Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Ode to Pain


Jowett Summary of Plato's "Philebus"

What is the origin of pleasure? Her natural seat is the mixed class, in which health and harmony were placed. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit. There is a natural union of finite and infinite, which in hunger, thirst, heat, cold, is impaired—this is painful, but the return to nature, in which the elements are restored to their normal proportions, is pleasant. Here is our first class of pleasures. And another class of pleasures and pains are hopes and fears; these are in the mind only. And inasmuch as the pleasures are unalloyed by pains and the pains by pleasures, the examination of them may show us whether all pleasure is to be desired, or whether this entire desirableness is not rather the attribute of another class. But if pleasures and pains consist in the violation and restoration of limit, may there not be a neutral state, in which there is neither dissolution nor restoration? That is a further question, and admitting, as we must, the possibility of such a state, there seems to be no reason why the life of wisdom should not exist in this neutral state, which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.

The second class of pleasures involves memory. There are affections which are extinguished before they reach the soul, and of these there is no consciousness, and therefore no memory. And there are affections which the body and soul feel together, and this feeling is termed consciousness. And memory is the preservation of consciousness, and reminiscence is the recovery of consciousness. Now the memory of pleasure, when a man is in pain, is the memory of the opposite of his actual bodily state, and is therefore not in the body, but in the mind. And there may be an intermediate state, in which a person is balanced between pleasure and pain; in his body there is want which is a cause of pain, but in his mind a sure hope of replenishment, which is pleasant. (But if the hope be converted into despair, he has two pains and not a balance of pain and pleasure.) Another question is raised: May not pleasures, like opinions, be true and false? In the sense of being real, both must be admitted to be true: nor can we deny that to both of them qualities may be attributed; for pleasures as well as opinions may be described as good or bad. And though we do not all of us allow that there are true and false pleasures, we all acknowledge that there are some pleasures associated with right opinion, and others with falsehood and ignorance.

25 comments:

  1. These are the moments when i begin to be convinced that 'Philosophy' is nothing but a grand hoax...

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  2. ...which is, moreover, the state of the gods, who cannot, without indecency, be supposed to feel either joy or sorrow.

    ...the same point of (in)decency has been used elsewhere, with a different effect:

    "Is it true that God is present everywhere?" a little girl asked her mother: "But I think that's indecent" - a hint for philosopher.

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  3. Philosophy is not theology. It merely separates/ divides.. ;-)

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  4. To demand decency of gods, Socrates seems strangely ignorant of Greek mythology to me. But then, perhaps, it was the sign of a new world order...

    Socrates vs. Homer

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  5. Socrates seems strangely ignorant of Greek mythology to me.

    ...but not of Pythagoras.

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  6. ...and the indictment against him WAS pretty clear...

    "Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state and introducing other, new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death."

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  7. Philosophy is not theology. It merely separates/ divides.. ;-)

    And give them new names... so that one has the happy notion that something is being 'said' - explained - when it is actually nothing but the old story of the turtles all the way down.

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  8. ...One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, however—the world grew older, and the dream vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremost—old Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"—he had said, or at least meant to say. But, is that—an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? "By means of a means (faculty)," namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere,

    Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,
    Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.

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  9. Boring people to sleep, on the other hand...

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  10. Neurochemistry is not my speciality.... ;)

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  11. "The highest occupation, according to Plato, is the study of philosophy; but this would not be possible for man if he had to be continually feeding, like a grazing animal, with its nose to the ground. Now, to obviate the necessity of eating all the time, long intestines are useful; therefore the cause of long intestines is the study of philosophy. Again, the eyes, nose, and mouth are in the front of the head, because( says Plato) the front is the nobler side,- as if the back would not have been the nobler side ( and the front side) had the eyes, nose, and mouth been there! This method is what Molière ridicules in "Le Malade Imaginaire", when the chorus sings that opium puts people to sleep because it has a dormitive virtue, the nature of which is to make the senses slumber."
    -Santayana

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  12. ...that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering...

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  13. Rabelais meets Plato:

    Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown...

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  14. ...unfinished. (Lucky's speech.)

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  15. How one "measures" these processes is of course, entirely arbitrary. ;)

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  16. The world is will to power. The "reasons" are known. All that's left is its' execution in the eternal processes of destruction and creation. Plato's "Divine Circles"...

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  17. ...as is a bias in either direction. G&E. ;)

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  18. Divide et impera at your own risk!

    Cause and effect: there is probably never any such duality; in fact there is a continuum before us, from which we isolate a few portions - just as we always observe a motion as isolated points, and therefore do not properly see it, but infer it. The abruptness with which many effects take place leads us into error; it is however only an abruptness for us. There is an infinite multitude of processes in that abrupt moment which escape us. An intellect which could see cause and effect as a continuum, which could see the flux of events not according to our mode of perception, as things arbitrarily separated and broken - would throw aside the conception of cause and effect, and would deny all conditionality.

    Even at the risk of being perceived "ridiculous".

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  19. Gay Science, #110

    Throughout immense stretches of time the intellect produced nothing but errors; some of them proved to be useful and preservative of the species: he who fell in with them, or inherited them, waged the battle for himself and his offspring with better success. Those erroneous articles of faith which were successively transmitted by inheritance, and have finally become almost the property and stock of the human species, are, for example, the following: that there are enduring things, that there are equal things, that there are things, substances, and bodies, that a thing is what it appears, that our will is free that what is good for me is also good absolutely. It was only very late that the deniers, doubters of such propositions came forward - it was only very late that truth made its appearance as the most impotent form of knowledge. It seemed as if it were impossible to get along with truth, our organism was adapted for the very opposite; all its higher functions, the perceptions of the senses, and in general every kind of sensation, cooperated with those primevally embodied, fundamental errors. Moreover, those propositions became the very standards of knowledge according to which the "true "and the "false" were determined - throughout the whole domain of pure logic. The strength of conceptions does not, therefore, depend on their degree of truth, but on their antiquity, their embodiment, their character as conditions of life. Where life and knowledge seemed to conflict, there has never been serious contention; denial and doubt have there been regarded as madness.

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  20. Nietzsche, WtP

    493 (1885) Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.

    534 (1887-1888) The criterion of truth resides in the enhancement of the feeling of power.

    858 (Nov. 1887-March 1888) What determines your rank is the quantum of power you are: the rest is cowardice.

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  21. The error of free will. That's what you "suffer" from, nicrap.

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  22. No matter how you "cut it", we were all born the fool. So vesti la giubba!

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  23. btw "The highest occupation, according to Plato, is the study of philosophy...

    It is certainly the most useless occupation (in exchange).

    Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations"

    The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called 'value in use ;' the other, 'value in exchange.' The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

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  24. yes, vesti la giubba!

    It makes me want to learn Italian...
    :-)

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