Note 100 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.
Reading edition
The purpose of discriminating the different sorts of pleasure is intimated, yet seemingly not considered as indispensable, by Sokrates; and it is executed certainly in a very unsystematic and perfunctory manner, compared with what we read in the Sophistês and Politikus. (Philêbus, pp. 19 B, 20 C, 32 B-C.)
Mr. Poste, in his note on p. 55 A, expresses surprise at this point; and notices it as one among other grounds for suspecting that the Philêbus is a composition of two distinct fragments, rather carelessly soldered together:— “Again after Division and Generalization have been propounded as the only satisfactory method, it is somewhat strange that both the original problems are solved by ordinary Dialectic without any recourse to classification. All this becomes intelligible if we assume the Philêbus to have arisen from a boldly executed junction of two originally separate dialogues.”
Acknowledging the want of coherence in the dialogue, I have difficulty in conceiving what the two fragments could have been, out of which it was compounded. Schleiermacher (Einleit. pp. 136-137) also points out the negligent execution and heavy march of the dialogue.