Note 122 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.

The equivocal sense of the word Pleasure is the same as that which Plato notes in the Symposion to attach to Eros or Love (p. 205). When employed in philosophical discussion, it sometimes is used (and always ought to be used) in its full extent of generic comprehension: sometimes in a narrower sense, so as to include only a few of the more intense pleasures, chiefly the physical, and especially the sexual; sometimes in a sense still more peculiar, partly as opposed to duty, partly as opposed to business, work, utility, &c. Opponents of the Hedonists took advantage of the unfavourable associations attached to the word in these narrower and special senses, to make objections tell against the theory which employed the word in its widest generic sense.