I admit this identity (remarks Protarchus) in regard to opinions, but not in regard to pleasures. I think there are other grounds, and stronger grounds, for pronouncing pleasures to be bad — independently of their being false. We will reserve that question (says Sokrates) for the present — whether there are or are not pleasures bad on other grounds.[45] I am now endeavouring to show that there are some pleasures which are false: and I proceed to another way of viewing the subject.
[45] Plato, Philêbus, pp. 40 E-41 A. Sokr. Οὐδ’ ἡδονάς γ’, οἶμαι, κατανοοῦμεν ὡς ἄλλον τινὰ τρόπον εἰσὶ πονηραὶ πλὴν τῷ ψευδεῖς εἶναι. Protarch. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν τοὐναντίον εἴρηκας, &c.
No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains — False estimate habitual — These are the false pleasures.
We agreed before that the state, called Appetite or Desire, was a mixed state comprehending body and mind: the state of body affecting the mind with a pain of emptiness, — the state of mind apart from body being either a pleasure of expected replenishment, or a pain arising from our regarding replenishment as distant or unattainable. Appetite or Desire, therefore, is sometimes mixed pleasure and pain; both, of the genus Infinite, Indeterminate. We desire to compare these pleasures and pains, and to value their magnitude in relation to each other, but we have no means of performing the process. We not only cannot perform it well, but we are sure to perform it wrongly. For future pleasure or pain counts for more or less in our comparison, according to its proximity or distance. Here then is a constant source of false computation: pleasures and pains counted as greater or less than they really are: in other words, false pleasures and pains. We thus see that pleasures may be true or false, no less than opinions.[46]
[46] Plato, Philêbus, pp. 41-42.
Much of what is called pleasure is false. Gentle and gradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure or pain. Absence of pain not the same as pleasure.
We have also other ways of proving the point that much of what is called pleasure is false and unreal[47] — either no pleasure at all, or pleasure mingled and alloyed with pain and relief from pain. According to our previous definition of pain and pleasure — that pain arises from derangement of the harmony of our nature, and pleasure from the correction of such derangement, or from the re-establishment of harmony — there may be and are states which are neither painful nor pleasurable. Doubtless the body never remains the same: it is always undergoing change: but the gentle and gradual changes (such as growth, &c.) escape our consciousness, producing neither pain nor pleasure: none but the marked, sudden changes force themselves upon our consciousness, thus producing pain and pleasure.[48] A life of gentle changes would be a life without pain as well as without pleasure. There are thus three states of life[49] — painful — pleasurable — neither painful nor pleasurable. But no pain (absence of pain) is not identical with pleasure: it is a third and distinct state.[50]
[47] Plato, Philêbus, p. 42 C. Τούτων τοίνυν ἑξῆς ὀψόμεθα, ἐὰν τῇδε ἀπαντῶμεν ἡδονὰς καὶ λύπας ψευδεῖς ἕτι μᾶλλον ἢ ταύτας φαινομένας τε καὶ οὔσας ἐν τοῖς ζώοις.
This argument is continued, though in a manner desultory and difficult to follow, down to p. 51 A: πρὸς τὸ τινὰς ἡδονὰς εἶναι δοκούσας, οὐσας δ’ οὐδαμῶς· καὶ μεγάλας ἑτέρας τινὰς ἄμα καὶ πολλὰς φαντασθείσας, εἶναι δ’ αὐτὰς συμπεφυρμένας ὁμοῦ λύπαις τε καὶ ἀναπαύσεσιν ὀδυνῶν τῶν μεγίστων περί τε σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς ἀπορίας.
[48] Plato, Philêbus, pp. 42-43.