools, particularly in Western culture, is utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an advanced and progressive form of hedonism, surpassing the previous hedonistic schools of Aristipus and Epicurus. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was the exposer and promoter of the utilitarian school and was able to take this school out of a purely theoretical state and put it into practice in society, as well as in current governmental and legislative systems. Despite its numerous supporters, this famous and influential theory has always been subject to criticism, flaws, and shortcomings. In books, theses, and various articles, influential and impressionable scholars and philosophers have discussed their views on utilitarianism in a scattered manner, but no independent research has addressed this issue. The purpose of this article is to collect and organize 25 of these personalities from various sources, and to explain, analyze, and somewhat critique the formation and shaping of the foundations of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism.

Jeremy Bentham’s Theory of Moral Sanctions

The study deals with the content and transformations of Jeremy Bentham’s theory of sanctions and its role in the development of the contemporary understanding of how moral regulation works. In An Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation, Bentham defines sanction as a type of pleasure and pain that gives the binding force to some law or rule and mentions four sanctions: physical, political, popular, or moral, and religious. The popular, or moral, sanction rests on such a motive as ‘the love of reputation’. Unlike the motive of ‘good-will’, ‘the love of reputation’ has some drawbacks that lessen its general efficiency and its contribution to the fulfillment of the principle of utility. Though the development of civilization makes them less dangerous. In the Deontology, two more sanctions were added: sympathetic (the pain generated by the contemplation of the pain suffered by a fellow creature) and retributive (the pain caused to a perpetrator by retaliatory actions of his/her immediate victim). The renewed typology of sanctions is discussed by Bentham in the context of the activity of a moralist, or a deontologist. There are two main interpretations of moral sanctions in the contemporary ethics: ‘the moral sanction as a public condemnation of a perpetrator’ and ‘the moral sanction as a self-condemnation of a perpetrator (his/her feeling of guilt, pricks of conscience)’. Bentham was a major figure in the development of the first interpretation. However, his extended typology contributed to the development of the second. Bentham’s sympathetic sanction in the case of ‘pains of sympathy’ that experienced by a perpetrator and caused him/her by pains of his/her victims is not identical to a guilt-feeling but can work without a public condemnation.

USING PLEASURABILITY TO COMPARE WRISTWATCHES AND IOT SMARTWATCHES: PROVIDING NOVEL INSIGHTS INTO UX DESIGN

AbstractThe emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought more challenges for designers to fully understand networked objects and develop pleasurable user experiences (UXs). Due to the radical change of products when they are connected, traditional experience design theories may not be applicable in this new context. Based on two well-established UX design theories, this paper presents a survey study that investigated the pleasurability of IoT devices by comparing a representative IoT device (i.e., the smartwatch) and its conventional form (i.e., the wristwatch). An online questionnaire was deployed to gather feedback from parallel wristwatch and smartwatch users. Their experiences using both types of watches were quantitatively and qualitatively compared by data analysis. The results highlighted the differences in UXs between smartwatches and wristwatches in three types of pleasure and five psychological needs. The study revealed design opportunities to improve the pleasurability of smartwatches and provides novel design insights informing the development of pleasurable UXs for future IoT devices.

(354) A Call for a Validated Survey to Assess Sexual Function and Satisfaction for Trans Women Post Vaginoplasty

Abstract Introduction The path toward standardized assessment of sexual function and satisfaction (SFS) in women has progressed significantly since it was forged in the 1970s. There are many current reliable options such as the FSFI and the PROMIS Sexual Function & Satisfaction v2.0, which have been validated in North American English speakers to assess SFS in a clinical setting. However, these questionnaires are inadequate to effectively assess SFS of a trans woman post-vaginoplasty due to both absence of appropriate questions (e.g. addressing post-op restoration of sensation) and the presence of inappropriate questions (e.g. assessing endogenous lubrication). Objective Upon analysis of the current measures to assess SFS, we hope to demonstrate the need for a validated tool to assess SFS of trans women post-vaginoplasty. Methods Surveys which assess female SFS validated in North American English speakers were compiled and reviewed to assess the appropriateness for trans women post-vaginoplasty. The variables assessed included whether the surveys discussed endogenous lubrication, pain/discomfort specific to penetration, and pain/discomfort in other areas of the genitalia. Surveys were also assessed for the lack of factors specific to trans women post-vaginoplasty such as dilation and depth of the neovagina, scarring and restoration of sensation, prostate stimulation, and cosmetic appearance of the genitalia. Results A total of 18 surveys were assessed. 8 surveys were excluded if they were designed for specific populations or diseases (WSID; MSFQ; DSDS; TSS; PFSF; SFQ) or their tools could not be accessed (DISF; DSFI). 70% of questionnaires asked about endogenous lubrication. 40% asked about pain limited to penetration. In the studies which asked about pain, 25% (n=1) assessed pain in other areas of the genitalia. 1 survey asked about vaginal dilation or depth to assess difficulty with penetration. There were no questionnaires that assessed prostate stimulation, the appearance of the genitalia, scarring, or the restoration of sensation. Conclusions Although the tools available contain many questions which are appropriate for the assessment of SFS of trans women post-vaginoplasty, most surveys assessed endogenous lubrication which is irrelevant to trans women and none assessed several domains important for trans women post-vaginoplasty. A survey specific to post-op trans women should assess neovaginal dilation and depth, scarring and restoration of sensation, as well as a cosmetic satisfaction with genitalia as measures of SFS. For example, trans women report sexual pleasure from stimulation of the prostate through the neovaginal canal during penetration; this type of pleasure is not applicable to cis women and is therefore not assessed in existing surveys, rendering the available tools incomplete. Due to the inadequacy of the current tools in the assessment of SFS for trans women post-vaginoplasty, we call for the development of a validated survey for this population which is in line with the precedent set by several other SFS questionnaires validated for similarly specific populations. Disclosure No

AD GLORIAM DEI: ПАТЕРНИ БОЛЮ, СТРАЖДАННЯ І ЗАДОВОЛЕННЯ В СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧНІЙ КУЛЬТУРІ

The article provides a cultural analysis of the triad of pain, punishment and pleasure as a significant component of medieval religious practices and their representations. The artistic and visual sphere of medieval culture is characterized by the hegemony of images of violence. Accordingly, the study attempts to identify the potential of portraying violence to generate and legitimize various forms of pleasure. Violence in the religious discourse of the Middle Ages and its representations operates on several different levels: the pleasure associated with identifying with the victim, the pleasure of projecting cruelty on the tormentors, the pleasure of fantasizing about ritual violence against the sacred victim. Comparing the mechanisms of pain gratification in religious practices and masochism sheds light on the symbolic load and functions of pain in Medieval Culture. Medieval images of pain as a tool of punishment did not just reflect cruel realities: and images were common because they were motivated and created by certain types of pleasure. Artistic images of pain and suffering do not just depict broken bodies and psyche, they also create opportunities for constructing the "I", institutions and ideas in the interests of a whole range of different programs and ideological positions. The hegemony of violence in the visual art of the era has the potential to create a space for the cultivation of broader, subversive possibilities: compassion and opposition to the pain of martyrs, fantasies of resistance, emancipation, the formation of alternative forms of eroticism, getting voyeuristic pleasure from hurting others. The paper attempts a transcultural comparison of the practices of getting pleasure from causing pain on the example of religious practices (self-harm) and masochism: they are based on dramatic expectation, postponement, delay in final satisfaction, investment in fantasy, attraction to exhibitionism. Using masochism as an interpretive category, one can see the structures of fantasy, tension, and view that formed the basis of certain genres of medieval representation. Through fantasy, obscurity, and exhibitionism, masochism transcodes the body in pain to the scene of erotic liberation. With the help of a similar trio of techniques, martyrdom forms the sublime body of a saint.

The Place of Flawed Pleasures in a Good Life. A Discussion of Plato’s Philebus

The Philebus describes the “good” that enables human eudaimonia as a “mixture” in which cognitive states have to be combined with certain types of pleasure. This essay investigates how the various senses of falsehood that Plato distinguishes are applied to the question of the hedonic “ingredients” of the good. It argues that his theory allows for the inclusion of certain virtuous pleasures that are deficient with respect to truth: either qua “mixed pleasures” lacking in truth (genuineness) on account of the compresence of their opposite, pain, or because they are based on mistaken anticipations arising in the pursuit of virtuous and reasonable goals.

