Philosophy of Science

Mark Twain's essay on the pleasure principle was published in The New York Review of Books last week. In it, Twain argues that human nature is not reducible to one thing: pleasure or displeasure. He asks if we seek power because it's pleasurable, or for the sake of future pleasure. Is there something in us induced to act in ways that actually have nothing to do with pleasure? Those are the complicated questions underlying all this, I think.