Putting the “Stroppies” to Work

Chapter 9 offers a detailed analysis of Philebus 42c–47d. Here, after first discussing a neutral state between pleasure and pain, Socrates introduces some ‘stroppy’ characters (duschereis) who are said to bear witness to the fact that there are some states that only seem to be pleasures, but aren’t so in reality, and others that have the appearance of enormous size, but which in truth are commingled with pain. This chapter (inter alia) sketches Socrates’ argument concerning the neutral state, explores the view that he wishes to attribute to the ‘Stroppies,’ explains how he employs their arguments and methodology, provides a reconstruction of an important missing part of their argument concerning the view that pleasure doesn’t really exist, explains how Socrates’ own account contrasts with that of the Stroppies, and explores the notions of false pleasure/pain in play in this part of the Philebus.

Two Ways in which Pleasures can be False

Chapter 8 examines two ways in which Plato in the Philebus claims that pleasures can be false. The common interpretation of the first way—which occupies the main part of the chapter—comes in two versions: (1) if the proposition following the “that” in “I’m pleased that you’re coming” is false (viz. it turns out that you don’t come) then so is my pleasure; (2) my pleasure is false if I am not pleased when you do come and was mistaken in my belief that I would be. The chapter proposes instead that Plato in the Philebus offers an account of good and bad pleasures, and that a pleasure is true if it is taken in what is good—and false if it is taken in what is not good—for the agent.

The Independence of the Soul from the Body

Chapter 7 identifies a principle that governs much of Socrates’ discussion in the Philebus and shows how it is at work in 31b–36c, where he discusses bodily pleasures of restoration and begins discussion of psychic pleasures. That is, he starts with the most primitive type of experience in which the soul just passively receives influence from the body (Philebus’ focus in life), and gradually points out more and more significant ways in which the soul works independently from the body. Such a procedure is meant to familiarize Protarchus with Socrates’ viewpoint from which various workings of the soul are valued independently of their power to promote pleasure. To prepare the discussion, the chapter first argues that the Philebus presents no substantial unitary account of pleasure. In particular, the account in terms of restoration of a harmony and the account in terms of filling do not overlap exactly.

Intelligence as Cause

In the text examined in Chapter 6, Socrates and Protarchus assign the life that combines intelligence and pleasure to the mixed kind (27d); and Socrates and Philebus assign the unmixed life of pleasure to the unlimited kind (27e–28a). The interlocutors then turn to the question of which kind to assign intelligence to. That question is answered by means of an elaborate argument in favor of thinking that it is intelligence that is the cause of good order both at the cosmic level and in the human domain. On this basis, intelligence is assigned to the kind of cause. The chapter is organized around what is taken to be the main interpretive and philosophical questions that the section raises. The most important and interesting of these questions pertain to Socrates’ microcosm–macrocosm parallel (29a–30d) and its role in the argument for thinking that intelligence belongs to the kind of cause.

The Fourfold Division of Beings

The fourfold division in Plato’s Philebus develops machinery to decide the contest between pleasure and reason for second place after the mixture in the debate about the good life. The machinery consists of the limit, the unlimited, the mixture of limit and unlimited, and cause of the mixture. Plato’s Socrates collects instances of the unlimited and mixture to determine their unified nature and marks off the cause from the other three kinds and argues for its priority. We gain understanding of the limit by considering its operation in relation to the other three kinds. The limit is responsible for external and internal boundaries in an unlimited, bringing definiteness either by marking something off from things outside it or by providing internal structure. Chapter 5 argues that one key function of the limit is omitted in the fourfold division: guaranteeing the goodness of a mixture.

Division and Classification

The Philebus presents some arguments for the paradoxical claim that the many are one and the one many. The most serious of these arguments concerns the multiple spatial locations of an attribute. For instance, since the attribute man belongs to many men, it is in them, and it is therefore both one and many (for it is in them either by having different parts of itself contained in them or by being wholly contained in each of them). Plato maintains that this argument goes astray. He appeals to division and collection, the procedures linked with definition and classification. He probably has in mind a mereological model of particulars, whereby perceptible particulars are mixtures whose ingredients are the attributes which they partake of. Among the ingredients of a perceptible particular there are properties that specify its spatial location, so the problem of the multiple spatial location of an attribute evaporates.

The Final Attack on Hedonism

Chapter 12 examines the conclusion of the exploration of pleasure (53c4–55c3), which consists of two new arguments that give lethal blows to the claims of the hedonists and thus bring the critique of pleasure to an end. The only pleasures that are left untouched here are the pure pleasures of the immediately preceding section (50e3–53c3). The first and longer of the arguments (53c4–55a11) is conspicuously technical and merits, on Plato’s literary indication, the reader’s careful attention; the second (55a12–c3), less demanding in itself, has the form of a cumulative reductio that appeals to common sense. This part of the dialogue is shown to be neither ‘dialectical’ in the Aristotelian sense nor an independent appendix (as has been widely maintained) but, rather, the culmination of Socrates’ critique. In an appendix it is also shown why at 46d10 and 51d1 the universally adopted emendation of the unanimous manuscript reading κίνησις‎ into κνῆσις‎ is faulty.

Plato on Pleasures from Comedy

Contrary to most scholars who (tend to) consider the passage in the Philebus on comedy and laughter as a sort of parenthesis, Chapter 10 contends that it does constitute an important step in the Philebus’s argumentative framework. Actually, Plato’s analysis of laughter in comedy constitutes the peak of his rebuttal of mixed pleasures. For comedy seems to offer just sheer pleasure, or what one would call “pure” pleasure. Thus, showing that even comedy conveys mixed pleasures (because pleasurable laughter is caused by the emotion of “envy” which is painful) should persuade Protarchus (and Plato’s readers) that strong emotions are definitely not what we should be looking for if we want to experience “pure” pleasure.

Rethinking the Contest Between Pleasure and Wisdom

Chapter 2 analyzes how the Philebus sets up a contest between two positions, Revised Hedonism and Reason, that offer competing views on the good. The two positions are modified versions of the long-standing ideas that either pleasure or wisdom are the good. They are formulated, however, in distinctive ways. In response the interlocutors investigate, broadly and extensively, what goes on in our minds. The emerging project includes not only psychology and epistemology, but also the metaphysics of plurality. Moreover, both positions construe good as good-for: the good for human beings. This will prompt the interlocutors to pursue nothing less than the metaphysics of the kind of mix—a limit-unlimited combination—that a good human life is. The chapter reads the beginning of the Philebus as launching this tour de force across philosophical disciplines.

Knowledge and Measurement

The Philebus ranks different kinds of knowledge in order of purity, with dialectic at the top. It is clear that at the lower levels the criterion of rank involves measurement: the more and purer measurement used, the higher a species of knowledge is on the epistemic hierarchy. Chapter 13 argues that Plato continues to use this criterion when he comes to the highest level. Dialectic is pure measurement: it is the art of grasping the measures—or, equivalently, limits—within all things. Moreover, this conception of knowledge is a specification and elaboration of the much more famous epistemology of the Republic, and can help illuminate some of its mysteries.