Christopher BuckleyPre-Eternity of the World

BOOKS IN REVIEW Christopher Buckley Pre-Eternity of the World Nacogdoches, Texas. SFA University Press. 2021. 120 pages. IN THIS NEWEST collection, Christopher Buckley’s twenty-sixth, you might expect to see some evidence of decline, overwriting, or dilution of content; none of that is the case. Instead, we encounter Buckley’s imaginative power manifested in a fully matured style, a style characterized by complete naturalness of voice and a seemingly effortless mastery of craft. The title poem of this collection sets the standard for the book, a twelve-page poem that muses about quasars, Einstein, Spinoza, mitochondrial DNA, surfboards hauled on dented Bel Airs in the 1950s, loneliness, religion, koi, clouds, quarks, and many other things pulled into the vortex of a farranging mind considering the sum total of its experience and existential moment. The associative technique employed in these poems does not result in the dazzling showmanship of poems by, say, Albert Goldbarth, which of course afford their own type of pleasure; instead, the effect is one of a deepening intimacy in a relaxed but earnest solitude, as if the reader were sitting next to the author somewhere by the sea and listening quietly. This mesmerizing atmospheric quality of Buckley ’s poems is one of the great pleasures of reading them. At their most essential, whatever these poems may ostensibly be about, they are about a feeling, a certain disposition toward experience, an uneasy repose pulled by nostalgia as well as by the outer edge of knowledge and beyond that. One of the other great pleasures of reading these poems is their original figurative language. Similes and metaphors are never dispensable ornaments hung on the narrative tree of the poem; they are always woven as part of the poem’s fabric, often the main points on which the poem turns in its associative movement. In the early portion of “Remorse,” we read: “Brown shoes beaten / into submission, blind / witnesses to everything— / a yellowed rind of light / in the inner lining / of my tattered coat— / there, just above the heart, / where the ash of stars / has been collecting / since I was 29. // Bits of sun / like old wishes, like bruised / gardenias in a bowl, filter / through the paralytic trees— / the white glare / off the sea speaking / in the syllogisms of salt.” For all the heady mention of cosmology and Western philosophy, these poems proceed by feeling, feeling that seeks and finds form for itself, often in original figurative language. Examples are everywhere throughout the book, but the ending of “Evening Song—on a late birthday” serves as a good example of this as well as of a rare moment of peace, almost: “I’ve done my work / and this late in the day I leave / all uneasiness to the sea— / the dark sea, indifferent as always— / from which I nonetheless accept / every breath I take today / from an on-shore breeze—here / where I am almost happy, adrift / in the frail boat of my heart.” These poems also include an ongoing consideration of religion. In an earlier work, Buckley describes himself as a “spiritual non-believer.” It’s hard to say if that has changed. He certainly still has no time for “believers” reified in their own certainty; in the title poem, we encounter this attitude early: “and God-botherers / of every stripe, / with unquestioning convictions about the landscape / of the invisible.” Yet, in these new poems, he does not seem ready to completely deny “the other side,” though he considers it unlikely. In the final lines of the title poem, we read: “I can see there’s no guarantee / that anyone survives these dark waters, / is likely to get out of here alive . . . / all I know is that we go on / standing here / holding on to the rope-end of hope.” It seems that the poet has moved from “nonbeliever ” to agnostic tilting to nonbelief, yet the insistence with which these poems interrogate the unseen and the question of God suggests an undercurrent of desire for things to be otherwise. Readers will likely enjoy these poems not for their answers but for their intellectual and emotional honesty in the movement of mind. Fred Dings University of South Carolina...

