Perspectivism, incommensurability and pleasure on Plato

• Grant number: 19/13987-4
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): January 01, 2020
• Effective date (End): February 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal researcher: Marco Antônio de Ávila Zingano
• Grantee: Pablo Souto Maior Harduin
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 15/05317-8 - Theories of causation and human agency in ancient Greek philosophy, AP.TEM

Abstract

I suggest to investigate in the Dialogues the thesis by which non-rational pleasures are conceived by Plato as capable of producing incommensurable perspectives on reality, truth, and the good. The Gorgias provides the terms for the establishing of asymmetry between the philosopher's and the hedonist's perspectives. The philosophical interpretation of this phenomenon is given by the doctrine of Platonic perspectivism, found in the Phaedo and Republic, whereby the hedonist's perspective is characterized as the product of his cognitive departure from Reality. The notion of false pleasures conceived in Republic IX and Philebus advances Plato's attack, securing the conclusion that appetitve hedonism does not constitute an ideal of life for humans, since, being false the perspective produced by the non-rational desires, false will also be its pleasures. The analysis aims to reconstitute Plato's reflection on the nature and implications of the non-rational hedonic phenomenon within his ethics. (AU)