At Philebus 53c4–55a12, Plato’s Socrates identifies pleasure as an ontologically
inferior “becoming” (γένεσις) rather than a “being” (οὐσία) and then uses
this information to infer that pleasure, somehow, lacks value. This paper argues that
Plato’s γένεσις argument is not about the goodness of individual, particular episodes
of pleasure but instead targets the identification of pleasure as the good around which
we ought to organize our lives. It also shows that the argument is made up of tw…
Read moreAt Philebus 53c4–55a12, Plato’s Socrates identifies pleasure as an ontologically
inferior “becoming” (γένεσις) rather than a “being” (οὐσία) and then uses
this information to infer that pleasure, somehow, lacks value. This paper argues that
Plato’s γένεσις argument is not about the goodness of individual, particular episodes
of pleasure but instead targets the identification of pleasure as the good around which
we ought to organize our lives. It also shows that the argument is made up of two
subarguments—the argument from finality and the argument from a life not worth
living—both of which conclude that, as a γένεσις, pleasure cannot be the good our
life as a whole is aimed at reaching. Read in this way, the much maligned γένεσις
argument turns out to be more cogent and more interesting than is usually thought.
