Phronesis Volume 15 Issue 2 1970 [Doi 10.2307%2F4181849] Terry Penner -- False Anticipatory Pleasures- Philebus 36a3-41a6

False Anticipatory Pleasures: "Philebus" 36a3-41a6Author(s): Terry PennerSource: Phronesis, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1970), pp. 166-178Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4181849 .Accessed: 14/08/2013 13:05

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False Anticipatory Pleasures: Philebus 36a 3-4i a 6

TERRY PENNER

n the first section of this paper, I try to set out with a minimum of complication the philosophical considerations which bear upon the interpretation I offer in section II of Plato's account of false

anticipatory pleasures. In the case of the uses of the words for "belief", "with" and "in", the order of exposition reverses the order of discovery: it was by noticing Plato's use of these words that I came to the philosophical points I make about them in section I of the paper. I am not here offering any general account of other kinds of false pleasures considered by Plato.

I

Mr. Dybikowski's article (this issue) seems to me to fix on the im- portant distinction for purposes of interpreting this passage, namely that expressed by Williams in the following passage.'

b. I may be pleased at x, but say that I am pleased at y because I falsely believe that x is y; but this does not matter, because x's being y is no element in my pleasure. Thus, I may be pleased by this picture as a picture, and say that I am pleased by this Giorgione, when the picture is not a Giorgione. c. More drastically, I may take pleasure in, or be pleased by,

I B. A. 0. Williams, "Pleasure and Belief", in Stuart Hampshire (Ed.), Philos- ophy of Mind (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), esp. 235-236 with 230-231, (reprinted from Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume for 1959). See also Stuart Hampshire's two different ways of wanting the most expensive picture in the gallery: if I want to buy that picture (which, as I think, also happens to be the most expensive in the gallery) I am affected differently by learning that it is not the most expensive picture in the gallery than if I simply wish to buy whatever picture is the most expensive in the gallery. Hampshire rather misleadingly speaks of the former desire as thought-in- dependent, the latter as thought-dependent; for all the example shows is de- pendence or independence on one particular thought. The former desire may be dependent on another thought of which the latter desire is independent. (S. Hampshire, Freedom of the Individual (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 46ff.

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x which I mistakenly think is y, where x's supposedly being y is the basis of my pleasure. Thus I may be pleased by this sup- posed Giorgione as being a Giorgione...

One way in which this distinction might be referred to is in terms of whether or not the belief "involved" in either case, namely that this picture before me is a Giorgione, does or does not "infect" the pleasure with the truth or falsity of the belief. There seem to be grounds for saying that in the case of c the truth or falsity does, and that in the case of b the truth or falsity does not - namely that finding out that the belief is false is liable to destroy the pleasure in c, but not to destroy the pleasure in b. For this important difference may be thought sufficiently striking to allow Plato to depart from usage and say that in the case of c the falsity of the belief that is involved results in the pleasure being a "false pleasure". That Plato does indeed speak of certain beliefs "infecting" certain "pleasures"2 seems prima facie grounds for saying that it was indeed this distinction that Plato was after in his discussion of false anticipatory pleasures. But I think we can do better than this by way of demonstrating Plato's insights, and better than any of those recent treatments of the passage which have been aware of the distinction Williams concerns himself with.3

I shall not in this paper discuss this distinction in detail, but simply take it that such a distinction can be made. However, I may indicate very roughly how I would deal with it. We may say that (1) This Giorgione pleases me is ambiguous (or "has two readings"), since it may be read as either of the following: (2) This painting is a Giorgione and it pleases me, 2 &ve7rtL7rocaaav (42 a 9), normally "fill up", but here apparently in the meta- phorical use for "infect" which can also be seen at Apol. 32 c, Phd 67 a, Thucy- dides II. 51. That the falsity of a belief infects a pleasure is characteristic of false pleasures of the anticipatory type, by contrast with the other two types (see section III of this paper). 8 E.g. Williams, op. cit., J. Gosling, "False Pleasures: Philebus 35 c - 41 b", Phronesis, 1959, Antony Kenny, "False Pleasures in the Philebus: A reply to Mr. Gosling", Phronesis 1960, J. Gosling, "Father Kenny on False Pleasures", Phronesis, 1961, I. Thalberg, "False Pleasures", Journal of Philosophy, 1962, Terence Penelhum, "Pleasure and Falsity", in S. Hampshire (Ed.) Philosophy of Mind, cited above, n. 1, (reprinted from AmericanPhilosophicalQuarterly, 1964). Williams and Penelhum are not directing their attention to the exegesis of Plato. David Gallop's "True and False Pleasures", Philosophical Quarterly, 1960, makes no use of the distinction these other interpreters have to a greater or less degree had in mind.