Managing pleasures and harms: An ethnographic study of drug consumption in public spaces, homes and drug consumption rooms

Drug consumption rooms (DCR) aim to facilitate consumption in hygienic and safe conditions. However, users also consume drugs in public spaces and homes generating incremental risk for health. To strengthen our understanding of consumption practices, we conducted an ethnographic study in different consumption locations in Barcelona, including DCRs, public spaces, and homes. Focusing on consumption practices and narratives, we conducted participant observation and interviewed 16 DCR users. Our findings show that different consumption spaces allow users to experiment different types of pleasures. In addition, consumption in each type of location is associated with various types of harms, which are managed by users by self-regulating their practices. These aspects, therefore, must be taken into account to design harm reduction action aligned with users' practices.

Hume on pleasure and value and the Kantian challenge

In this paper I examine Hume’s claims about the nature of moral sentiments (mainly in T 3.1.2) using as a foil the Kantian challenge to all material practical principles: they are all of the same type, being based on self-love and making all choices, including moral ones, hedonically fungible. The paper explores Hume’s views on pleasure as constitutive of moral sentiment as an answer to that challenge arguing that for him only pleasure is essentially valuable for beings like us. It thus grounds a notion of value which, through a “progressive or dynamic” view of human nature, informs a conception of moral pleasure – a “taste in character traits” – as a distinctive type of pleasure that is not amenable to a mere quantitative criterium to guide moral choice. Keywords: Hume’s moral philosophy, moral sentiments, human nature, Kant.

Types of reading, types of pleasure: Pantographia and the specimens of globalization

London typefounder Edmund Fry’s Pantographia (1799) is an extraordinary catalogue of all of the known languages of the world, published on thousands of pieces of custom non-Latin type that the book’s creator spent more than a decade cutting with his own hands. Though it is now long since forgotten, Pantographia sold hundreds of copies and was reviewed approvingly in the major periodicals of its day. The book is addressed to a general audience, not to printers. I argue that the book gave its readers permission to look at printed language not as a source of knowledge or words, but as a source of visual pleasure. Throwing scores of unfamiliar scripts at the reader, one after another, Pantographia savors the visual exotics of the world’s languages and reiterates the strangeness and contingency of every writing system. The work is about the verbal/visual interface, self-consciously troubling the line between illustration and text. It invites a mode of “reading” that fixes the reader’s attention on the inked lines and shapes that readers ordinarily look through. This mode of reading, and its pleasures, are aspects of eighteenth-century print culture that we have not yet understood.

The pleasures of reading non‐fiction

AbstractThis article examines data gathered in a broader study of a school‐based reading challenge to children aged from 8 to 14 to read science information books, centred in their school or class library. A survey was conducted before they embarked on the reading challenge to establish the children's reading habits. After the period of time allotted to the challenge had ended, participating teachers and children completed questionnaires and a sample from each were interviewed. Evidence relating to reading non‐fiction for pleasure was identified and extracted from the dataset and analysed. Prior to the challenge, most children's attitude to science books was that they would be boring, difficult or at variance with what they perceived as their reader identity. More positive attitudes resulted from taking part in the challenge. Contemporary science information books were found to be in themselves a source of pleasure. It is concluded that it is possible to differentiate between the pleasures of fiction and non‐fiction and that different types of pleasure which are derived from reading science non‐fiction can also be differentiated, ranging from extrinsic to intrinsic and including efferent and aesthetic. A tentative typology of intrinsic pleasures is proposed.

