Note 56 — Chapter XXXII · PHILEBUS.

Plato, Philêbus, pp. 49-50 D. Plato here introduces, at some length, an analysis of the mixed sentiment of pleasure and pain with which we regard scenic representations, tragedy and comedy — especially the latter. The explanation which he gives of the sentiment of the ludicrous is curious, and is intended to elucidate an obscure psychological phenomenon (ὅσῳ σκοτεινότερόν ἐστι, p. 48 B). But his explanation is not clear, and the sense which he gives to the word φθόνος is a forced one. He states truly that the natural object (at least one among the objects) which a man laughs at, is the intellectual and moral infirmities of persons with whom he is in friendly intercourse, when such persons are not placed in a situation of power, so as to make their defects or displeasure pregnant with dangerous consequences. The laugher is amused with exaggerated self-estimation or foolish vanity displayed by friends, δοξοσοφία, δοξοκαλία &c. (49 E). But how the laugher can be said to experience a mixture of pain and pleasure here, or how he can be said to feel φθόνος, I do not clearly see. At least φθόνος is here used in the very unusual sense (to use Stallbaum’s words, note p. 48 B, page 278) of “injusta lætitia de malis eorum, quibus bene cupere debemus”: a sense altogether contrary to that which the word bears in Xen. Memor. iii. 9, 8; which Stallbaum himself cites, as if the definition of φθόνος were the same in both.