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(3) This painting is a Giorgione and it, being a Giorgione, pleases me. The difference Williams points to is that the painting's being a Gior- gione is "within the scope of" my being pleased when "this Giorgione" is read as in (3), whereas when read as in (2) it does little more than help me pin an identificatory tag on the painting which is the object of my pleasure. (This identificatory purpose it can fulfil even if it is false that the painting is a Giorgione, provided "this Giorgione" suffices to get the hearer to identify what the speaker is talking about).4

Now in fact, Williams' examples of objects of pleasure are paintings hanging in a gallery, while the one example of a false anticipatory pleasure Plato gives (40 a 9-12) is clearly of a possible future state of affairs - oneself getting a lot of gold and many pleasures as a con- sequence. So let us alter Williams' example to make it more like Plato's. Consider the case where I am skating in a race and believe that I am going to win the race. Then there are at least the following two cases of pleasure: (4) I am going to win the race and I am taking pleasure in

(= enjoying) skating, (5) r am going to win the race and because I am going to win the

race I am pleased. Here again the cases of pleasure differ in that in the first the (sup- posed) fact that I am going to win the race is apparently irrelevant, while in the second my (supposed) future winning of the race falls "within the scope of" my pleasure. Now (5) is equivalent to (6) I am going to win the race and I am pleased that I am going to

win the race. Here the object of pleasure is (not the activity of skating but) the possible future state of affairs or (as I shall call it) the "proposition" that I am going to win the race."

Having put the distinction in this way, we can see that another way of putting Williams' distinction as it applies to (4) and (6) is this: that ' See Keith S. Donnellan, "Reference and Definite Descriptions", Philosophical Review (1966); "this Giorgione" is used "referentially" when it is an identificatory tag, "attributively" when it falls within the scope of my pleasure. In an un- published paper on quantification into intentional contexts, I explore the significance of this distinction for developments of Fregean semantics and the Fregean theory of existence and the existential quantifier. 6 I speak of "possible future states of affairs" or "propositions" because the differences between this traditional characterization of the objects of "pro- positional attitudes" and the characterization I offer in the unpublished paper mentioned in n. 4 are irrelevant to the points I make in this paper.

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in (6) my pleasure is in a certain belief, whereas in (4) my pleasure is not in the belief but merely occurs simultaneously with the belief. Further, when I say my pleasure is in a certain belief, I do not mean that I take pleasure in my believing that I am going to win the race (that would be a different pleasure) but that I take pleasure in a certain proposition believed by me, namely that I will win the race. Whereas when I say my pleasure occurs simultaneously with a certain belief, I mean that my pleasure occurs simultaneously with a certain believing by me. Thus to say that in (6) my pleasure is in a belief is to say that my pleasure is in something believed, whereas to say that in (4) my pleasure occurs with a belief is to say that my pleasure occurs simultaneously with a certain believing. ("Belief", like many other philosophically crucial words has a certain kind of ambiguity known, somewhat misleadingly in this case, as "process-product ambiguity". It may mean something I do or tend to do, namely believing, or it may mean something believed by me, just as my cooking may be something I do (a process) or something cooked by me (a product). It is in the former sense that beliefs are silly, touching, acquired, given up, un- conscious, etc.; it is in the latter sense that beliefs may be shared by several persons, be disagreed about, be propositions. "True" and "false" apply primarily to the latter, but are also applied derivatively to the former. If I believe that p and p is false, then I may be said to falsely believe that p.)6 I am not, of course, denying that when there

