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230-399: Philebus and Protarchus are hedonists ; they consider pleasure as the highest good and equate it with the absolute Good . Socrates represents the opposing view, prioritizing reason and insight. While he does not dispute the legitimacy and value of pleasure, he points out the diversity of pleasures and argues for a more nuanced assessment. He rejects some forms of pleasure as harmful and assigns

460-541: A strophion ( στρόφιον ) known as the kestos himas ( κεστὸς ἱμάς ), a saltire-shaped undergarment (usually translated as the girdle of Aphrodite ), which accentuated her breasts and made her even more irresistible to men. Such strophia were commonly used in depictions of the Near Eastern goddesses Ishtar and Atargatis . Aphrodite is almost always accompanied by Eros , the god of lust and sexual desire. In his Theogony , Hesiod describes Eros as one of

690-595: A Semitic deity, may have been influenced by the Indo-European dawn goddess. Both Aphrodite and Eos were known for their erotic beauty and aggressive sexuality and both had relationships with mortal lovers. Both goddesses were associated with the colors red, white, and gold. Michael Janda etymologizes Aphrodite's name as an epithet of Eos meaning "she who rises from the foam [of the ocean]" and points to Hesiod's Theogony account of Aphrodite's birth as an archaic reflex of Indo-European myth. Aphrodite rising out of

920-670: A suicide note to Theseus telling him that she killed herself because Hippolytus attempted to rape her. Theseus prays to Poseidon to kill Hippolytus for his transgression. Poseidon sends a wild bull to scare Hippolytus's horses as he is riding by the sea in his chariot, causing the horses to bolt and smash the chariot against the cliffs, dragging Hippolytus to a bloody death across the rocky shoreline. The play concludes with Artemis vowing to kill Aphrodite's own mortal beloved (presumably Adonis) in revenge. Glaucus of Corinth angered Aphrodite by refusing to let his horses for chariot racing mate, since doing so would hinder their speed. During

1150-461: A tranquil state of mind , and avoid pain. Following Antisthenes ( c.  446—366 BCE ), the Cynics warned against the pursuit of pleasure, viewing it as an obstacle to freedom. The Stoics also dismissed a hedonistic lifestyle, focusing on virtue and integrity instead of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Lucretius ( c.  99–55 BCE ) further expanded on Epicureanism, highlighting

1380-525: A Greek folk tale , originally independent of the Odyssey . In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon by the door to warn of Helios's arrival but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus; Ares in rage turned Alectryon into a rooster , which unfailingly crows to announce the sunrise. After exposing them, Hephaestus asks Zeus for his wedding gifts and dowry to be returned to him; by

1610-579: A Near Eastern origin argued that Aphrodite originated as an aspect of the Greek dawn goddess Eos and that she was therefore ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess * H a éusōs (properly Greek Eos , Latin Aurora , Sanskrit Ushas ). Most modern scholars have now rejected the notion of a purely Indo-European Aphrodite, but it is possible that Aphrodite, originally

1840-437: A central role in all forms of hedonism. Both pleasure and pain come in degrees corresponding to their intensity. They are typically understood as a continuum ranging from positive degrees through a neutral point to negative degrees. However, some hedonists reject the idea that pleasure and pain form a symmetric pair and suggest instead that avoiding pain is more important than producing pleasure. The nature of pleasure and pain

2070-463: A coherent perspective, is opposed to the "development hypothesis" of the "Revisionists," who assume a deviation from the theory of forms or at least from its "classical" variant. From a Unitarian perspective, the worldview presented in the Philebus is interpreted as a response to the problematization of the theory of forms in the dialogue Parmenides . Donald Davidson took a “revisionist” stance on

2300-402: A desire for posthumous fame . It is an open question to what extent these cases can be explained as types of pleasure-seeking behavior. Axiological or evaluative hedonism is the view that pleasure is the sole source of intrinsic value . An entity has intrinsic value or is good in itself if its worth does not depend on external factors. Intrinsic value contrasts with instrumental value , which

2530-455: A different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea ( Lady of Cythera ) and Cypris ( Lady of Cyprus ), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho 's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete. In Greek mythology , Aphrodite

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2760-650: A festival on the anniversary of his death. In one version of the story, Aphrodite injured herself on a thorn from a rose bush and the rose, which had previously been white, was stained red by her blood. According to Lucian 's On the Syrian Goddess , each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River in Lebanon (now known as the Abraham River ) ran red with blood. The myth of Adonis

2990-551: A fine, near invisible net. The next time Ares and Aphrodite had sex together, the net trapped them both. Hephaestus brought all the gods into the bedchamber to laugh at the captured adulterers, but Apollo , Hermes , and Poseidon had sympathy for Ares and Poseidon agreed to pay Hephaestus for Ares's release. Aphrodite returned to her temple in Cyprus, where she was attended by the Charites . This narrative probably originated as

3220-460: A form of egoism , meaning that people strive to increase their own happiness. This implies that a person is only motivated to help others if it is in their own interest because they expect a personal benefit from it. As a theory of human motivation, psychological hedonism does not imply that all behavior leads to pleasure. For example, if a person holds mistaken beliefs or lacks necessary skills, they may attempt to produce pleasure but fail to attain

3450-408: A form of psychological hedonism in his early psychoanalytic theory . He stated that the pleasure principle describes how individuals seek immediate pleasure while avoiding pain whereas the reality principle represents the ability to postpone immediate gratification to avoid unpleasant long-term consequences. The 20th century saw various criticisms of hedonism. G. E. Moore (1873–1958) rejected

3680-463: A game may enjoy the activity more than a tennis player who tries to maximize their enjoyment. It is controversial to what extent the paradox of hedonism is true since, at least in some cases, the pursuit of pleasure is successful. A related phenomenon, the hedonic treadmill is the theory that people return to a stable level of happiness after significant positive or negative changes to their life circumstances. This suggests that good or bad events affect

3910-555: A good life. Asceticism is a lifestyle dedicated to a program of self-discipline that renounces worldly pleasures. It can take various forms, including abstinence from sex and drugs, fasting , withdrawal from society, and practices like prayer and meditation . This lifestyle is often motivated by religious aspirations to become close to the divine, reach a heightened spiritual state, or purify oneself. Most forms of asceticism are opposed to hedonism and its pursuit of pleasure. However, there are forms of ascetic hedonism that combine

4140-413: A group of young men is also present, who only listen silently. They are apparently admirers of Philebus, whose homoerotic beauty is valued. Although the dialogue is named after him, Philebus plays only a minor role. The debate takes place between Socrates and Protarchus. Socrates, as in most Platonic dialogues, is the main character, the knowledgeable philosopher who leads and dominates the debate and helps

4370-401: A handsome mortal shepherd who lived in the foothills beneath Mount Ida near the city of Troy . Aphrodite appears to Anchises in the form of a tall, beautiful, mortal virgin while he is alone in his home. Anchises sees her dressed in bright clothing and gleaming jewelry, with her breasts shining with divine radiance. He asks her if she is Aphrodite and promises to build her an altar on top of

4600-612: A highly subjective phenomenon, it is difficult to establish a standardized metric. Moreover, asking people to rate their experiences using an artificially constructed scale may not accurately reflect their subjective experiences. A closely related problem concerns comparisons between individuals since different people may use the scales differently and thus arrive at different values even if they had similar experiences. Neuroscientists avoid some of these challenges by using neuroimaging techniques such as PET scans and fMRI . However, this approach comes with new difficulties of its own since

4830-533: A highly contrived etymology, deriving Aphrodite from the compound habrodíaitos ( ἁβροδίαιτος ), "she who lives delicately", from habrós and díaita . The alteration from b to ph is explained as a "familiar" characteristic of Greek "obvious from the Macedonians ". In the Cypriot syllabary , a syllabic script used on the island of Cyprus from the eleventh until the fourth centuries BC, Aphrodite's name

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5060-449: A joy or pain can be misplaced. The qualities "false" and "true" depend on the truth content. Socrates wants to transfer this determination to the associated sensations: It is possible to feel pleasure or pain about something only because one is mistaken about it. Then one not only has a false opinion about it, but the pleasure or pain is also based on a false premise, is misplaced, and thus "false". Protarchus rejects this. He insists that only

5290-418: A lower animal, which is neither aware of the past nor the future and does not even appreciate its present well-being, and a rational life without the capacity for sensation does not seem desirable. Both factors are thus required, and neither can be equated with the absolute Good. It remains to be clarified which of them is more valuable. Protarchus fears that pleasure will fare poorly, but does not want to abandon

5520-479: A method used to estimate the value of commodities based on their utility or effect on the owner's pleasure. Animal ethics is the branch of ethics studying human behavior towards other animals. Hedonism is an influential position in this field as a theory about animal welfare . It emphasizes that humans have the responsibility to consider the impact of their actions on how animals feel to minimize harm done to them. Some quantitative hedonists suggest that there

5750-454: A more ascetic lifestyle, a tendency common among Hindu , Buddhist , and Jain schools of thought. In ancient China, Yang Zhu ( c.  440–360 BCE ) argued that it is human nature to follow self-interest and satisfy personal desires. His hedonistic egoism inspired the subsequent school of Yangism . Hedonist philosophy received less attention in medieval philosophy . The early Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE),

5980-572: A more balanced pursuit of pleasure that aligns with virtue and rationality. Following a similar approach, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) associated pleasure with eudaimonia or the realization of natural human capacities, like reason. Epicurus (341–271 BCE) developed a nuanced form of hedonism that contrasts with the indulgence in immediate gratification proposed by the Cyrenaics. He argued that excessive desires and anxiety result in suffering, suggesting instead that people practice moderation, cultivate

6210-399: A natural balance; their elimination by addressing the deficiency is associated with pleasure. Similarly, an unnatural excess of heat or cold causes pain, while returning to harmony through cooling or warming creates a pleasant feeling. The phenomena mentioned represent a first type of pleasure and pain, which is triggered by current physical conditions. A second type arises in the soul through

6440-514: A new argument. He points out that the judgment about the intensity of pleasures and pains depends on the perspective from which one views them when assessing them comparatively. This dependence on perspective he compares to optical illusions, to show that there can be falsehoods in pleasures just as there can be in sensory perceptions. Socrates now takes a new approach, starting from the observation that only relatively strong bodily changes are perceived and provoke pleasure and pain. He argues that there

