Timaeus' Explanation of Sense-Perceptual Pleasure. (9th December 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wolfsdorf, David
• Is Part Of: Journal of Hellenic studies. Volume 134(2014)
• Page Start: 120
• Page End: 135
• Publication Date: 2014-12-09
• Subjects: Timaeus, -- Plato, -- pleasure, -- physiology, -- psychology; Greek philology -- Periodicals; Inscriptions, Greek -- Periodicals; Greece -- Antiquities -- Periodicals; 938
• DOI: 10.1017/S0075426914000093
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0075-4269

Abstract

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.