6 Here are some more examples of this ambiguity. The examples on the left refer to "processes", those on the right to the "products" (better, but still not adequate, would be talk of "the X-ing" and "the thing X-ed"). His hope (= hoping) is touching. His hope is that he will get tenure. His expectation is unreasonable. His expectation is that he will get tenure. His fear (= fearing) is laughable. Among his fears are war, women and His pleasure (= enjoying) tenure.

is inordinate. Smoking is one of his pleasures. His love is undying. My love is like a red, red rose. His painting relaxes him. His painting is of a cathedral in France. The master builder found the ac- The house was an actualization of skills

tualization of his skills very en- the master builder had acquired over a joyable. lifetime.

His envy of her poisoned their life She was the envy of her peers. together.

Notice that the "products" are sometimes propositional (that he will get tenure, his getting tenure), sometimes persons, physical objects or activities; and that sometimes the "products" in the latter group must exist (e.g. actualizations of the master builders skills, smoking), sometimes they need not (through a hoax,

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is a believing which merely occurs with a pleasure there is also a thing believed. Nor am I denying that when one's pleasure is in a thing believed there is also a believing: if I am pleased that p then I also believe that p. Indeed it is just the fact that one's being pleased is always in a thing believed that makes mention of a corresponding believing superfluous. But since not everything believed when one is pleased that something is the case is something the pleasure is taken in, it seems natural to speak of a believing as what "merely occurs simultaneously with" the being pleased. In other words, "pleasure in a belief" is most naturally construed as

pleasure in something believed whereas "pleasure merely occurring with a belief" is most naturally construed as

a pleasure which merely occurs together with a believing. Thus, to sum up, two other (inter-dependent) ways of showing awareness of Williams' distinction would be (a) to distinguish being in and being merely with a belief, and (b) to distinguish "process" and "product" senses of "belief". Noticing these distinctions is not, of course, a necessary condition of noticing Williams' distinction as it applies to beliefs; but such distinctions would have to be observed in practice if someone making the Williams point were to avoid fallacy

I fall in love with someone who doesn't exist; and notice the puzzling case of the man who enjoys running up the stairs thinking he is charging San Juan Hill). Notice finally that the "product" sense of "pleasure" corresponding to the "process" sense "enjoy" cannot be a proposition (one doesn't enjoy that some- thing is the case). One can however be pleased that something is the case. The Greek i8ov', like the English "pleasure" can do duty for "my enjoying", "the thing or activity I enjoy", "my bodily pleasure", "the sensation which gives me bodily pleasure", "my being pleased that (at, with, by)". [Although (4) and (6) above differ in that the pleasure in (4) is an enjoying while that in (6) is a being pleased that, the points made in section I could as easily have been made with the pleasure in (4) a being pleased that, e.g. being pleased that I am alive. Or we could have had, adapting an example of Penehum's, (4*) That beautiful girl coming is Miss Smith and I am pleased that that

beautiful girl is coming, (6*) That beautiful girl coming is Miss Smith and Miss Smith is my only love

and I am pleased that my only love is coming. There are different results in (4*) and (6*) if I become convinced that the beautiful girl coming is Miss Jones.]

For some references to the literature on process-product ambiguities and a treatment of an instance of this ambiguity (&vipycmL) which gives Aristotle some trouble, see my "Verbs and the Identity of Actions" in G. Pitcher and 0. P. Wood (Eds.), Ryle (New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1970), esp. section III.

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and confusion. In the next section I argue that even if Plato does not notice the distinctions (a) and (b), in practice he observes them and avoids fallacy and confusion on this point.

