In trying to understand what pleasure is and how it is related to pain and unpleasantness, I tackle various basic questions about the role of pleasure, pain, and unpleasantness in motivation and about the intrinsic goodness of pleasure and the intrinsic badness of pain and unpleasantness. In pleasure's nature of being good, wanted, and sought and pain's nature of being bad, unwanted, and avoided we locate the way in which pleasure and pain are opposites and the central defining properties of the 'pleasant' and the 'unpleasant'. Within my analysis of pleasure and unpleasantness I reach thee conclusions that pleasure and unpleasantness are 'special experiences', explain what is involved in this claim and defend it against the objections, which Ludwig Wittgenstein raised in his Private Language Argument. The view of the emotions which I outline and defend is the view which Aristotle, Spinoza, and many other philosophers have held. According to this view our 'feelings' such as confidence or fear, delight or misery, and pride or shame are 'modes' of pleasure or unpleasantness. Given my views on pleasure and unpleasantness, it would follow that a number of emotions are, in part, the 'special experiences' of pleasure and unpleasantness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:651574 |
| Date | January 1979 |
| Creators | Goldstein, Irwin |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/18237 |
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