Abstract

The dissertation focuses on Plato's view in the Philebus that pleasure can be evaluated in respect of truth or falsity. My approach is unique in that I give a unifying account of a number of distinct cases of false pleasure. A central conclusion is that the idea behind the false pleasures doctrine is that the existence of certain pleasures depends upon their connection with illusion. I reject the view that false anticipatory pleasures are meant to be considered representationally false. I offer an interpretation which employs the partially normative notion of a pleasure's lacking its proper object