But if Plato neither notices the point about the "scope" of what the pleasure is taken in, nor notices the distinctions (a) and (b), how are we to suppose he did notice the Williams distinction as applied to (4) and (6)? A glance at the examples in n. 6 will show us how. For many of the verbs there have a feature which they share with such verbs as "perceive", "believe", "think", namely that in at least some cases they take as grammatical object a "that"-clause which tells us what the person perceives, believes, thinks, or etc. Someone who thinks of hope, fear, expectation and being-pleased-that as kinds of perceiving, as kinds of "cognitive attitudes" to propositions, will be able to notice Williams' distinction as applied to (4) and (6). For the distinction between (4) and (6) is just that the proposition that I am going to win the race is and is not respectively what the "cognitive attitude" or "pleasure perceiving" is directed towards. It is in the recognition of this analogy between being pleased that and believing that that Plato exhibits his awareness of the Williams distinction. Thus, just as if a thing believed is false the believing is said to be false ("He believes falsely that..."), so if a future state of affairs will not occur, the being pleased at it may be said to be false. This treatment of pleasure as a kind of perceiving is, if the perceiving is a perceiving that something is the case, a way of saying that "being pleased that..." is a propositional attitude.7 Plato was the first person in the history of

7Evidence from elsewhere that Plato thought of pleasure (being pleased that) as a kind of perceiving that something is the case is harder to come by than evidence that Plato thought of pleasure as a kind of perceiving some object or some aspect of an object. For the latter we can cite Tht. 156 b 2 - c 3:

mt dv o5v aEar5ae?t 'r m'o&8e tilv IXouatv 6v6,axcr, 6beLq re xd &xooxl xot 6a,pIaetq xalt fueLq re xacl xxKuaeLs xxL ?8o0VM ye 8' xal )t67ML xOCx &I -u t,u ilxt xocal o6oL xexX-nfLkvcX xat &XXat, 7rpav'roL ,uv aot &vcWVU,LOL, 7rm[a7r?,-qfs! gad al O GoLxaLr[vcXV Tr 8' a5 mEat4-o6v ykvoq 'OUTr)V &kzdcrOLC 6I6yovov, 64JeL 0AV Xp&'rcx 7vroCa7rCtX 7rCvX'ro8O7r, axoxcz 8A 6CoMUcT

pwvcA, xcxl 'roci &)BoctL, a aes dr& & o3a ad:'r,&S auyyevi ytyv6tLeva. Here the objects of pleasure are apparently certain pleasure-giving dispositional aspects of some object (as colours, etc. will be for Plato). The passage itself does not direct us as to what restrictions should be placed on "some object" in the preceding sentence (can a state of affairs or a possible state of affairs be "some object" for the purposes of that sentence?) The second type of false pleasure (with the treatment of which compare the metric art in Prot. 356 c 5ff.) also appears to exhibit pleasure as a kind of perceiving. Notice esp. &v disv 6+et... tv

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philosophy to see this, though in trying to make this point clear by talking of falsely being pleased that..., he has scandalized generations of interpreters.

II

It is time to examine the text of the Philebus to see how far the points made in section I were recognized by Plato. The analogy between being X6trcxr 8' &po xti t8ovatz... (41 e 9 - 42 a 2). [This passage unfortunately admits of a number of different interpretations. Thus, some expressions suggest (i) that the second type of false pleasure really involves only a real enough (future or present) pleasure and a false belief, namely that one is enjoying oneself as much as one thinks one is: xmt ToU&rwv mLa,aCL4 (41 d 2), oepeZa5boc (42 b 3), qaLvov'rmt, tz6 yaLv6.LcVOV and 6pX5; gLv6ptevov (42 b 4-5, b 9, c 1). In fact (ii), 41 d 2 can be put together with 36 a 4-7 to make it seem that the al&'acq here are desirings or even pleasures. Again (iii) at 42 c 1-3, we get rather the picture of a real future or present pleasure causing a false belief and the latter causing a present (illusory) pleasure in (in[) something non-existent, namely the amount of pleasure by which we over-estimate the real future or present pleasure. But perhaps (iii) can be discounted on the grounds that c 1-3 is an afterthought (oM' 5. ... ). The fact is, it is not clear in the second type of false pleasure whether it is socalled because of (i), (ii) or (iii). Plato's lack of explicitness here parallels a lack of explicitness in the treatment of the first type of false pleasures at 40 b 6-7; but I propose in n. 12 what seems to me a clear solution to that difficulty.]