From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle by Mariska Leunissen

Reviewed by: From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle by Mariska Leunissen Paula Gottlieb Mariska Leunissen. From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xxxii + 216. Cloth, $74.00. In her new book, Leunissen, author of Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle's Science of Nature (2010), turns her expertise in Aristotle's biology to the issue of virtue of character. The book contains some fascinating material from Aristotle's biological works and also material from relatively neglected parts of the Politics, including discussions of ethnography, climate, physiognomy, and "eugenics." Leunissen's thesis is that an examination of this material will provide insight into how people become morally virtuous, and especially why Aristotle excludes women from this group. Leunissen suggests that it is Aristotle's biology that leads to his views about women, but that does not exclude the possibility of the social prejudices of ancient Athens from infecting both. For example, when Aristotle thinks that women have cold blood and are oversensitive to pain, it is not clear whether the biological grounds for his so thinking are immune to various social prejudices about women. Sometimes, indeed, Aristotle's biology seems to be at odds with his views about women. For example, since hot-blooded male babies need to be acclimatized to the cold in preparation for later military service (117, 180), according to Aristotle, would females, who have cold blood by nature, not be more suitable for warfare and developing courage, according to Aristotle's own assumptions? Aristotle's ideas about pain in women, if correctly attributed, are even more startling. The ancient Greeks knew what kinds of pain women could endure, and had a special word for the pangs of childbirth. Be that as it may, I shall instead focus on what I take to be the crux of Leunissen's view that a biological approach is essential to understanding how virtues of character are developed. This argument comes in her chapter 5. Leunissen writes, "In Physics VII 3, Aristotle provides one of the lengthiest discussions of the physical process of virtue acquisition in the corpus" (110). At the beginning of this chapter of the Physics, Aristotle distinguishes alteration, where an existing object persists while taking on a new property, from what Aristotle elsewhere treats as substantial change, where a new object, for example, a bronze statue, comes into being. If bronze becomes fluid, that is an alteration, but if a statue comes into being, we have a new object, the statue, which is made out of the bronze and which we say is "brazen." Nor are dispositions of body and soul alterations along this line of thinking. Now one might think that Aristotle's point is that bronze spheres cannot be reduced to their matter; and dispositions cannot [End Page 552] be reduced to their material basis. Aristotle also here treats dispositions as relational and he goes on to say that acquiring or losing a disposition involves alterations of other things. In the case of virtues and vices of character, they are related to bodily pleasures and pains that are alterations of the sensory part of the soul. (Physics VII 3 is four pages long in the Oxford Classical Text, but Leunissen omits the discussion of virtues of thought at the end of the chapter.) Leunissen suggests that virtues of character may be related to elements of the soul, as health is related to bodily elements. It is not clear what the elements of the soul are, but if they include desires, feelings, and thinking, none of which Aristotle describes in purely physiological terms, the Physics is silent on their relationship to virtue of character. Nor do we have a discussion in the Physics about how particular feelings (that are types of pleasure or pain) so arise that they are appropriate in particular contexts, or how practical reasoning so develops that virtue of character involves deliberative desire and practical wisdom. In short, there is no account of virtue acquisition in the Physics. True, we are told that virtues and vices relate to pleasures and pains, but that point is already noted and refined in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Furthermore, according...

The Pleasure of Art

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a new account of the pleasure we take in art. It distinguishes first between two types of pleasure. Relief or r-pleasure is transient and marks the end of a state that is difficult to maintain. Facilitation or f-pleasure accompanies an activity and lasts as long as the activity does. It motivates this activity and optimizes it by activating a suite of preparations and modes of acting specific to the activity. Aesthetic pleasure is a distinct form of f-pleasure. It arises from mental engagement with an object, and motivates and optimizes such engagement by activating a nexus specific to it. Aesthetic pleasure acts in two ways. In the short run, when we are in contact with a particular artefact, it keeps aesthetic engagement running smoothly. Over longer periods, it plays a critical role in shaping how we engage with objects to get this kind of pleasure from them. This account is yoked to a broadly functional understanding of art: it is not the nature of the object that makes it art, but the nature of the response that it is designed to elicit. The view does not, however, rest on individual psychology alone, as some other functional accounts do. Crucially, it is argued that shared cultural context is a key determinant of the pleasure we derive from aesthetic artefacts. The pleasure of art is always communal and communicative.

The potential of haiku as form of the expression considering from three types of pleasure

The potential of haiku as form of the expression considering from three types of pleasure

MiPiacce Methodology: A Pragmatic Method Used for an Analysis of Pleasures Provided by Shoe Design that Developed for Disabled Wearers

