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ETHICS & POLITICS, ANCIENT & MODERN
David Wolfsdorf (Temple University, Philosophy)
Friday January 18, 2013 | 03:15 -05:00 PM | 90

Title: Conceptions of Pleasure in Ancient and Contemporary Philosophy: Some Reflections

Abstract:

The paper relates to a book I've recently completed: Pleasure in Ancient Greek Philosophy (CUP, 2013). Broadly speaking, the book has two parts. The first examines conceptions of pleasure in ancient Greek philosophy. It begins with some pre-Platonic thinkers, then moves through Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Cyrenaics, and concludes with the Old Stoics. The second part examines contemporary conceptions, beginning with Gilbert Ryle's works of the 40s and 50s and continuing to the present. I conclude with a discussion of the relation between the ancient and contemporary treatments.

My aim in the paper is to examine select, significant points pertaining to the relation between ancient and contemporary philosophical conceptions of pleasure. There are two basic questions concerning pleasure that I pursue in the book and that I engage in the paper. The first, I call the identity question: What is pleasure? The second, I call the kinds question: What kinds of pleasure are there? Given the ways that the ancients and contemporaries respond to the identity and kinds questions, in the paper I focus on the relation between their respective views of three topics: hedonic attitudes, hedonic kinds, and hedonic feelings.

Commentator: John Tennant (Masters, Stanford, Classics).