But to show that Plato thinks of pleasure as a kind of perceiving is not to show that he thinks of pleasure as a kind of perceiving that (or perhaps better, a kind of perceptually taking it that). This latter is, however, what I think emerges from the scribe and painter similes. The difference of the first type of false pleasures from the second type - what Plato says is that while in the first type the falsity of the belief "infects" the anticipatory pleasure, the "opposite" occurs with the second type - is not clear. (For see alternatives (i), (ii) and (iii) in the preceding paragraph). The only thing of which I feel confident is that in the first type since the anticipated pleasure may not ever exist (40 c 8 - d 10), we have merely the causal sequence {belief, anticipatory pleasure}, supposing that non-existents cannot enter into causal sequences. On the other hand, in the second type, we have either the causal sequence {real (present or future) incorrectly estimated pleasure, incorrect belief or estimate) or the causal sequence {real (present or future) incorrectly estimated pleasure, incorrect belief or estimate as to the amount of pleasure one is or will be getting, illusory pleasure in anticipating or having that amount by which one over-estimates the pleasure}. ("Belief" in these formulae for causal sequences is of course used in the sense of "believings"). It is clear that the causal sequence involved in the first type of false pleasure is different from either of the two which might be involved in the second type. As I implied at the beginning of the paragraph, the difference seems to have something to do with the first type involving non-existent states of affairs while the second type does not.

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pleased that and believing that emerges immediately in Socrates' response to Protarchus' claim (36 e 5-7) that even in dreams or mad- ness, it cannot seem to me that I am having pleasure (XaclpeLv) when I am not. For Socrates urges (37 a 1 ff.) that if I y (3ociaLtv, believe or judge; 8ea,9 have pleasure, be pleased, enjoy) in (or that) p8 (tr 8o0m46 ?evov, thing believed or judged; '6 ye J '6 i 6Utevov Mvs-oL, what one is pleased in), then p-ing is something (37 a 2-5), p is something (a 7-10), and whether or not I rightly c, I still really g (a 11 - b 3). Plato's understanding of "I wrongly 9 in p" may thus be formulated as follows: (7) There exists a 9p-ing which I am doing and there exists a prop-

osition which that cp-ing is in and that cp-ing is wrong, since from it all the desired inferences can be drawn. Socrates now needs only to show that (8) A cp-ing in a proposition is not correct just in case the proposition

is false in order to establish the propriety of speaking of false (because not correct) pleasures. However, all that Protarchus will accept (37 e 1-3) is (8) with "believe" substituted for "y", i.e., (9) A believing in a proposition is not correct just in case the prop-

osition is false. In (8) and (9), "not correct" (ou'x 4pD) is interchangeable with "erring" (O'4cprO'CVouao) and both apply to the cp-ing and not to the thing 9-ed (= the proposition). What is "correct" (4p0v) at 37 d 7 is "belief" or "judgment" (86oRv), contrasted with "what is believed" ('r 8oao6[vov) at 37 e 1. "Belief" or "judgment" (84ocv) is "erring" (OC[apravouaav), whereas "what is believed" (-rso 8ooc46{uevov) is "what one erred about", "the error" (a[Lp-ov6Levov). Similarly, "belief" (86oc) at 37 b 5 is the same as "believing" (ao0&4eLV, aoROcCouaov) at b 7 and e 3; and at e 5-6, "pain" and "pleasure" (XiU'r, 'ov') are contrasted with "what one is pained at (-r6 &'y, T ?wu7rdZat - rou'vav'tov). That is to say, "correct" and "erring" are reserved for the 9-ing as opposed to the proposition; and "belief" (MRoc) up to this point in the argument is reserved for the 9-ing.

9 I use "cp-ing in p" for convenience, though "in" will often be unidiomatic. This stands for "pleasure in the proposition p", "being pleased that p", "be- lieving (in) the proposition p", "believing that p" and the like. I take it that nothing of philosophical substance turns on this usage. (I am also taking it that "is wrong" (= is incorrect") in (7) is not an incomplete predicate; whether it is or not will make no difference to the present discussion).

