Plato: The Philebus

Commentary
by
George Rudebusch

Philebus Introduction

Sec. 1. The Happiness Question: What makes a human life happy, pleasure or cognition? 11a-12a

Sec. 2. To resolve the Happiness Question, we need to get agreement to the One-Many Thesis. 12a-15c

Sec. 3. A hypothesis to use to get agreement to the One-Many Thesis: Speech causes the one-many puzzles. 15d-16e

Sec. 4. After accepting the hypothesis, we can use the Divine Method. 16c-19b

Sec. 5. The identity of the Good is complex; it cannot be identified simply with either Pleasure or Cognition: 20b-22c.