Chapter 5 - Eudaimonia

Summary

The Philebus contains the most detailed analysis of eudaimonia or “happiness” in the Platonic corpus. Many commentators have been surprised by the inclusion of certain pleasure as an essential ingredient in the good life and have attempted to show that these pleasures are the pleasures of philosophy or that they are included as a concession to our mortal limits. This chapter shows that the pleasures in question cannot be those of philosophy and that their inclusion is not a mere concession. Rather, they must be identified as the pleasures deriving from lower, empirical sciences and pure sense perception, and they are presented as essential, not accidental, ingredients in the best human life.