Chapter 5 - Plato on true, untrue, and false pleasures

Summary

In this chapter I continue the discussion of Plato’s treatment of pleasure. As I mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 4, I will be focusing here on Plato’s distinction between true and untrue or true and false pleasures. Plato first introduces this distinction in Republic 9. It then becomes central to his discussion of pleasure in Philebus. In this respect, the treatment in Republic 9 reads like a rough draft of Philebus. Accordingly, I begin with the distinction between true and untrue pleasures in Republic 9.

Note that in the chapter title and in discussing Republic 9, I use the word “untrue” rather than “false.” This follows Plato’s usage. The distinction between an untrue and a false pleasure seems to be significant. In particular, it relates to a distinction between two truth-conceptions with which Plato operates and which I will explain in due course. Basically, in Republic 9 there seems to be a distinction between two ways in which a pleasure can be true and untrue: representationally and ontologically. In fact, there are multiple ways in which a pleasure can be representationally and ontologically true and untrue. Again, we will come to these distinctions below.