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Socrates now (37 e 10-11) gives Protarchus just the opening Pro- tarchus needs to throw Socrates' argument off the track:

X0CL L)V gOLXev ye '8ov' 7roXX&xL; o'u 0tm& U6Evj 40pq XuX ?vac WEDaOU; 7av yCrea'aL. (But now, pleasure very often seems to come to us not with a true belief, but with a false belief).

For what Socrates needs at this point, according to my arguments on pp. 168-71 above, is not that the being pleased sometimes occurs with (,uwo&)0 false believings (which, as I have just argued, is what the 86iau are throughout the passage so far), but that the being pleased is in false things believed (propositions), i.e. he needs the existence assumption: (10) There are pleasures (= cases of being pleased) and there are false

propositions such that the pleasures are each in one of those false propositions.

How 37 e 10-11 gives Protarchus what he wants becomes clear at 37 e 12 - 38 a 2:

xOCl T-s ,uv 3Waov ye, 6 EwXpatseq, ?v TXo rowCOUc xalt r6-e Xyoliev teU8i , rFV a aOVhV oGCUT7V ouelq &V 7COT; 7tpOaet7COL jeU8.

i.e., (11) Whenever there is a pleasure and a false proposition which occur

simultaneously, there is a believing which is in the false prop- osition & the believing is false & the believing is with the pleasure & the pleasure is not false.

Pleasure just occurs or fails to occur with or without simultaneous beliefs, Protarchus is saying (cp. the more extreme view at 37 c 4-6 which Socrates considers worth refuting). In effect this is either to deny that there is any relation corresponding to "y-ing in p" where pleasure is concerned, or to say that all pleasure in a belief is simply pleasure with (?tv: 37 e 10-11, 38 a 7) a believing.

There is no need to deny that Socrates would have accepted (11) with the "Whenever..." altered to "Sometimes, when..." as an anal- ysis of some cases of pleasure, e.g. that described in (4), enjoying skating and believing that one will win the skating race one also happens to be engaged in.'0 But the cases Socrates is interested in are those which are like (6). He must therefore re-direct Protarchus' 9 In section I, I contrasted pleasure in a belief with pleasure that merely occurs simultaneously with a belief. "With" here covers both "in" and "merely with". 10 Again (see n. 6), notice "pleasure" both for enjoying (in (4)) and for being pleased that (in (6)).

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attention to the idea of taking pleasure in a belief, i.e. in a proposition. This he does by means of the scribe and painter similes. And in the course of this, 86io ("belief") ceases to be what it was before, namely the believing, and becomes the thing believed (O' 8aO 6[ievov) - that which is written or that which is painted (39 a 4 with b 10 - c 1, c 4-5, 40 b 3: and cp. the ( clauses, which are obviously intended as 86iat at 38 d 6, 9-10, as well as X6yom at 38 e 3 (= Pv- evT: e 1), 39 a 3,5, 40 a 6, and erx6Ovoc, aoxaO wrVTo at 39 b 10, c 4-5, cp. 40 a 9-12; however, 40 d 1-2 will be the KoM&ewv ("believing") use if, as may be urged, the xaE at d 2 is epexegetic). There is no temptation to construe ypMcyuuas, dLxovoa and Cwypaqpu-xa (writings = things written, pictures, paintings = things painted) as 86oL in the "process" sense. And the relation of pleasure to the M6a. in the "product" sense is now given either by means of 't (40 c 9, d 8-10, 37 e 5; cp 48 b 11-12, 49 d 3 and 50 a 2 for ypMvoq, a mixture of pleasure and pain in the soul (47 d 5-6) = in effect s6 XaCLpSv ML TOL; 'Cv ypXwv xxxoZq, taking pleasure in the ills of one's friends) or by means of the use of the dative case for the object of pleasure (at 40 b 5 - c 2, 37 a 9, cp. 42 a 7-9). Here one might also notice the two different uses of opa' at 52 a 5 - b 5 on the one hand, and at 51 b 3-5, e 1, e 7 on the other. All of these devices are natural ones for the relation I have characterized as "p-ing in p".

Thus up to 37 e 9, ao'a is 'z6 8oRaCLv ("beheving"), while in the similes it has become so6 8ocx6[ievov ("the thing believed"). It is not certain which it is at 38 b 9-10 (mrwa), b 12 and e 3, which are in between the passage where Socrates makes for Protarchus the opening Protarchus needs for his view (expressed here as (11)) and the passage containing the similes. As for 37 e 10, where the opening is made, there seem to be three possibilities. (A) 86ocx is simply ambiguous here: Plato does not see the ambiguity and does not see the importance of the "in" - "with" contrast. (B) Plato is consciously exploiting the ambiguity of 86Ra to make his point. Furthermore, he consciously uses u at 37 e 10 in order to allow Protarchus to state his point with full

force, and then, after a transitional period, consciously substitutes for ,u& the various grammatical devices I have identified as natural for the relation of c-ing in p (e.g. i7r(, the use of the dative case). (C) As in (A), Plato is unaware of the ambiguity of 6Ra. and of the technical distinction one might want to make by means of "in" and "with", but having a clear conception of the perceptual or cognitive analogy he is urging, which we nowadays recognize in our talk of "propositional

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attitudes", in practice he uses 6oic, p?vt& and &nC or the dative case in conformity with the points made in terms of their English equivalents in section I. (The use of ~'ra is, as in (B), favourable to Protarchus' position, so might seem not to be independent evidence for (C); how- ever, it is clear that at 37 e 10 Plato does want a statement which is strong for Protarchus, so that its appearance is still perfectly consistent with (C)). I prefer (C) to either (B) or (A). I prefer (C) to (A) because it seems to me that the turnabout in the use of 8 ocin the course of this passage is truly remarkable, especially given his use of 8o'x elsewhere: on interpretation (A) it would be an extraordinarily fortunate accident that Plato should so grossly equivocate on 86ta and yet not spoil the argument. I prefer (C) to (B) not just because Plato makes none of the linguistic points mentioned explicitly, but also because (as I have argued elsewhere) the tracking down of process-product ambiguities was more difficult for the Greeks than for us because of the relative paucity of such ambiguities in Greek, at least in important philo- sophical contexts.'

The account I have offered displays clearly the analogy between pleasure and perception and explains why Plato lavished so much time on the scribe and painter similes. It also explains why Plato thought that the similes would be perceived by the reader or hearer of the dialogue as adequate to explain Protarchus' conversion at 40 d 4-5 (referring to d 1-2 and referred to at 42 a 7-9) from his position at 37 e 12 - 38 a 2. In the latter passage Protarchus had insisted that whenever a pleasure and a believing occur together, it is only the believing that can ever be said to be false; whereas in the former passages he is clearly conceding that in the case of anticipatory pleasures, the pleasures may sometimes also be false.12 This account

11 For example, in the crucial passages in the Republic, 475 d - 480 a (on know- ability and degrees of reality) and 509 d - 511 e (the divided line), 86oEx (like JMCFTrtlvv, YV&OLg, 8&&VOLO, vo03, T6 yLYVpCXCLV, Tr6 ao8a&tv and -rs 6p&v) is always used for what persons do or tend to do (their 8V' LL, t Loc'xT &v 'r 4UX) and contrasted with vo-l-6v, YV(OaT6v, gao0Xa6v, voo4Levov. Such passages make Plato's steering through the dangers of the ambiguity of in the Philebus even more noteworthy. See also the paper cited in n. 6. 11 There is a difficulty as to just where Protarchus concedes that pleasures can be false. It might seem that he does so at 40 b 8 - c 3. However, on any reading, 40 b 6-7

o6X0oV xalc 'olq xxxots 0oBaVC yc o'Ua&v *Tov 7r&pCLk V XypmqjnLkvoL, 4cokl; 8i ocrt 7ou.

