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Single Idea 5230

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure ]

Full Idea

We must distinguish pleasures of the soul from pleasures of the body; examples of the former are love of civic distinction and love of learning.

Gist of Idea

There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1117b28)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.136

A Reaction

An example of where enthusiasm for analysis leads to oversimplification, and of how dualism about mind can colour the rest of one's views. There is a physical pleasure in learning something, and some physical pleasures are almost spiritual.

The 16 ideas with the same theme [what types of pleasure are there?]:

387 A small pure pleasure is much finer than a large one contaminated with pain [Plato]
2157 Nice smells are intensive, have no preceding pain, and no bad after-effect [Plato]
5230 There are pleasures of the soul (e.g. civic honour, and learning) and of the body [Aristotle]
383 God feels one simple pleasure forever [Aristotle]
5270 Intellectual pleasures are superior to sensuous ones [Aristotle]
1839 Pains of the soul are worse than pains of the body, because it feels the past and future [Epicurus, by Diog. Laertius]
1842 Pleasures only differ in their duration and the part of the body affected [Epicurus]
3557 The end for Epicurus is static pleasure [Epicurus, by Annas]
505 Good and true are the same for everyone, but pleasures differ [Democritus (attr)]
521 We should only choose pleasures which are concerned with the beautiful [Democritus (attr)]
1838 Cyrenaic pleasure is a motion, but Epicurean pleasure is a condition [Diog. Laertius]
5271 Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham]
5934 Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham]
8096 He gives his body up to pleasure, but not his soul [Joubert]
9196 The pleasure of existing is the only genuine pleasure [Hadot]
7498 Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault]