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Single Idea 387
[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure
]
Full Idea
A tiny little pleasure is, if uncontaminated by pain, always more pleasant, truer and finer than a large amount.
Clarification
'Fine' is the Greek word 'kalon', which also translates as 'beautiful'
Gist of Idea
A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain
Source
Plato (Philebus [c.353 BCE], 53b)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Philebus', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [Penguin 1982], p.124
A Reaction
More Platonic puritanism. Is a complete absence of pleasure the highest pleasure of all? I don't think I understand 'truer'. Why would a pleasure be false because it is intense?
The
16 ideas
with the same theme
[what types of pleasure are there?]:
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387
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A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain
[Plato]
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2157
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Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect
[Plato]
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5230
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There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body
[Aristotle]
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383
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God feels one simple pleasure forever
[Aristotle]
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5270
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Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones
[Aristotle]
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1839
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Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future
[Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
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1842
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Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected
[Epicurus]
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3557
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The end for Epicurus is static pleasure
[Epicurus, by Annas]
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505
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Good and true are the same for everyone, but pleasures differ
[Democritus (attr)]
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521
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We should only choose pleasures which are concerned with the beautiful
[Democritus (attr)]
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1838
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Cyrenaic pleasure is a motion, but Epicurean pleasure is a condition
[Diog. Laertius]
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5271
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Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry
[Bentham]
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5934
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Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter
[Ross on Bentham]
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8096
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He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul
[Joubert]
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9196
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The pleasure of existing is the only genuine pleasure
[Hadot]
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7498
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Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex
[Foucault]
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