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also shows why there is some plausibility to speaking of "false plea- sures". For (I) if Plato were as clear as account (B) above (p. 10) would make him, then the natural thing for him to say would be that "product"-beliefs can be true or false, are interpersonal and don't occur at any one particular time, while "process" beliefs are acquired and lost at certain times, may be firm or hopeless or wishful (as in "wishful thinking"), but cannot, strictly speaking, be true or false. But by a natural extension (which Protarchus accepts: 36 d 1) we do speak of people as "falsely believing" something, by analogy with "it is a mistake to think that..."; so, Plato would say, we should make the same extension for being pleased that as we have done for believing that. On the other hand, (II) if Plato were not as clear as account (B) makes him, but rather, as account (C) would have it, was just exploring the analogy between believing and being pleased which leads us to

is odd, for the 8ovlt... &k ypx ?&vxL which are called false are not the pleasures of anticipation which Socrates is (agreed on all hands to be) trying to show false on some occasions, but the pleasures being anticipated, the pleasures painted in the soul. I do not see how one can deny that for Plato there was a distinction between these two pleasures given the way anticipatory pleasures are set up (31 b - 32 c: the pictured pleasures - getting gold and many pleasures- must undoubtedly have been meant to include bodily pleasures, which according to Plato anticipatory pleasures cannot be). So I agree with Kenny (op. cit. 52) that 40 b 6-7 must be elliptical for something like: "And pictured pleasures are no less present to the evil, but [these pictures] are false." I suspect that the "false pleasures" mentioned at 40 c 1 and 40 c 4 (again iBovat) are in the same way pleasures that appear in false pictures of the future, and that it is those pleasures that are referred to by 'raio3a at 40 d 2. If this is right, then false anticipatory pleasures (represented at 40 c 1, d 7-8 - though not at a 12 - by yXopeLv) are not fully established in Protarchus' mind until 40 d 4 - e 1: the v'dra'rpoqpoq Mis true-false which applies to 86E,aL also applies to pleasures and pains. It is this account of 40 b 6-7 that I have assumed earlier in section II. It seems to me preferable both to that of Gosling [who has Plato equating picturing a future pleasure with "enjoying that pleasure in antici- pation" (1959, 52) and confusing (1961, 44) the having of pleasures (e.g. en- joying) with the pleasures had (e.g. the activity enjoyed) - which, it might seem, ought to be one of the last hypotheses considered in view of 37 a 5-9] and to that of Dybikowski [who has Socrates confusing the pleasure anticipated with the pleasure of anticipating and thinking of the former as false, and Pro- tarchus accepting what Socrates says because he confuses the picturing of the future pleasure (which he has conceded is false) with the pleasure pictured]. The machinery of both these accounts of confusion in Plato seems to me disproportionate.

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speak of them as "propositional attitudes", he is still observing in practice what he does not see in theory. Just as we believe truly or falsely just in case the things written or painted in our souls are true or false, so Plato urges, if we are pleased by something false which is written or painted in our souls we are being pleased falsely. On the account (B), the justification for speaking of "false pleasures" comes out even more clearly, namely in the distinction between (4) and (6), or Williams' (b) and (c). But even on account (C), I have argued (p. 9 above) that there is no reason to suppose Socrates would have denied a weaker form of (11), no reason to suppose he would not have accepted that in some cases pleasures which are not false pleasures could occur merely simultaneously with false believings. So even on this account we can characterize Socrates' arguments for false pleasures as his attempting to isolate (6) from (4).13

University of Wisconsin.

13 I received helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper from Gregory Vlastos and from members of a graduate seminar at Princeton, which I grate- fully acknowledge.

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Article Contentsp. 166p. 167p. 168p. 169p. 170p. 171p. 172p. 173p. 174p. 175p. 176p. 177p. 178

Issue Table of ContentsPhronesis, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1970), pp. 93-204Front MatterHintikka and a Strange Aristotelian Doctrine [pp. 93-100]The Material and Sources of Plato's Dream [pp. 101-122]Plato on Sense-Perception and Knowledge ("Theaetetus" 184-186) [pp. 123-146]False Pleasure and the "Philebus" [pp. 147-165]False Anticipatory Pleasures: "Philebus" 36a3-41a6 [pp. 166-178]Predication and Inherence in Aristotle's "Categories" [pp. 179-203]Back Matter