6670-427: A nine-point scale from -4 for the most unpleasant experiences, to +4 for the most pleasant ones. Some methods rely on memory and ask individuals to retrospectively assess their experiences. A different approach is for individuals to evaluate their experiences while they are happening to avoid biases and inaccuracies introduced by memory. In either form, the measurement of pleasure and pain poses various challenges. As

6900-587: A painter. The recordings in the memory along with the images trigger hopes and fears, pleasant and unpleasant feelings in the soul that views them. Since some of the recordings are false and much of what is hoped for or feared will not occur, the pleasure and pain generated by such memories and expectations are also illusory. Like an inaccurate opinion, it has no correlate in reality and is thus false. Bad people have false recordings, they live in illusions, and their pleasures are "false," for they are merely ridiculous imitations of true pleasures. The badness of bad pleasures

7130-438: A person and only consider two factors: intensity and duration. Some theorists formulate hedonism in terms of happiness rather than pleasure and pain. According to a common interpretation, happiness is the balance of pleasure over pain. This means that a person is happy if they have more pleasure than pain and unhappy if the balance is overall negative. There are also other ways to understand happiness that do not fully align with

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7360-441: A person's happiness temporarily but not in the long term—their overall level of happiness tends to revert to a baseline as they get used to the changed situation. For instance, studies on lottery winners indicate that their happiness initially increases as the newly acquired wealth augments their living standards but returns to its original level after about one year. If true, this effect would undermine efforts to increase happiness in

7590-436: A person. According to a common view, pleasure is one component of well-being. It is controversial whether it is the only factor and what other factors there are, such as health, knowledge, and friendship. Another approach focuses on desires, saying that well-being consists in the satisfaction of desires. The view that the balance of pleasure over pain is the only source of well-being is called prudential hedonism . Eudaimonia

7820-482: A pleasure based on an illusionary basis is false, lacking a relation to truth. Protarchus sees it differently. For him, pleasure always has the same nature, whether its cause is real or merely imagined. An opinion can be false, but pleasure is always "true" by its mere existence. However, Protarchus admits that both opinions and pleasures can have the quality of badness. This leads to the counter-argument of Socrates, who claims similar things for falsehood: Like an opinion,

8050-434: A public display of grief. In Hesiod's Works and Days , Zeus orders Aphrodite to make Pandora , the first woman, physically beautiful and sexually attractive, so that she may become "an evil men will love to embrace". Aphrodite "spills grace" over Pandora's head and equips her with "painful desire and knee-weakening anguish", thus making her the perfect vessel for evil to enter the world. Aphrodite's attendants, Peitho,

8280-414: A reason not to do so. However, a person would be free to harm others, and would even be morally required to, if they overall benefit from it. Utilitarian hedonism, also called classical utilitarianism , asserts that everyone's happiness matters. It says that a person should maximize the sum total of happiness of everybody affected by their actions. This sum total includes the person's own happiness, but it

8510-502: A single theory but to a family of theories about the role of pleasure . These theories are often categorized into psychological , axiological , and ethical hedonism depending on whether they study the relation between pleasure and motivation , value , or right action. While these distinctions are common in contemporary philosophy, earlier philosophers did not always clearly differentiate between them and sometimes combined several views in their theories. The word hedonism derives from

8740-436: A slightly earlier dating – originating in the last phase of Plato's middle period. For a more precise placement within the group of late dialogues, there is a lack of sufficient evidence. The hypothesis that Philebus was Plato's response to the hedonism of Eudoxus of Cnidus has led to the suggestion that the composition dates soon after 360 BC, though this attribution is highly uncertain. The textual transmission of Philebus

8970-483: A specific location in the body and do not arise in isolation since they are always directed at an object that people enjoy or suffer. Both philosophers and psychologists are interested in methods of measuring pleasure and pain to guide decision-making and gain a deeper understanding of their causes. A common approach is to use self-report questionnaires in which people are asked to quantify how pleasant or unpleasant an experience is. For example, some questionnaires use

9200-409: A specific relation to truth and falsehood. Likewise, according to Socrates' thesis, the sensations of pleasure and pain they evoke are related to truth and falsehood. This means that there are "true" and "false" pleasures. A pleasure experienced in a dream or in madness is of a different quality than one that has a relation to reality. One must distinguish between justified and illusory pleasure and pain;

9430-567: A subordinate rank in the hierarchical value order to the remaining "pure" pleasures. The distinction between types of pleasure leads to general considerations about the unity and plurality of types that are subsumed under a generic term, and about the categories into which all being can be divided. Socrates explores the causes, origins, and characteristics of various forms and mixtures of pleasure and pain that occur in human life and their changing combinations, which result in diverse emotional states. The specifics of each form of pleasure are analyzed, and

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9660-567: A temple to Aphrodite Hathor at Philae . Statuettes of Aphrodite for personal devotion became common in Egypt starting in the early Ptolemaic times and extending until long after Egypt became a Roman province . The ancient Romans identified Aphrodite with their goddess Venus , who was originally a goddess of agricultural fertility, vegetation, and springtime. According to the Roman historian Livy , Aphrodite and Venus were officially identified in

9890-498: A therapeutic goal of the dialogue. According to his interpretation, the primary concern is that Socrates acts as a therapist, a "soul doctor," who, like a physician, first makes a diagnosis and then turns to therapy. Accordingly, it is about the health of the soul, which Socrates sees as harmed by hedonism. His efforts aim to lead Protarchus to the right way of life. This effect is also intended for readers inclined towards hedonism. One topic that has attracted attention in modern research

10120-471: A thing, like a landscape, a painting, or a song, has aesthetic value if people are pleased by it or get aesthetic pleasure from it. It is a subjective theory because it focuses on how people respond to aesthetically engaging things. It contrasts with objective theories, which assert that aesthetic value only depends on objective or mind-independent features of things, like symmetry or harmonic composition. Some aesthetic hedonists believe that any type of pleasure

10350-463: A variety of quick-growing plants, such as lettuce and fennel , or even quick-sprouting grains such as wheat and barley . The women would then climb ladders to the roofs of their houses, where they would place the gardens out under the heat of the summer sun. The plants would sprout in the sunlight but wither quickly in the heat. Then the women would mourn and lament loudly over the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in

10580-505: A younger contemporary of Plato, was a hedonist, and the critique of hedonism in Philebus was, according to a research hypothesis, directed against his doctrine. As a dialogue character, Protarchus, like Philebus, represents the Athenian upper class, in which educational efforts were valued and philosophical topics sparked interest during the time of Socrates. In contrast to Philebus, Protarchus proves to be willing to learn and flexible. He

10810-547: Is Philommeidḗs ( φιλομμειδής ), which means "smile-loving", but is sometimes mistranslated as "laughter-loving". This epithet occurs throughout both of the Homeric epics and the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite . Hesiod references it once in his Theogony in the context of Aphrodite's birth, but interprets it as "genital-loving" rather than "smile-loving". Monica Cyrino notes that the epithet may relate to

11040-558: Is a form of well-being rooted in ancient Greek thought , serving as a foundation of many forms of moral philosophy during this period. Aristotle understood eudaimonia as a type of flourishing in which a person is happy by leading a fulfilling life and manifesting their inborn capacities. Ethical theories based on eudaimonia often share parallels with hedonism, like an interest in long-term happiness, but are distinguished from it by their emphasis of virtues , advocating an active lifestyle focused on self-realization . The paradox of hedonism

11270-453: Is a pleasure, including the joy of watching a sunset, whereas anything that feels bad is a pain, including the sorrow of losing a loved one. A traditionally influential position says that pleasure and pain are specific bodily sensations, similar to the sensations of hot and cold. A more common view in contemporary philosophy holds that pleasure and pain are attitudes of attraction or aversion toward objects. This view implies that they do not have

11500-426: Is a reduced ability to experience pleasure, and hedonophobia , which is a fear or aversion to pleasure. Positive psychology in general and hedonic psychology in particular are relevant to hedonism by providing a scientific understanding of the experiences of pleasure and pain and the processes impacting them. In the field of economics , welfare economics examines how economic activities affect social welfare . It

11730-400: Is above architecture as applied geometry. Of crucial importance for the systematics of science is the quality of the approach. In this respect, Dialectics , the expert, systematic analysis following the rules of logic, is superior to all other sciences. It deserves precedence because it provides the clearest and most accurate results with the highest degree of truth. Its object is the realm of

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11960-403: Is also possible that Plato's Protarchus is identifiable with an author – apparently a Rhetorician – of the same name cited by Aristotle . Philebus is considered challenging and difficult to understand. As early as 1809, the influential Plato translator Friedrich Schleiermacher noted in the introduction to the first edition of his translation: “This dialogue has always been considered one of

12190-561: Is always ruinous chaos. The right measure manifests itself in the form of beauty and excellence. Moreover, truth must always be mixed in. In human life, the Good does not appear immediately in its unity, but it can be grasped as beauty, appropriateness, and truth. The efficacy of the Good has "found refuge in the nature of the Beautiful". From these considerations, the exact determination of the hierarchical order of goods finally emerges. Reason

12420-621: Is an authentic connection between pleasure and reality. In response to these and similar criticisms, Fred Feldman (1941–present) has developed a modified form of hedonism. Drawing on Brentano's attitudinal theory of pleasure, he has defended the idea that even though pleasure is the only source of intrinsic goodness, its value must be adjusted based on whether it is appropriate or deserved. Peter Singer (1946–present) has expanded classical hedonism to include concerns about animal welfare . He has advocated effective altruism , relying on empirical evidence and reason to prioritize actions that have

12650-403: Is associated with spiritual love, and Pandemos with physical love (desire). A representation of Ourania with her foot resting on a tortoise came to be seen as emblematic of discretion in conjugal love; it was the subject of a chryselephantine sculpture by Phidias for Elis , known only from a parenthetical comment by the geographer Pausanias . One of Aphrodite's most common literary epithets

12880-591: Is associated with the festival of the Adonia , which was celebrated by Greek women every year in midsummer. The festival, which was evidently already celebrated in Lesbos by Sappho's time, seems to have first become popular in Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. At the start of the festival, the women would plant a "garden of Adonis", a small garden planted inside a small basket or a shallow piece of broken pottery containing

13110-509: Is attested in the forms 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠭𐠃𐠂 (a-po-ro-ta-o-i, read right-to-left), 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠯𐠭𐠂 (a-po-ro-ti-ta-i, samewise), and finally 𐠀𐠡𐠦𐠯𐠪𐠈 (a-po-ro-ti-si-jo, " Aphrodisian ", "related to Aphrodite", in the context of a month). The cult of Aphrodite in Greece was imported from, or at least influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia , which, in turn, was influenced by

13340-474: Is based on their falsehood. Protarchus agrees with part of these considerations but disagrees with the last thesis: He does not see that badness must necessarily be due to falsehood. From his perspective, pleasure and pain can indeed be bad, insofar as they are associated with bad things, but this badness is not like that of opinions a consequence of their falsehood, it does not consist in a certain relation to truth and falsehood. Following this, Socrates introduces

13570-428: Is considered one of Plato's most challenging dialogues. Manuscripts of the work give it the subtitle " peri hēdonēs, ēthikos " ("ethics/moral concerning pleasure") implying that its topic is "concerning pleasure" and it is a work on ethics — that is, the question of what way of life is best. However, in addition to the core theme of pleasure, it discusses a range of other philosophical questions; "there are large parts in

13800-474: Is desirable. The idea that most pleasures are valuable in some form is relatively uncontroversial. However, the stronger claim that all pleasures are valuable and that they are the only source of intrinsic value is subject to debate. Some critics assert that certain pleasures are worthless or even bad, like disgraceful and sadistic pleasures. A different criticism comes from value pluralists , who contend that other things besides pleasure have value. To support

14030-415: Is disputed and affects the plausibility of various versions of hedonism. In everyday language, these concepts are often understood in a narrow sense associated with specific phenomena, like the pleasure of food and sex or the pain of an injury. However, hedonists usually take a wider perspective in which pleasure and pain cover any positive or negative experiences. In this broad sense, anything that feels good

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14260-535: Is equivalent to " the good " and desirable for all living beings. Pleasure leads to the state of Eudaimonia ("happiness") and thus brings about a successful life. Socrates has disputed this and argued for the counter-thesis that there are more important and advantageous things: reason, knowledge, and memory, a correct understanding, and truthful deliberation. This debate has made Philebus weary, so he now leaves it to Protarchus to defend their common standpoint against Socrates' critique. Protarchus, however wishes to discuss

14490-408: Is evident, among other things, in health. Such a harmonious state is neither characterized by pleasure nor by pain. Both arise only when the harmony is disturbed and dissolves. Each such disturbance is felt as pain; its remediation is accompanied by a return to natural harmony, which is experienced as pleasure. For example, hunger and thirst are forms of pain resulting from deficiencies – disturbances of

14720-411: Is far superior to pleasure, as it has a greater share in truth as well as in measure and beauty. The highest of the goods below the absolutely Good is the right measure, followed by beauty, and thirdly reason. Fourth place is occupied by the sciences, arts, and true opinions, and fifth by the pure pleasures. This finding remains unchanged even if all oxen, horses, and other animals collectively advocate for

14950-432: Is generally accepted to be of non-Greek (probably Semitic ) origin, but its exact derivation cannot be determined with confidence. Scholars in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, accepting Hesiod's "foam" etymology as genuine, analyzed the second part of Aphrodite's name as * -odítē "wanderer" or as * -dítē "bright". More recently, Michael Janda, also accepting Hesiod's etymology, has argued in favor of

15180-470: Is good for an individual. It states that pleasure and pain are the sole factors of well-being, meaning that how good a life is for a person only depends on its balance of pleasure over pain. Prudential hedonism allows for the possibility that other things than well-being have intrinsic value, such as beauty or freedom. According to quantitative hedonism, the intrinsic value of pleasure depends solely on its intensity and duration. Qualitative hedonists hold that

15410-403: Is modest and open to subjecting his hedonistic worldview to an unbiased examination, whereas Philebus declares from the beginning that he will not change his opinion. Eventually, Protarchus is convinced by Socrates, after having tried to defend his position for some time. Protarchus is considered by some scholars as more likely to be a historical person than Philebus, though doubts still exist. In

15640-517: Is more problematic than that of other dialogues due to some corruptions , posing special challenges for textual criticism . The oldest surviving medieval manuscript of Philebus was produced in the year 895 in the Byzantine Empire for Arethas of Caesarea , while older manuscripts are limited to a few small papyrus fragments. Unlike many other Platonic dialogues such as the Phaedo or

15870-637: Is no significant difference between the pleasure and pain experienced by humans and other animals. As a result of this view, moral considerations about promoting the happiness of other people apply equally to all sentient animals. This position is modified by some qualitative hedonists, who argue that human experiences carry more weight because they include higher forms of pleasure and pain. While many religious traditions are critical of hedonism, some have embraced it or certain aspects of it, such as Christian hedonism . Elements of hedonism are also found in various forms of popular culture , such as consumerism ,

16100-441: Is not only a life shaped by pleasure and a life shaped by suffering, but also a third, neutral way of living where pleasure and pain hardly appear because the fluctuations in body condition are weak. With this statement, Socrates counters the doctrine of certain influential philosophers, who only distinguish between pleasure and pain and claim that pleasure consists of nothing other than the absence of pain or freedom from pain, thus in

16330-437: Is often seen as Aphrodite's son, but this is actually a comparatively late innovation. A scholion on Theocritus 's Idylls remarks that the sixth-century BC poet Sappho had described Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Uranus, but the first surviving reference to Eros as Aphrodite's son comes from Apollonius of Rhodes 's Argonautica , written in the third century BC, which makes him the son of Aphrodite and Ares. Later,

16560-436: Is often understood as a form of consequentialism , which asserts that an act is right if it has the best consequences. It is typically combined with axiological hedonism, which links the intrinsic value of consequences to pleasure and pain. As a result, the arguments for and against axiological hedonism also apply to ethical hedonism. Aesthetic hedonism is a theory about the nature of aesthetic value or beauty. It states that

16790-508: Is often understood as a form of normative economics that uses considerations of welfare to evaluate economic processes and policies. Hedonist approaches to welfare economics state that pleasure is the main criterion of this evaluation, meaning that economic activities should aim to promote societal happiness. The economics of happiness is a closely related field studying the relation between economic phenomena, such as wealth, and individual happiness. Economists also employ hedonic regression ,

17020-403: Is one thing in life that matters but not the only thing. Another form argues that some pleasures are good while others are bad. The strongest rejection of hedonism, sometimes termed anti-hedonism , claims that all pleasures are bad. Motivations to adopt this view include the idea that pleasure is an irrational emotion and that the pursuit of pleasure is an obstacle that prevents people from leading

17250-425: Is only driven by pleasure and pain when people actively reflect on the overall consequences. Another version is genetic hedonism, which accepts that people desire various things besides pleasure but asserts that each desire has its origin in a desire for pleasure. Proponents of psychological hedonism often highlight its intuitive appeal and explanatory power, arguing that many desires directly focus on pleasure while

17480-424: Is only one factor among many without any special preference compared to the happiness of others. As a result, utilitarian hedonism sometimes requires of people to forego their own enjoyment to benefit others. For example, philosopher Peter Singer argues that good earners should donate a significant portion of their income to charities since this money can produce more happiness for people in need. Ethical hedonism

17710-410: Is pleasant is the root of all human motivation. John Locke (1632–1704) stated that pleasure and pain are the only sources of good and evil. Joseph Butler (1692–1752) formulated an objection to psychological hedonism, arguing that most desires, like wanting food or ambition, are not directed at pleasure itself but at external objects. According to David Hume (1711–1776), pleasure and pain are both

17940-693: Is probably derived from the ancient Sumerian legend of Inanna and Dumuzid . The Greek name Ἄδωνις ( Adōnis , Greek pronunciation: [ádɔːnis] ) is derived from the Canaanite word ʼadōn , meaning "lord". The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the Lesbian poet Sappho ( c.  630 – c.  570 BC ), in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis's death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. Later references flesh out

18170-407: Is relevant to the aesthetic value of a thing. Others offer a more nuanced characterization, saying that aesthetic value is only based on how people with a well-developed taste respond to it. Outside the academic contexts of philosophy and psychology, the word hedonism is often used in a more narrow sense as a pejorative term. Sometimes called folk hedonism , it describes a lifestyle dedicated to

18400-532: Is subject to decay is by nature defective and always in need of something else. Here Socrates returns to the initial question of the dialogue. His argument is: Everything that becomes is oriented towards a superior Being. Becoming is not an end in itself, but every process of becoming takes place for the sake of a Being. Thus, the Good as the highest value cannot be something that arises for the sake of something else, but only that for which Becoming arises. In this, Socrates believes he has shown that equating pleasure with

18630-464: Is suggested by the fact that no historical bearer of this name is known, and it is a nickname that fits the character ("youth lover" or "friend of youthful pleasure"). Further indicators of fictionality are that the name of his father is not mentioned, and Plato has not given him a profile that would allow for historical classification. It is possible that Plato attributed features of the mathematician and philosopher Eudoxus of Cnidus to Philebus. Eudoxus,

18860-421: Is the interpretation of Socrates' argumentation for the "falseness" of pleasures, including what exactly the term "false" means in this context and to which aspect of certain pleasures it refers. It is debated whether for Plato's Socrates a false pleasure, due to its illusory character, is not a real pleasure but only appears to be among pleasures, or whether it is a falsehood analogous to the error of an opinion. In

19090-488: Is the theory that the underlying motivation of all human behavior is to maximize pleasure and avoid pain . As a form of egoism , it suggests that people only help others if they expect a personal benefit. Axiological hedonism is the view that pleasure is the sole source of intrinsic value . It asserts that other things, like knowledge and money, only have value insofar as they produce pleasure and reduce pain. This view divides into quantitative hedonism, which only considers

19320-414: Is the thesis that the direct pursuit of pleasure is counterproductive. It says that conscious attempts to become happy usually backfire, acting as obstacles to one's personal happiness. According to one interpretation, the best way to produce pleasure is to follow other endeavors, with pleasure being a by-product rather than the goal itself. For example, this view suggests that a tennis player who tries to win

19550-520: Is the traditional and predominant one. Difficulties arise in the connection of the four classes of beings introduced by Plato's Socrates with the Platonic theory of forms. It is disputed whether the classes – or at least some of them – are to be understood as forms. In particular, the assumption that even the Unlimited is a form is problematic and controversial. Moreover, it has been discussed whether

19780-445: Is the value of things that lead to other good things. According to axiological hedonism, pleasure is intrinsically valuable because it is good even when it produces no external benefit. Money, by contrast, is only instrumentally good because it can be used to obtain other good things but lacks value apart from these uses. Axiological hedonism asserts that only pleasure has intrinsic value whereas other things only have instrumental value to

20010-514: Is the younger of the two goddesses: the common Aphrodite, born from the union of Zeus and Dione, and the inspiration of heterosexual desire and sexual promiscuity, the "lesser" of the two loves. Paphian (Παφία), was one of her epithets, after the Paphos in Cyprus where she had emerged from the sea at her birth. Among the Neoplatonists and, later, their Christian interpreters, Ourania

20240-432: Is through a beatific vision of God. In Islamic philosophy , the problem of pleasure played a central role in the philosophy of al-Razi ( c.  864—925 or 932 CE ). Similar to Epicureanism, he recommended a life of moderation avoiding the extremes of excess and asceticism . Both al-Farabi ( c.  878–950 CE ) and Avicenna (980–1037 CE) asserted that a form of intellectual happiness, reachable only in

20470-438: Is to be assigned to the third category, to the things created by limiting the Unlimited. Reason has the task of ensuring the right mixture ratio. Thus, it belongs to the fourth category, to the causes of the mixture, which provide structure to the unordered and measureless. This applies not only to reason in humans but also analogously to the reason that governs the entire cosmos and orders it. The cosmic reason ensures, for example,

20700-566: Is today known under the designation diairesis . However, Socrates first brings up another consideration, with which he returns to the initial question of the ranking of goods. He suggests examining the possibility that neither pleasure nor reason is the highest good, but rather a third thing that is superior to both. The highest good can only be " the Good ", the absolute Good, which is surpassed by nothing and lacks nothing for perfection. This can apply neither to pleasure nor to reason. A pleasant life without mental function would be similar to that of

20930-570: Is unmarried and the wife of Hephaestus is Aglaea , the youngest of the three Charites . In Book Eight of the Odyssey , however, the blind singer Demodocus describes Aphrodite as the wife of Hephaestus and tells how she committed adultery with Ares during the Trojan War . The sun-god Helios saw Aphrodite and Ares having sex in Hephaestus's bed and warned Hephaestus, who fashioned

21160-432: Is usually identified as its earliest philosophical proponent. As a student of Socrates ( c.  469–399 BCE ), he formulated a hedonistic egoism, arguing that personal pleasure is the highest good. He and the school of Cyrenaics he inspired focused on the gratification of immediate sensory pleasures with little concern for long-term consequences. Plato ( c.  428–347 BCE ) critiqued this view and proposed

21390-461: The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus tells how, when the women of the island of Lemnos refused to sacrifice to Aphrodite, the goddess cursed them to stink horribly so that their husbands would never have sex with them. Instead, their husbands started having sex with their Thracian slave-girls . In anger, the women of Lemnos murdered the entire male population of the island, as well as all

21620-456: The Theaetetus , Philebus is not structured as a reported narrative from someone who had heard the conversation, rather, the dialogue begins abruptly, without any framing action. Nothing is revealed about the place, time, and occasion of the conversation. Athens, the hometown of Socrates, is the only possible setting. In addition to the three interlocutors Socrates, Protarchus, and Philebus,

21850-537: The Ancient Greek word ἡδονή ( hēdonē ), meaning ' pleasure ' . Its earliest known use in the English language is from the 1850s. Psychological or motivational hedonism is the view that all human actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain . It is an empirical view about what motivates people, both on the conscious and the unconscious levels. Psychological hedonism is usually understood as

22080-533: The Charvaka school in ancient India , and Yangism in ancient China . It attracted less attention in the medieval period but became a central topic in the modern era with the rise of utilitarianism. Various criticisms of hedonism emerged in the 20th century, while its proponents suggested new versions to meet these challenges. Hedonism remains relevant to many fields, ranging from psychology and economics to animal ethics . The term hedonism refers not to

22310-496: The Church of Aphrodite , Wicca , and Hellenism . Hesiod derives the name Aphrodite from aphrós ( ἀφρός ) "sea-foam", interpreting the name as "risen from the foam", but most modern scholars regard this as a spurious folk etymology . Early-modern scholars of classical mythology attempted to argue that Aphrodite's name was of Greek or Indo-European origin, but these efforts have mostly been abandoned. Aphrodite's name

22540-559: The Garden of the Hesperides and instructed him to toss them in front of Atalanta as he raced her. Hippomenes obeyed Aphrodite's order and Atalanta, seeing the beautiful, golden fruits, bent down to pick up each one, allowing Hippomenes to outrun her. In the version of the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses , Hippomenes forgets to repay Aphrodite for her aid, so she causes the couple to become inflamed with lust while they are staying at

22770-422: The Philebus places great emphasis on the distinction between the superior realm of unchanging being and the world of becoming and passing away dependent on it. Thus, Plato at least held onto a core component of the concept underlying the theory of forms. The question of whether he has changed his fundamental position is highly disputed in research. The view of the "Unitarians," who believe he consistently maintained

23000-492: The Philebus : Plato, when he wrote this dialogue, no longer believed that the theory of forms could be the main foundation of an ethical concept. He had abandoned the idea of a close link between forms and values. Therefore, he had to find a new approach for his ethics. Another controversial topic is the relationship of the metaphysics of the Philebus to Plato's unwritten doctrines , a hypothesized set of doctrines which he allegedly never fixed in writing, which many scholars of

23230-633: The Theogony , Hesiod describes Dione as an Oceanid , but Apollodorus makes her the thirteenth Titan , child of Gaia and Uranus. Aphrodite is consistently portrayed as a nubile, infinitely desirable adult, having had no childhood. She is often depicted nude. In the Iliad , Aphrodite is the apparently unmarried consort of Ares , the god of war, and the wife of Hephaestus is a different goddess named Charis . Likewise, in Hesiod's Theogony , Aphrodite

23460-530: The Vedic deity Ushas . Modern scholars, due to the believed Near Eastern origins of Aphrodite's worship, have since proposed Semitic origins for the name. Some scholars, such as Fritz Hommel , have suggested that Aphrodite's name is a hellenized pronunciation of the name " Astarte "; other scholars, however, reject this as being linguistically untenable. Martin West reconstructs a Cyprian Canaanite form of

23690-529: The entertainment industry , and the enduring influences of the sexual revolution . Aphrodite Aphrodite ( / ˌ æ f r ə ˈ d aɪ t iː / , AF -rə- DY -tee ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus , desire, sex , fertility , prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles , roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite

23920-463: The "Tübingen School" of Plato scholarship can be reconstructed in outline from individual hints in the dialogues and statements in other sources. Proponents of this hypothesis believe they have also found indications of the unwritten doctrines in the Philebus , or interpret statements in the dialogue in light of the unwritten doctrines. Hedonism Hedonism is a family of philosophical views that prioritize pleasure . Psychological hedonism

24150-462: The "true" pleasures, which are pure and in harmony with temperance, are permissible. Now it is to be investigated what constitutes the good, valuable mix that enables a successful life. The question arises whether this crucial factor is more related to pleasure or to reason. Socrates finds the answer simple, even trivial, because everyone knows it: The quality of a mix always depends on the right measure and proportionality. Where these are lacking, there

24380-561: The Charites, and the Horae, adorn Pandora with gold and jewelry. According to one myth, Aphrodite aided Hippomenes , a noble youth who wished to marry Atalanta , a maiden who was renowned throughout the land for her beauty, but who refused to marry any man unless he could outrun her in a footrace . Atalanta was an exceedingly swift runner and she beheaded all of the men who lost to her. Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three golden apples from

24610-407: The Good is ridiculous. He adds further arguments. Protarchus recognizes the cogency of the proof. Following the examination of the value of pleasure, Socrates subjects reason and knowledge to a similar scrutiny. Again, the question of "purity" and "truth" arises, here relating to the accuracy and reliability of the results provided by various fields of knowledge – crafts and sciences. When considering

24840-406: The Good, for otherwise it would suffice for man alone and pleasure would be unnecessary. In determining what is good in terms of human life, Socrates draws on the already gained knowledge that life is mixed with pleasure and displeasure, and therefore it depends on the right mix. Human life is a mixture of different factors. Now the question arises as to which types of knowledge should be included in

25070-525: The Romans, who saw Venus as a mother goddess, seized on this idea of Eros as Aphrodite's son and popularized it, making it the predominant portrayal in works on mythology until the present day. Aphrodite's main attendants were the three Charites , whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome and names as Aglaea ("Splendor"), Euphrosyne ("Good Cheer"), and Thalia ("Abundance"). The Charites had been worshipped as goddesses in Greece since

25300-519: The Thracian slaves. When Jason and his crew of Argonauts arrived on Lemnos, they mated with the sex-starved women under Aphrodite's approval and repopulated the island. From then on, the women of Lemnos never disrespected Aphrodite again. In Euripides 's tragedy Hippolytus , which was first performed at the City Dionysia in 428 BC, Theseus's son Hippolytus worships only Artemis ,

25530-540: The absence of mental illness . On the individual level, it investigates experiences of pleasure and pain and the role of character traits . On the societal level, it examines how social institutions impact human well-being. Hedonic psychology or hedonics is one of the main pillars of positive psychology by studying pleasurable and unpleasurable experiences. It investigates and compares different states of consciousness associated with pleasure and pain, ranging from joy and satisfaction to boredom and sorrow. It also examines

25760-529: The afterlife, is the highest human good. At the transition to the early modern period, Lorenzo Valla ( c.  1406–1457 ) synthesized Epicurean hedonism with Christian ethics , suggesting that earthly pleasures associated with the senses are stepping stones to heavenly pleasures associated with Christian virtues. Hedonism gained prominence during the Age of Enlightenment . According to Thomas Hobbes 's (1588–1679) psychological hedonism, self-interest in what

25990-405: The author wants to present to the reader. Friedländer suggests that Philebus does not participate in the philosophical investigation because he embodies an irrational principle that does not give an account of itself. There is no evidence outside the dialogue for the existence of a historical acquaintance of Socrates named Philebus. It is quite possible that he is a purely fictional character. This

26220-456: The beginning of Greek history, long before Aphrodite was introduced to the pantheon. Aphrodite's other set of attendants was the three Horae (the "Hours"), whom Hesiod identifies as the daughters of Zeus and Themis and names as Eunomia ("Good Order"), Dike ("Justice"), and Eirene ("Peace"). Aphrodite was also sometimes accompanied by Harmonia , her daughter by Ares, and Hebe , the daughter of Zeus and Hera. The fertility god Priapus

26450-463: The category of "Linguistic utterance" or "tone". One determines what subcategories this category consists of and how these in turn are divided into types and subtypes. Thus, one progresses from the general to the specific and captures the structure of the relevant field of knowledge. In the field of linguistic sounds, for example, it turns out that they divide into consonants and vowels. Among consonants, voiceless and voiced are to be distinguished, and

26680-405: The category to which pleasure and pain belong, but that of the psyche, for the psyche is the locus of both states, insofar as they occur concretely in humans. The psyche belongs to the category of things characterized by mixing, created by the limitation of the unlimited. In living beings, nature has created a harmonious order through rational mixing and limiting of potentially unlimited factors. This

26910-471: The chariot race at the funeral games of King Pelias , Aphrodite drove his horses mad and they tore him apart. Polyphonte was a young woman who chose a virginal life with Artemis instead of marriage and children, as favoured by Aphrodite. Aphrodite cursed her, causing her to have children by a bear. The resulting bear-like offspring Agrius and Oreius were wild cannibals who incurred the hatred of Zeus for attacking traveling strangers. Ultimately, Ares (who

27140-413: The city. Arsinoe II introduced the cult of Adonis to Alexandria and many of the women there partook in it. The Tessarakonteres , a gigantic catamaran galley designed by Archimedes for Ptolemy IV Philopator , had a circular temple to Aphrodite on it with a marble statue of the goddess herself. In the second century BC, Ptolemy VIII Physcon and his wives Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III dedicated

27370-421: The course with the highest overall contribution to happiness. Bentham considered several factors for each pleasurable experience: its intensity and duration, the likelihood that it occurs, its temporal distance, the likelihood that it causes further experiences of pleasure and pain, and the number of people affected. Some simplified versions of the hedonic calculus focus primarily on what is intrinsically valuable to

27600-812: The cult of the Mesopotamian goddess known as "Ishtar" to the East Semitic peoples and as " Inanna " to the Sumerians . Pausanias states that the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians , followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon . The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera . Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. Furthermore, she

27830-465: The designation "false pleasure" is justified. True or genuine are therefore only pure pleasures, i.e., pleasures that neither arise from the elimination of a displeasure nor themselves have an admixture of displeasure. The pure pleasures consist, as Socrates now explains, not in the absence of displeasure, but have their own reality and nature. They relate, for example, to beautiful colors and shapes as well as to pleasant smells and sounds. This also includes

28060-463: The dialogue that deal with dialectics and ontology but have nothing to do with pleasure and ethics, or if so, only indirectly". In modern research, the classification of all being into four classes by Socrates and the relationship of this classification to Plato's Theory of Forms and to his " unwritten doctrines " receive particular focus. Research is almost unanimous in classifying Philebus among Plato's "late" dialogues. It has been proposed that

28290-576: The dialogue, Socrates calls him "son of Callias". Dorothea Frede believes that Protarchus was one of the two sons of the wealthy Athenian known in the scholarly literature as " Callias III " who are mentioned in Plato's Apology . They were, according to Plato's statements there, taught by the Sophist Euenus of Paros . In Philebus , Protarchus speaks respectfully of the famous rhetoric teacher Gorgias and identifies himself as his eager student. It

28520-432: The effort for truth. Before the new investigation can begin, the general question of the classification of the whole of being must be clarified. The whole of reality can be divided into four categories: Everything capable of being increased or decreased, such as "warm" and "cold", "big" and "small", "fast" and "slow", falls into the category of the Unlimited, while equality and all mathematically expressible data belong to

28750-402: The egoistic pursuit of short-term gratification. For example, a person who indulges in sex and drugs without concern for the long-term consequences of their behavior is acting hedonistically in this sense. The negative connotation of the term is associated with a lack of interest or foresight regarding the potential harm or ethical implications of such actions. Negative consequences can impact both

28980-434: The ethical attitude of the dialogue character roughly corresponds to that of his real-life model. Philebus is young, more a teenager than a young man. His beauty is repeatedly emphasized. His special relationship with the goddess of love Aphrodite , to whom he gives the name of pleasure (Hedone), apparently reflects his view that his commitment to hedonism is in line with the goddess. It is notable that Philebus, while being

29210-478: The existence and nature of everything that arises and perishes there. The Platonic form is a stable, delimited unity and appears simultaneously as a limitless multiplicity, uniting opposites, which appears to be paradoxical. Socrates then illustrates the concept of One and Many using examples. "Speech sound" and "tone" are general terms that encompass an unlimited variety of individual acoustic phenomena. Language consists of sounds, music of tones. Anyone who only knows

29440-444: The extent that they influence pleasure and pain. Theories of ethical hedonism can be divided into egoistic and utilitarian theories. Egoistic hedonism says that each person should only pursue their own pleasure. According to this controversial view, a person only has a moral reason to care about the happiness of others if this happiness impacts their own well-being. For example, if a person feels guilty about harming others, they have

29670-433: The extent that they lead to pleasure or the avoidance of pain. The overall value of a thing depends on both its intrinsic and instrumental value. In some cases, even unpleasant things, like a painful surgery, can be overall good, according to axiological hedonism, if their positive consequences make up for the unpleasantness. Prudential hedonism is a form of axiological hedonism that focuses specifically well-being or what

29900-422: The fact that, in many artistic depictions of Aphrodite, she is shown smiling. Other epithets of her include Mechanitis meaning skilled in inventing and Automata because, according to Servius , she was the source of spontaneous love. Common literary epithets of Aphrodite are Cypris and Cythereia , which derive from her associations with the islands of Cyprus and Cythera respectively. On Cyprus, Aphrodite

30130-468: The forms fit into one of the four categories or are identifiable with one of them. Moreover, it is unclear what role the theory of forms plays in the Philebus . Since it is not explicitly addressed, it has been suggested that it is not present here. This assumption fits the hypothesis that Plato distanced himself from the theory of forms in his last creative period, having abandoned it or at least considered it in need of revision. However, Plato's Socrates in

30360-448: The four original primeval forces born at the beginning of time, but, after the birth of Aphrodite from the sea foam, he is joined by Himeros and, together, they become Aphrodite's constant companions. In early Greek art, Eros and Himeros are both shown as idealized handsome youths with wings. The Greek lyric poets regarded the power of Eros and Himeros as dangerous, compulsive, and impossible for anyone to resist. In modern times, Eros

30590-420: The fourth category – is what curbs the potentially unlimited with measure and order, ensures the right mixture ratios, and thus produces all that is beautiful and valuable. Pleasure and displeasure are now classified into this categorization. By "pleasure," all pleasant feelings are meant, and by "displeasure," all unpleasant ones. Both belong to the potentially increasable and thus Unlimited. The mixed human life

30820-425: The future. The emergence of positive psychology at the turn of the 21st century has led to an increased interest in the empirical exploration of various topics of hedonism. Positive psychology studies how to cultivate happiness and promote optimal human functioning. Unlike traditional psychology , which often focuses on psychopathology , positive psychology emphasizes that optimal functioning goes beyond merely

31050-416: The general concepts of "sound" and "tone" and the existence of a multitude of corresponding individual phenomena still possesses no useful knowledge. One is only linguistically or musically competent if one knows the number and types of relevant sounds or tones, i.e., can fully and correctly classify the individual elements of the respective set. To this end, one starts from the most general overarching concept,

31280-542: The goal is to increase overall happiness for everyone, whereas egoistic versions state that each person should only pursue their own pleasure. Outside the academic context, hedonism is a pejorative term for an egoistic lifestyle seeking short-term gratification. Hedonists typically understand pleasure and pain broadly to include any positive or negative experience . While traditionally seen as bodily sensations, contemporary philosophers tend to view them as attitudes of attraction or aversion toward objects. Hedonists often use

31510-471: The goddess of virginity, and refuses to engage in any form of sexual contact. Aphrodite is infuriated by his prideful behavior and, in the prologue to the play, she declares that, by honoring only Artemis and refusing to venerate her, Hippolytus has directly challenged her authority. Aphrodite therefore causes Hippolytus's stepmother, Phaedra , to fall in love with him, knowing Hippolytus will reject her. After being rejected, Phaedra commits suicide and leaves

31740-405: The goddess of virginity. Aphrodite tells Anchises that she is still a virgin and begs him to take her to his parents. Anchises immediately becomes overcome with mad lust for Aphrodite and swears that he will have sex with her. Anchises takes Aphrodite, with her eyes cast downwards, to his bed, which is covered in the furs of lions and bears. He then strips her naked and makes love to her. After

31970-475: The goddess to claim that Ourania and Pandemos are, in fact, separate goddesses. He asserts that Aphrodite Ourania is the celestial Aphrodite, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and the older of the two goddesses. According to the Symposium , Aphrodite Ourania is the inspiration of male homosexual desire , specifically the ephebic eros , and pederasty . Aphrodite Pandemos , by contrast,

32200-425: The healthy not in quantity but in intensity. Similarly, it is with the extravagant, who tend to excess: Their pleasure is more intense than that of the prudent and moderate, who do not overdo anything. This means: A poor state of body and soul enables the greatest pleasure. Thus, pleasure has its origin not in excellence ( aretḗ ) , but in its opposite. For the purpose of testing the argument, Socrates first considers

32430-560: The hedonistic idea that pleasure is the only source of intrinsic value. According to his axiological pluralism , there are other sources, such as beauty and knowledge , a criticism also shared by W. D. Ross (1877–1971). Both C. D. Broad (1887–1971) and Richard Brandt (1910–1997) held that malicious pleasures, like enjoying the suffering of others, do not have inherent value. Robert Nozick (1938–2002) used his experience machine thought experiment about simulated pleasure to argue against traditional hedonism, which ignores whether there

32660-465: The idea that beauty is an additional source of value, G. E. Moore used a thought experiment involving two worlds: one exceedingly beautiful and the other a heap of filth. He argued that the beautiful world is better even if there is no one to enjoy it. Another influential thought experiment, proposed by Robert Nozick , involves an experience machine able to create artificial pleasures. Based on his observation that most people would not want to spend

32890-547: The importance of excellence and self-overcoming instead, stating that suffering is necessary to achieve greatness rather than something to be avoided. An influential view about the nature of pleasure was developed by Franz Brentano (1838–1917). He dismissed the idea that pleasure is a sensation located in a specific area of the body, proposing instead that pleasure is a positive attitude that people can have towards various objects —a position also later defended by Roderick Chisholm (1916–1999). Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) developed

33120-407: The importance of overcoming obstacles to personal happiness, such as the fear of death. In ancient India , the Charvaka school developed a hedonistic egoism, starting between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Their belief in the non-existence of God or an afterlife led them to advocate for enjoying life in the present to the fullest. Many other Indian traditions rejected this view and recommended

33350-408: The individual and the people around them, affecting areas such as health, financial stability, relationships, and societal responsibilities. Most philosophical hedonists reject the idea that a lifestyle characterized by folk hedonism leads to long-term happiness. Pleasure and pain are fundamental experiences about what is attractive and aversive, influencing how people feel, think, and act. They play

33580-443: The intended outcome. The standard form of psychological hedonism asserts that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the only sources of all motivation. Some psychological hedonists propose weaker formulations, suggesting that considerations of pleasure and pain influence most actions to some extent or limiting their role to certain conditions. For example, reflective or rationalizing hedonism says that human motivation

33810-438: The intensity and duration of pleasures, and qualitative hedonism, which holds that the value of pleasures also depends on their quality. The closely related position of prudential hedonism states that pleasure and pain are the only factors of well-being . Ethical hedonism applies axiological hedonism to morality , arguing that people have a moral obligation to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Utilitarian versions assert that

34040-500: The interplay of sensations triggered by the body with purely mental feelings, different mixtures of pleasure and pain arise. When someone suffers from a physical deficiency – an "emptiness" – his pain is either alleviated or intensified by his concurrent imaginations, depending on whether he expects the regaining of the desired fullness or associates the memory of fullness with hopelessness. Imaginations and expectations that generate feelings can be realistic or erroneous. Thus, they each have

34270-631: The islands of Cyprus , Cythera , and Sicily . Aphrodite's Mesopotamian precursor Inanna-Ishtar was also closely associated with prostitution. Scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries believed that the cult of Aphrodite may have involved ritual prostitution , an assumption based on ambiguous passages in certain ancient texts, particularly a fragment of a skolion by the Boeotian poet Pindar , which mentions prostitutes in Corinth in association with Aphrodite. Modern scholars now dismiss

34500-422: The joy of learning, of gaining knowledge. Such joys are moderate in contrast to the violent pleasures. Socrates emphasizes that it only depends on the purity of the pleasure, not on its quantity or intensity; the slightest pure pleasure is more pleasant, more beautiful, and truer than the greatest impure pleasure. Socrates now raises another topic: the relationship of pleasure to Being and Becoming. This refers to

34730-576: The later legends of Hermaphroditus . Aphrodite's main festival, the Aphrodisia , was celebrated across Greece, but particularly in Athens and Corinth . In Athens, the Aphrodisia was celebrated on the fourth day of the month of Hekatombaion in honor of Aphrodite's role in the unification of Attica. During this festival, the priests of Aphrodite would purify the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos on

34960-402: The latter case, the falsehood is a defect that does not prevent an actual pleasure from existing. Furthermore, it is debated whether Plato provides a comprehensive interpretation of pleasure that encompasses all types of pleasure, or whether the types are so fundamentally different for him that he refrains from a universally valid determination of the nature of pleasure. The former interpretation

35190-493: The latter of these interpretations and claims the story of a birth from the foam as an Indo-European mytheme . Similarly, Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak proposes an Indo-European compound *abʰor- "very" and *dʰei- "to shine", also referring to Eos , and Daniel Kölligan has interpreted Aphrodite's name as "shining up from the mist/foam". Other scholars have argued that these hypotheses are unlikely, since Aphrodite's attributes are entirely different from those of both Eos and

35420-481: The limit-like as definite sizes. The mixture of these two categories comes about because certain limits are set to the naturally unlimited, thus creating structures dependent on numbers. For instance, music arises from a certain mixture of high and low, fast and slow, which is based on numerical ratios. Health, too, is a certain mixture of factors that alone would cause excess and illness. Such mixtures are not arbitrary and random, but are orderly and moderate. Their cause –

35650-417: The long term, including personal efforts to lead a healthy lifestyle and social efforts to create a free, just, and prosperous society. While there is some empirical support for this effect, it is controversial how strong this tendency is and whether it applies to all fields or only to certain aspects of life. Non-hedonist theories reject certain aspects of hedonism. One form of non-hedonism says that pleasure

35880-555: The lovemaking is complete, Aphrodite reveals her true divine form. Anchises is terrified, but Aphrodite consoles him and promises that she will bear him a son. She prophesies that their son will be the demigod Aeneas , who will be raised by the nymphs of the wilderness for five years before going to Troy to become a nobleman like his father. The story of Aeneas's conception is also mentioned in Hesiod's Theogony and in Book II of Homer's Iliad . The myth of Aphrodite and Adonis

36110-415: The matter with an open mind, whereas Philebus outright states that he will always hold on to the precedence of pleasure. Socrates begins his critique of the glorification of pleasure by noting that pleasure is not a simple, uniform entity. Rather, there are diverse and even disparate phenomena that are grouped under this term. The pleasure of a profligate person is not comparable to that of a prudent one, and

36340-399: The measure of ethical value and the main motivators fueling the passions. The libertine novels of Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) depicted an extreme form of hedonism, emphasizing full indulgence in pleasurable activities without moral or sexual restraint . Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) developed an influential form of hedonism known as classical utilitarianism . One of his key innovations

36570-436: The mere anticipation of pleasurable and painful experiences; its cause is the memory of corresponding experiences. It is also important to note that there is a third state besides the pleasurable and painful one. This is the harmonious and undisturbed state, where pleasure and pain do not occur excessively. Avoiding strong fluctuations between pleasure and pain is characteristic of a life shaped by reason. Next, Socrates turns to

36800-450: The mix. It turns out that not only the highest and most reliable knowledge, pure theory, is needed for a successful life, but also some empirical and technical knowledge despite its inaccuracy. No subordinate knowledge can ever be harmful if the superior one is present, thus all types of knowledge are welcome. The case is different with pleasure. The greatest and most intense pleasures are very harmful, as they destroy knowledge. Therefore, only

37030-451: The most famous story, Zeus hastily married Aphrodite to Hephaestus in order to prevent the other gods from fighting over her. In another version of the myth, Hephaestus gave his mother Hera a golden throne, but when she sat on it, she became trapped and he refused to let her go until she agreed to give him Aphrodite's hand in marriage. Hephaestus was overjoyed to be married to the goddess of beauty, and forged her beautiful jewelry, including

37260-513: The most important, but also one of the hardest among the works of Plato.” However, recent research has emphasized the well thought-out structure of the Philebus, including the doctrine of affect and the approach to a theory of comedy. Reference numbers are given in Stephanus pagination ; the dialogue runs from page 11a-67b. The dialogue starts abruptly in the middle of ongoing conversation. Philebus has posited that pleasure or delight (hēdonḗ)

37490-421: The most significant positive impact. Inspired by the philosophy of Albert Camus (1913–1960), Michel Onfray (1959–present) has aimed to rehabilitate Epicurean hedonism in a modern form. David Pearce (1959–present) has developed a transhumanist version of hedonism, arguing for the use of modern technology, ranging from genetic engineering to nanotechnology , to reduce suffering and possibly eliminate it in

37720-641: The mother of the entire Roman nation. Julius Caesar claimed to be directly descended from Aeneas's son Iulus and became a strong proponent of the cult of Venus. This precedent was later followed by his nephew Augustus and the later emperors claiming succession from him. This syncretism greatly impacted Greek worship of Aphrodite. During the Roman era, the cults of Aphrodite in many Greek cities began to emphasize her relationship with Troy and Aeneas. They also began to adopt distinctively Roman elements, portraying Aphrodite as more maternal, more militaristic, and more concerned with administrative bureaucracy. She

37950-464: The mountain if she will bless him and his family. Aphrodite lies and tells him that she is not a goddess, but the daughter of one of the noble families of Phrygia . She claims to be able to understand the Trojan language because she had a Trojan nurse as a child and says that she found herself on the mountainside after she was snatched up by Hermes while dancing in a celebration in honor of Artemis ,

38180-590: The name as either *ʿAprodît or *ʿAproḏît , and cautiously suggests the latter as being an epithet with the meaning "She of the Villages". Aren Wilson-Wright suggests the Phoenician form *ʾAprodīt as an elative epithet meaning "unique, excellent, sublime". A number of improbable non-Greek etymologies have also been suggested. One Semitic etymology compares Aphrodite to the Assyrian barīrītu ,

38410-666: The name of a female demon that appears in Middle Babylonian and Late Babylonian texts. Hammarström looks to Etruscan , comparing (e)prθni "lord", an Etruscan honorific loaned into Greek as πρύτανις . This would make the theonym in origin an honorific, "the lady". Most scholars reject this etymology as implausible, especially since Aphrodite's name actually appears in Etruscan in the borrowed form Apru (from Greek Aphrō , clipped form of Aphrodite ). The medieval Etymologicum Magnum ( c.  1150 ) offers

38640-414: The need for fullness. One must already know the opposite in order to desire it. Only the soul is capable of this, for only it has memories. The body is limited to the present and can therefore desire nothing. Thus, all desires are purely of the soul. Next, the mixture of pleasure and pain is examined more closely. The question arises as to what these sensations have to do with reality and illusion. Through

38870-422: The neurological basis of happiness is not yet fully understood. Based on the idea that individual experiences of pleasure and pain can be quantified, Jeremy Bentham proposed the hedonistic calculus as a method to combine various episodes to arrive at their total contribution to happiness. This makes it possible to quantitatively compare different courses of action based on the experiences they produce to choose

39100-493: The neutral state. By defining pleasure merely as the absence of pain, they deny it any independent reality. Thus, they prove to be the sharpest opponents of hedonism. An argument by the pleasure-hostile philosophers could be: The strongest forms of pleasure and pain generate the greatest desires. Sick people experience more severe deficiencies than healthy ones. Therefore, they have more intense desires and feel stronger pleasure when these are satisfied. Their pleasure exceeds that of

39330-648: The notion of ritual prostitution in Greece as a "historiographic myth" with no factual basis. During the Hellenistic period , the Greeks identified Aphrodite with the ancient Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis . Aphrodite was the patron goddess of the Lagid queens and Queen Arsinoe II was identified as her mortal incarnation. Aphrodite was worshipped in Alexandria and had numerous temples in and around

