On the Nature and Function of Pleasure

Abstract Pleasure is a fundamental notion in the description and explanation of emotion. Some investigators consider it, together with pain, as their core: All emotions can be regarded as variants of pleasure or pain, and with variations in activation (Russell,2003). Also, human striving is often said to follow the “pleasure principle”: all striving would aim at obtaining pleasure or at decreasing pain. But what is pleasure? It is sometimes considered ineffable—impossible to be described in words. Yet, it evidently contains su0cient cues to enable children to learn using the word systematically.