The nature of Pleasure from the standpoint of Ibn Sina and Razi

Pleasure is the strongest motivation behind human behavior and therefore has always been the interest of philosophers. From Ibn Sina's point of view, the only way of understanding pleasure's nature is through an insight into human soul and their perception of the world. He believed that 'pleasure' is a subjective perception which is experienced depending on the perceiver's conception and idea of goodness and perfection and thus there are different types of pleasure as a result of different perceptions of accomplishment, perfection and goodness. However, Razi held conflicting views about pleasure. On the one hand, he expressed the view that pleasure is beyond defining as it is a limitless feeling; on the other hand, he defines it as perception. In his view, there are not different kinds of pleasure since he is a firm believer of intellectual pleasure and regards sensuous pleasure only as alleviation of pain and suffering or a change of emotions. In this paper, we attempt to analyze the 'pleasure's nature' from the point of view of these two philosophers.