39560-472: The oldest strata of her worship and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins. Nineteenth-century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but, even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker , who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite

39790-424: The opinion is false. To call pleasure "false" as well he finds absurd. Opinions arise, as Socrates now explains, from the comparison of perceptions with memories of earlier perceptions. This comparison can go wrong; perceptions and the memories of them can be erroneous. Socrates compares the soul, in which the memories are recorded, to a book that contains true and false reports recorded by a writer and illustrated by

40020-471: The others gain insights. Unlike in the early dialogues, where he holds back his own opinion and leads his interlocutors to new thoughts with purposeful questions, here he develops his own theory. Since the dialogue is a fictional literary construct, the concept that Plato puts in Socrates' mouth should not necessarily be regarded as the position of the historical Socrates, although some scholars have noted that

40250-453: The others have an indirect focus by aiming at the means to bring about pleasure. Critics of psychological hedonism often cite apparent counterexamples in which people act for reasons other than their personal pleasure. Proposed examples include acts of genuine altruism , such as a soldier sacrificing themselves on the battlefield to save their comrades or a parent wanting their children to be happy. Critics also mention non-altruistic cases, like

40480-406: The philosophical distinction between the eternal, perfect, and self-sufficient Being on the one hand, and the transient, imperfect, and dependent Becoming on the other. Being is cause, Becoming is caused. All pleasure arises and passes away. Since it belongs to the realm of the caused and transient, it has no true being, but only becoming. From this, its inferiority is evident, for all that becomes and

40710-607: The pleasure of a reasonable person is not comparable to that of a fool. Protarchus counters that although the causes of pleasant feelings are opposites, the effect is always the same. He argues that pleasure is always pleasure and always good. To counter this, Socrates makes a comparison with the concept of "color": both black and white are colors, yet one is the exact opposite of the other. Similarly, there are opposing pleasures; some are bad, others good. Protarchus initially does not concede this; only when Socrates also describes his favored good, knowledge, as diverse, does Protarchus admit to

40940-409: The precedence of pleasure by pursuing it. Protarchus agrees to this also in the name of Philebus. Philebus no longer speaks. The starting point of the discussion is the question whether pleasure or reason should take precedence. Plato does not limit himself to clarifying this question but uses the topic to outline a philosophical theory of the entire reality of being and becoming. Mark Moes highlights

41170-417: The quality of pleasure is an additional factor. They argue, for instance, that subtle pleasures of the mind, like the enjoyment of fine art and philosophy, can be more valuable than simple bodily pleasures, like enjoying food and drink, even if their intensity is lower. Proponents of axiological hedonism often focus on intuitions about the relation between pleasure and value or on the observation that pleasure

41400-437: The quality of pleasures as an additional factor, arguing that higher pleasures of the mind are more valuable than lower pleasures of the body. Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) further refined utilitarianism and clarified many of its core distinctions, such as the contrast between ethical and psychological hedonism and between egoistic and impartial hedonism. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) rejected ethical hedonism and emphasized

41630-483: The reasons for their varying evaluations are explained. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates presents a universal value order. In this, proper measure, proportionality, takes the highest place, and pleasure – as far as it is justified – takes the lowest. Harmful pleasures are to be avoided. The right mixture of desired factors is supposed to enable a successful life and bring about a balanced emotional state. Protarchus agrees, while Philebus no longer comments. The Philebus

41860-499: The regular movements of celestial bodies and the change of seasons. Only animated beings can be rational; as reason in humans presupposes a soul, so must the rationally and beautifully ordered cosmos have a soul, the World Soul . With the next step of the investigation, Socrates returns to the question of the types of pleasure and pain. He begins by considering the origin of both states of the human psyche. He sees their cause not in

42090-414: The rest of their lives in this type of pleasant illusion, he argued that hedonism cannot account for the values of authenticity and genuine experience. Ethical or normative hedonism is the thesis that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the highest moral principles of human behavior. It implies that other moral considerations, like duty , justice , or virtue , are relevant only to

42320-436: The role or biological function of these states, such as signaling to individuals what to approach and avoid, and their purpose as reward and punishment to reinforce or discourage future behavioral patterns. Additionally, hedonic psychology explores the circumstances that evoke these experiences, on both the biological and social levels. It includes questions about psychological obstacles to pleasure, such as anhedonia , which

42550-406: The sea a long time, and white foam arose from the immortal flesh; with it a girl grew." After Aphrodite was born from the sea-foam, she washed up to shore in the presence of the other gods. Hesiod's account of Aphrodite's birth following Uranus's castration is probably derived from The Song of Kumarbi , an ancient Hittite epic poem in which the god Kumarbi overthrows his father Anu , the god of

42780-466: The sea. In Homer 's Iliad , however, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione . In his Symposium , Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people"). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion . Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing

43010-541: The sky, and bites off his genitals, causing him to become pregnant and give birth to Anu's children, which include Ishtar and her brother Teshub , the Hittite storm god. In the Iliad , Aphrodite is described as the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Dione's name appears to be a feminine cognate to Dios and Dion , which are oblique forms of the name Zeus . Zeus and Dione shared a cult at Dodona in northwestern Greece. In

43240-617: The southwestern slope of the Acropolis with the blood of a sacrificed dove . Next, the altars would be anointed and the cult statues of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho would be escorted in a majestic procession to a place where they would be ritually bathed. Aphrodite was also honored in Athens as part of the Arrhephoria festival. The fourth day of every month was sacred to Aphrodite. Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite

43470-499: The specific instances of each concept, but about the general class of experiences that underlies them, i.e., concepts like "human," "the beautiful," or "the good" and their subdivisions. In the Platonic Theory of Forms , to which Socrates potentially alludes here, such concepts are regarded as "Platonic forms," that is, as independently existing, unchanging metaphysical entities. The forms are causative powers, they evoke in

43700-410: The story with more details. According to the retelling of the story found in the poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD), Adonis was the son of Myrrha , who was cursed by Aphrodite with insatiable lust for her own father, King Cinyras of Cyprus , after Myrrha's mother bragged that her daughter was more beautiful than the goddess. Driven out after becoming pregnant, Myrrha

43930-641: The story, the boar was either sent by Ares, who was jealous that Aphrodite was spending so much time with Adonis, or by Artemis, who wanted revenge against Aphrodite for having killed her devoted follower Hippolytus . In another version, Apollo in fury changed himself into a boar and killed Adonis because Aphrodite had blinded his son Erymanthus when he stumbled upon Aphrodite naked as she was bathing after intercourse with Adonis. The story also provides an etiology for Aphrodite's associations with certain flowers. Reportedly, as she mourned Adonis's death, she caused anemones to grow wherever his blood fell and declared

44160-456: The temple of Cybele . The couple desecrate the temple by having sex in it, leading Cybele to turn them into lions as punishment. The myth of Pygmalion is first mentioned by the third-century BC Greek writer Philostephanus of Cyrene , but is first recounted in detail in Ovid's Metamorphoses . According to Ovid, Pygmalion was an exceedingly handsome sculptor from the island of Cyprus, who

44390-506: The term happiness for the balance of pleasure over pain. The subjective nature of these phenomena makes it difficult to measure this balance and compare it between different people. The paradox of hedonism and the hedonic treadmill are proposed psychological barriers to the hedonist goal of long-term happiness. As one of the oldest philosophical theories, hedonism was discussed by the Cyrenaics and Epicureans in ancient Greece ,

44620-442: The theater but also in the tragedy and comedy of life. The same applies to feelings such as anger, longing, grief, fear, and jealousy. All of these are not pure but mixed with pleasure and displeasure. Socrates has shown that many of the pleasures desired by humans – especially the most intense ones – cannot be explained as states of pure pleasure, but are based on a specific mixture of pleasure and displeasure. From this perspective,

44850-501: The theater, for example, in a tragedy, where the audience sheds tears and rejoices at the same time. In comedy, too, the mixture becomes apparent: The audience laughs, thus feeling pleasure, but the enjoyment is based on envy, a negative emotion, which is a form of displeasure. It is joy about an evil. One rejoices because the theater characters are ridiculous and fall victim to their ignorance and inability. Thus, pleasure and displeasure are mixed. This happens not only when watching events in

45080-527: The third century BC when the cult of Venus Erycina was introduced to Rome from the Greek sanctuary of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in Sicily. After this point, Romans adopted Aphrodite's iconography and myths and applied them to Venus. Because Aphrodite was the mother of the Trojan hero Aeneas in Greek mythology and Roman tradition claimed Aeneas as the founder of Rome, Venus became venerated as Venus Genetrix ,

45310-421: The three types of pleasure: those caused solely by physical conditions, those purely mental, and those caused by both factors. It turns out that in all three types, the most intense pleasures are by no means particularly pure – that is, free from aspects of displeasure. Rather, all of them are characterized by a significant admixture of displeasure. In the case of purely mental pleasures, this can be well observed in

45540-706: The time of the Trojan War , he is married to Charis / Aglaea , one of the Graces , apparently divorced from Aphrodite. Afterwards, it was generally Ares who was regarded as the husband or official consort of the goddess; on the François Vase , the two arrive at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis on the same chariot, as do Zeus with Hera and Poseidon with Amphitrite . The poets Pindar and Aeschylus refer to Ares as Aphrodite's husband. Later stories were invented to explain Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus. In

45770-470: The title character and putting forward the initial thesis, leaves the defense of the thesis to Protarchus, while he himself rests and listens. He rarely speaks, and at the end, he silently accepts the refutation of his thesis. He is lazy, interested only in enjoyment, and shies away from the mental effort of a debate. His worldview is simple. His appearance and entire demeanor match the negative image of an incompetent, self-satisfied, and unteachable hedonist that

46000-421: The traditional account of hedonism. One view defines happiness as life satisfaction. This means that a person is happy if they have a favorable attitude toward their life, for example, by being satisfied with their life as a whole or by judging it to be good overall. This attitude may be affected by the balance of pleasure over pain but can also be shaped by other factors. Well-being is what is ultimately good for

46230-487: The two views, for example, by asserting that the right form of ascetic practice leads to higher overall happiness by replacing simple sensory pleasures with deeper and more meaningful spiritual pleasures. Hedonism is one of the oldest philosophical theories and some interpreters trace it back to the Epic of Gilgamesh , written around 2100–2000 BCE. A central topic in ancient Greek thought , Aristippus of Cyrene (435-356 BCE)