The aim of this paper is presenting MiPiacce Methodology, which can be applied by shoe wearers to measure the pleasures provided by shoe design for women with lower limb dysmetria. Qualitative methodology, which was descriptive and interpretative, was applied with mix techniques, such as comparative analysis of secondary sources, semi-structured interviews with five health professionals, and a phenomenological methodology with nine wearers. These analysis were based on observation and were conducted by a single researcher - an inner validation. The third technique, based on semi-structured interviews with nine wearers - configuring sampling intensity - was used to collect data from primary sources. Disabled adult females were chosen. All of them had a disorder in the musculoskeletal system which has made it difficult for them to find suitable footwear over a period of more than a decade. The analytic induction was employed as the qualitative methodology of analysis for the interviews. It can be concluded that the inconsistency in the degree of pleasures provided by the same style of shoes underlines the importance of conducting a holistic analysis to detect the strong and weak points of each shoe design for the wearer. When the types of pleasure were linked to the wearers’ social background, it was clear that their experiences affected their perception of pleasures and socio-cultural inclusion. It can be concluded that the understanding of the relationships referred to above can enable the production of a pleasurable shoe design which lead to effective socio-cultural inclusion, and as a result, an improvement in quality of life in terms of both physical health and well-being of the wearers.

Pleasure in Epicurean and Christian Orthodox conceptions of happiness

The essay examines the central role that pleasure plays in a wide range of conceptualisations of happiness or ‘good life’, from Epicurean hedonism, to Christian asceticism, to contemporary cases of pastoral and philosophical counselling. Despite the apparent moral chasm between hedonists and ascetics, a look at the practices promoted by Epicurus and the Christian monastic fathers reveals striking similarities. The reason is that, at a fundamental level, both parties agree that one should reject the vulgar pleasures that society glorifies, and develop a refined attitude that seeks the appropriate and natural pleasures, while ignoring the harmful or unnecessary ones. And such an attitude can only be acquired through moral training, either by philosophical instruction and reflection, or by pastoral counselling. We highlight some important parallels regarding the connection between pleasure and happiness, as conceived by Epicureans and monastic fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. We begin by discussing elements of Epicureanism that can also be found in its rival philosophical schools and Christianity, mainly the emphasis on forming the right conception of happiness and acting in accordance with it. We then examine the connection between morality and happiness in the Christian Orthodox monasticism. We argue that Christian ascetic ethics not only condone some types of pleasures, but in fact require them as elements of happiness in this life that play an instrumental role for the Christian soteriological dogma. The argument has wider philosophical significance because it shows that pleasure is indeed a fundamental conceptual ingredient of happiness across different normative ethical contexts.

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.

Occult Melodramas: Spectral Affect and West African Video-Film

This essay examines the aesthetic dimensions of the “occult melodramas” of West African video-films by discussing how filmmakers use the technology of video to recreate the sensuous impact of daily rumors that speak to spiritual and socioeconomic anxieties. Given that these films are both recognizable to and somewhat outside world cinema categories, I suggest ways of reading the spectral affects of the films that account for the complex, conflicting forms of spirituality, eroticism, and transgression that make them so popular with their audiences. This type of a reading requires a rethinking of Western melodrama theory that presumes melodrama has emerged during a “de-sacralized” or secular context, and it necessitates a new type of African video-film criticism that takes gender and the body as a point of departure. Furthermore, I argue that in order to understand how pleasure operates in occult melodrama we must look beyond visual pleasure and toward a type of pleasure that is intimately bound to the multiple forms of anxieties and invisibilities on which the films are predicated and which they register through the inherently mutable and unstable technology of video. Therefore, through a close reading of Socrate Safo's four-part video-film Jezebel, I examine the ways in which women embody extremes, perversions, and private pleasures that are not confined to earthly realities and to the immediately visible world.

The Nature of Pleasure in Pleasure Travel

It is indeed ironic that despite the importance of pleasure as a central theme in both the practice and theory of travel, there is a critical absence of knowledge from which to theoretically and conceptually situate this concept in our field. Given this current state, the purpose of this paper is to undertake a general survey of literature on pleasure, incorporating knowledge from a number of diverse fields including philosophy, evolutionary biology, psychology, neuroscience, social psychology, sociology, and tourism. More specifically, the paper examines sensory or qualitative forms of pleasure and these are compared and contrasted with emotional or attitudinal forms of pleasure, including satisfaction, enjoyment and aesthetics. These different types of pleasure are later organized into a conceptual framework and linked with different temporal frames of pleasure, including anticipatory, on-site, and remembered temporal contexts. This arrangement, along with the interdisciplinary nature of the work, is viewed eis a point of departure for further research in the area.