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Timaeus' Explanation of Sense-Perceptual Pleasure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2014

David Wolfsdorf*
Affiliation:
Temple University

Abstract:

Much has been written about Plato's accounts of pleasure in Republic 9 and Philebus, almost nothing about his account in Timaeus. But with respect to sense-perceptual pleasure specifically, the account in Timaeus is unique and extremely informative. This paper examines, in turn, the physiology and the psychology of sense-perceptual pleasure, focusing on the text at 64a2–65b3, but drawing on a wide range of passages from elsewhere in the dialogue. The paper concludes with a further suggestion: that Timaeus is implicitly committed to a distinction between two kinds of perceptual pleasure, sense-perceptual pleasure and ‘brute’ pleasure.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2014 

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