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introduction
the philebus is a puzzling dialogue, both for the substantive views it puts forward,1 and for the unexpected twists and turns of the discussion. Commentators frequently complain about the dialogue's lack of unity, due to its many apparently unnecessary digressions and interruptions.2 The discussion of the so-called 'divine method' seems to be one of the worst offenders on this score, for it is described and exemplified at length (16c-20a), only to be set aside as unnecessary shortly afterwards (20c).
I argue that the divine method plays a vital role in the subsequent examination and evaluation of pleasure and knowledge. I focus in particular on the application of the divine method to pleasure, since the method is introduced precisely in order to address puzzles that Socrates raises about the nature of pleasure early in the dialogue. By applying the divine method to pleasure, Socrates is able to question, and ultimately overturn, a basic assumption of hedonism: that pleasure has a unified nature. I argue that the application of the divine method does not result in a systematic and complete division of pleasure into sub-kinds, as one would expect, because Socrates does not discover a common feature that unifies all pleasures. On the contrary, the examination reveals that the many diverse things we call pleasures have fundamentally different natures. One of the overlooked goals of the divine method is to determine whether something is sufficiently unified to be the subject matter of expertise. The conclusion that pleasure does not have this requisite unity does not indicate a failure of the divine method; on the contrary, it is a strength of the method that it can distinguish between genuine and merely apparent unities.
This paper challenges much of the existent secondary literature on the Philebus, because most scholars agree that Socrates puts forward a unified account of pleasure in the dialogue.3 In order to defend the view that Socrates engages in a continuous critique of the assumption that pleasure has a unified nature, it is necessary to go through the major sections of the Philebus in order and show how each of them contributes to this larger argument. In my view, it is impossible to evaluate the significance of Socrates's conclusions about...