Propositional Pleasures in Plato’s Philebus

This paper evaluates the arguments presented regarding the interpretation of false pleasures in Plato’s Philebus during the past 50 years. As the central axis of the debate is the concept of propositional attitude, I will tell the story of the propositional interpretation of the passage to show how and why it was constructed to become seemingly obvious, irrefutable, and even Platonic in its origin. Besides this, the paper raises the following problems for the propositional interpretation: (i) if it has textual basis and (ii) if it is necessary to understand the passage or if it is an obstacle and should be abandoned so that the Platonic text could be read in a non-anachronistic way.