abstract:

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 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.

摘要：

在Philebus 53c4–55a12中，柏拉图的苏格拉底将享乐识别为本体上逊色的“成为”（γένεσις），而不是“成为”（“ being”）（οὐσία），然后使用此信息来推断这种享乐缺乏价值。本文认为，柏拉图的γένεσις争论不是关于个体的善良，特别是关于快乐的发作，而是针对将快乐识别为“个人”。美好的生活，我们应该组织我们的生活。它还表明，论点由两个子论点组成-终结论和不值得生活的论点-两者都得出结论，作为一个γένεσις，快乐不能成为我们整个生活所追求的美好。达到。以这种方式阅读，比通常认为的更令人反感的γένεσις论据更具有说服力和趣味性。