This lecture took place on Thursday 30 April, 2026.
In this lecture, Professor Verity Harte discussed how the treatment of pleasure by philosophers of Classical Greek Antiquity has got a bad rap. Anscombe thought them “baffled by” pleasure (Intention §40). Platonic and Aristotelian discussions of pleasure do raise several puzzles. However, rather than being a sign of ancient confusion, these puzzles reflect the fact that Plato, Aristotle, and the hedonists with whom they engage, approach pleasure from an unexpected direction. Rather than theorize pleasure from the inside, whether as sensation, feeling, or attitude, they do so, as my title has it, from the outside in. The lecture explained this suggestion and their outside-in approach to pleasure, and argued that it is worth taking seriously.