46460-437: The type of pleasure and pain that is not a reaction to current physical processes. It is triggered by imaginations that arise from memory. Here, he discusses a pleasure that is produced by the soul alone, without the body. The soul searches in the world of its memories and imaginations for pleasure. Such striving manifests as desire for something. Desire is always a striving for the opposite of the current state; emptiness calls for

46690-517: The unchangeable being, to which absolute purity and truth belong. The more transient something is, the farther it is from the truth. There can be no reliable knowledge about changeable things. From the considerations so far, the hierarchy of goods emerges. Reason is closer to the True, the Real, the absolutely Good than pleasure, hence it stands above it in the hierarchy. However, reason is not identical with

46920-415: The utility of these fields from this perspective, the superiority of those disciplines involving calculation and measurement over the less precise ones, which rely on observation and estimation, becomes evident. At the same time, it becomes clear that pure theory, which deals with absolute facts, is fundamentally superior to Empirical science, which only deals with approximations. In this sense, pure geometry

47150-408: The variety of pleasures, as his position is not disadvantaged by this view. The general problem that the conversationalists have encountered is the relationship between one and many, one of the core themes of Platonic philosophy, which questions how it is possible that pleasures or reason can both consist of different kinds but yet still form a unity that justifies the common concept. This is not about

47380-569: The version of her birth recounted by Hesiod in his Theogony , Cronus severed Uranus' genitals and threw them behind him into the sea. The foam from his genitals gave rise to Aphrodite (hence her name, which Hesiod interprets as "foam-arisen"), while the Giants , the Erinyes (furies), and the Meliae emerged from the drops of his blood. Hesiod states that the genitals "were carried over

47610-436: The visible world the phenomena corresponding to them. However, a fundamental problem of this Platonic model emerges: on the one hand, the individual forms are regarded as separate, unified, immutable entities , thus strictly distinct from each other as well as from the sensually perceivable appearances; on the other hand, they are still closely connected to the realm of sensory objects and are somehow present there, for they cause

47840-420: The voiceless ones in turn have two subtypes. At the lowest level, one then reaches the individual sounds that are not further divisible. One finds out how many of them there are and to which classes they each belong. Similarly, one must proceed with the overarching concepts of "pleasure" and "insight" (or "reason") if one wants to become knowledgeable. This system of methodically carried out concept classification

48070-461: The waters after Cronus defeats Uranus as a mytheme would then be directly cognate to the Rigvedic myth of Indra defeating Vrtra , liberating Ushas . Another key similarity between Aphrodite and the Indo-European dawn goddess is her close kinship to the Greek sky deity, since both of the main claimants to her paternity (Zeus and Uranus) are sky deities. Aphrodite's most common cultic epithet

48300-485: The work was composed between 360 and 347 BC, and that it is among the last of the late dialogues of Plato . This is supported both by statistical linguistic evidence and the content's similarity to other late works, especially the Timaeus . However, the prominent role of the character Socrates in this late work is atypical; many of the other "late" dialogues do not figure Socrates as the main speaking character. Some prefer

48530-660: The year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third with whomever he chose. Adonis chose to spend that time with Aphrodite. Then, one day, while Adonis was hunting, he was wounded by a wild boar and bled to death in Aphrodite's arms. In a semi-mocking work, the Dialogues of the Gods , the satirical author Lucian comedically relates how a frustrated Aphrodite complains to the moon goddess Selene about her son Eros making Persephone fall in love with Adonis and now she has to share him with her. In different versions of

48760-593: Was Ourania , meaning "heavenly", but this epithet almost never occurs in literary texts, indicating a purely cultic significance. Another common name for Aphrodite was Pandemos ("For All the Folk"). In her role as Aphrodite Pandemos, Aphrodite was associated with Peithō ( Πείθω ), meaning "persuasion", and could be prayed to for aid in seduction. The character of Pausanias in Plato 's Symposium , takes differing cult-practices associated with different epithets of

48990-518: Was a place of pilgrimage in the ancient world for centuries. Other versions of her myth have her born near the island of Cythera , hence another of her names, "Cytherea". Cythera was a stopping place for trade and culture between Crete and the Peloponesus , so these stories may preserve traces of the migration of Aphrodite's cult from the Middle East to mainland Greece . According to

49220-569: Was also the patron goddess of prostitutes , an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of " sacred prostitution " in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous. A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature . In Hesiod 's Theogony , Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam ( ἀφρός , aphrós ) produced by Uranus 's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into

49450-449: Was changed into a myrrh tree, but still gave birth to Adonis. Aphrodite found the baby and took him to the underworld to be fostered by Persephone . She returned for him once he was grown and discovered him to be strikingly handsome. Persephone wanted to keep Adonis, resulting in a custody battle between the two goddesses over whom should rightly possess Adonis. Zeus settled the dispute by decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of

49680-470: Was claimed as a divine guardian by many political magistrates. Appearances of Aphrodite in Greek literature also vastly proliferated, usually showing Aphrodite in a characteristically Roman manner. Aphrodite is usually said to have been born near her chief center of worship, Paphos , on the island of Cyprus , which is why she is sometimes called "Cyprian", especially in the poetic works of Sappho . The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia , marking her birthplace,

49910-469: Was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BC, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Some early comparative mythologists opposed to the idea of

50140-416: Was critical of the hedonism found in ancient Greek philosophy, warning of the dangers of earthly pleasures as obstacles to a spiritual life dedicated to God. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE) developed a nuanced perspective on hedonism, characterized by some interpreters as spiritual hedonism. He held that humans are naturally inclined to seek happiness, arguing that the only way to truly satisfy this inclination

50370-579: Was horrified to see that the child had a massive, permanently erect penis , a potbelly , and a huge tongue. Aphrodite abandoned the infant to die in the wilderness, but a herdsman found him and raised him, later discovering that Priapus could use his massive penis to aid in the growth of plants. The First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite ( Hymn 5 ), which was probably composed sometime in the mid-seventh century BC, describes how Zeus once became annoyed with Aphrodite for causing deities to fall in love with mortals, so he caused her to fall in love with Anchises ,

50600-462: Was killed by a wild boar . Along with Athena and Hera , Aphrodite was one of the three goddesses whose feud resulted in the beginning of the Trojan War and plays a major role throughout the Iliad . Aphrodite has been featured in Western art as a symbol of female beauty and has appeared in numerous works of Western literature . She is a major deity in modern Neopagan religions , including

50830-720: Was known as Ourania (Οὐρανία), which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven . Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess; the second-century AD Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia , which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in

51060-462: Was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte , a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar , whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna . Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera , Cyprus , Corinth , and Athens . Her main festival was the Aphrodisia , which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia , Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She

51290-469: Was married to Hephaestus , the god of fire, blacksmiths and metalworking. Aphrodite was frequently unfaithful to him and had many lovers; in the Odyssey , she is caught in the act of adultery with Ares , the god of war. In the First Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite , she seduces the mortal shepherd Anchises . Aphrodite was also the surrogate mother and lover of the mortal shepherd Adonis , who

51520-595: Was renowned throughout the ancient world for its many hetairai , who had a widespread reputation for being among the most skilled, but also the most expensive, prostitutes in the Greek world. Corinth also had a major temple to Aphrodite located on the Acrocorinth and was one of the main centers of her cult. Records of numerous dedications to Aphrodite made by successful courtesans have survived in poems and in pottery inscriptions. References to Aphrodite in association with prostitution are found in Corinth as well as on

51750-784: Was so sickened by the immorality of women that he refused to marry. He fell madly and passionately in love with the ivory cult statue he was carving of Aphrodite and longed to marry it. Because Pygmalion was extremely pious and devoted to Aphrodite, the goddess brought the statue to life. Pygmalion married the girl the statue became and they had a son named Paphos, after whom the capital of Cyprus received its name. Pseudo-Apollodorus later mentions "Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus". Aphrodite generously rewarded those who honored her, but also punished those who disrespected her, often quite brutally. A myth described in Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica and later summarized in

51980-785: Was sometimes called Eleemon ("the merciful"). In Athens, she was known as Aphrodite en kēpois (" Aphrodite of the Gardens "). At Cape Colias, a town along the Attic coast, she was venerated as Genetyllis "Mother". The Spartans worshipped her as Potnia "Mistress", Enoplios "Armed", Morpho "Shapely", Ambologera "She who Postpones Old Age". Across the Greek world, she was known under epithets such as Melainis in Corinth "Black or Dark One", Skotia "Dark One", Androphonos "Killer of Men", Anosia "Unholy", and Tymborychos "Gravedigger", all of which indicate her darker, more violent nature. A male version of Aphrodite known as Aphroditus

52210-532: Was the rejection of egoistic hedonism, advocating instead that individuals should promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people. He introduced the idea of the hedonic calculus to assess the value of an action based on the pleasurable and painful experiences it causes, relying on factors such as intensity and duration. His student John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) feared that Bentham's quantitative focus on intensity and duration would lead to an overemphasis on simple sensory pleasures. In response, he included

52440-506: Was usually considered to be Aphrodite's son by Dionysus , but he was sometimes also described as her son by Hermes, Adonis, or even Zeus. A scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes 's Argonautica states that, while Aphrodite was pregnant with Priapus, Hera envied her and applied an evil potion to her belly while she was sleeping to ensure that the child would be hideous. In another version, Hera cursed Aphrodite's unborn son because he had been fathered by Zeus. When Aphrodite gave birth, she

52670-684: Was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia , which means "warlike". This epithet stresses Aphrodite's connections to Ares, with whom she had extramarital relations. Pausanias also records that, in Sparta and on Cythera, a number of extremely ancient cult statues of Aphrodite portrayed her bearing arms. Other cult statues showed her bound in chains. Aphrodite was the patron goddess of prostitutes of all varieties, ranging from pornai (cheap street prostitutes typically owned as slaves by wealthy pimps ) to hetairai (expensive, well-educated hired companions, who were usually self-employed and sometimes provided sex to their customers). The city of Corinth

52900-480: Was worshipped in the city of Amathus on Cyprus. Aphroditus was depicted with the figure and dress of a woman, but had a beard , and was shown lifting his dress to reveal an erect phallus . This gesture was believed to be an apotropaic symbol , and was thought to convey good fortune upon the viewer. Eventually, the popularity of Aphroditus waned as the mainstream, fully feminine version of Aphrodite became more popular, but traces of his cult are preserved in

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