The Pleasures of Reason in Plato, Aristotle, and the Hellenistic Hedonists

by James Warren

Human lives are full of pleasures and pains. And humans are creatures that are able to to learn, understand, remember and recall, plan and anticipate. Ancient philosophers were interested in both of these facts and, what is more, were interested in how these two facts are related to one another. There appear to be, after all, pleasures and pains associated with learning and inquiring, recollecting and anticipating. We enjoy finding something out. We are pained to discover that a belief we hold is false. We can think back and enjoy or be upset by recalling past events. And we can plan for and enjoy imagining pleasures yet to come. This book is about what Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Cyrenaics had to say about these relationships between pleasure and reason.

246 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2014

Reviews

[saml · Rating 2 out of 5]

nice book. nice repetitious structure, moving chronologically onward from plato and then back to plato for another round. just not sure i care much about ancient philosophy though. shame