The Plato Paradigm

The first conversation supposedly on philia which Socrates narrates is with Lysis alone. We actually learn more about Lysis and his alternative approach to being better than others (and therefore apparently good), while Menexenus seems to prefer verbal debate as his means of appearing good. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting...

The narrated conversation between Socrates and the boys is in two parts. The second is mainly with Menexenus. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

The dialogue is traditionally considered to be about friendship. The structure of the dialogue suggests that there is more to it than that. For example, the narrated conversation between Socrates and the boys Lysis and Menexenus is contextualized as a demonstration to Hippothales on how to speak to one's lust object with a view to catching him. We may deduce from the non-reaction of the unknown au...

The dialogue concludes with Socrates disappointing both his audiences. He suggests to Lysis and Menexenus, his apparent friends, that they are a laughingstock to the others because they do not know what a friend is. As for his unknown audience, who would surely identify with Hippothales eager to learn from Socrates how to captivate a lust object, we may imagine the confusion caused by Socrates hav...

Socrates gives a summation of the case, as if in a lawcourt, listing all the things which friendship is not. Were the list to be true, we would need to conclude not only that friendship is still undefined, but that it is altogether impossible Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadig...

The boys a.re unchanged by the entire conversation, despite Socrates' attempt to intoxicate them with words. The main problem the boys have is an inability to compare what is being said with what has been said earlier. Politeness is a Good Thing according to poisoners, but some friendly criticism and opposition is the alcoholic antidote to hemlock. Alcohol only works, however, if it is ingested He...

More evidence at the end of the dialogue that the boys are unable to put two thoughts together to create a rational conclusion. They appear not to understand even what "the same" means, let alone what "the proper" means. They return to assumptioms already refuted in previous arguments. Socrates is far from making them dialectically drunk; they appear to be teetotallers. Here I read through Platoni...

Musings on a single sentence which may throw light on the entire dialogue. Socrates claims that they are, as it were, drunk by the logos. The need for the strange example earlier on of a dear son who has drunk hemlock being cured by a father with the aid of wine now makes sense If Socrates, the author of the logos, is the one applying alcohol to the problem, who is applying hemlock? I offer a few...

An incautious reader of the dialogue might conclude that the entire discussion between Socrates, Lysis, and Menexenus, is a demonstration for Hippothales' benefit, designed to prove that the one lusted should love the one lusting. Hippothales, at least, is reportedly delighted with the result. The boys are not so happy. As for Socrates, he does not reveal his utter frustration with the mental slug...

Socrates finally reaches his sophistic conclusion, unsettling for Lysis, but Menexenus appears blissfully unaware of the implications. What is very clear is that the boys are oblivious to the sophistry itself. It would appear that Socrates' attempt to make the boys become critical, if not entirely dialectical, has failed. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Gr...

Socrates uses the same terminology from three different arguments to mix and match and thoroughly confuse Menexenus into agreeing that the one who desires someone is that person's friend. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

Having proved that the target of philia must have the bad present, Socrates now produces a new argument supposedly proving the opposite, that the target of philia need not have the bad in it, especially in the hypothetical situation that the bad does not exist. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: http...

There is no friendly/dear thing if the truly friendly/dear thing towards which it is friendly/dear does not have in it the bad. This, at least, is a summary of Socrates' summary of the new position on the like being a philon to the like. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

To exemplify Socrates' deliberately confusing formula, if we take the son from the last episode, it is only because of the bad (the hemlock) being added to the good (the son), that there becomes a need for the friendly (the things contributing to the removal of the bad - wine, and the cup). Were the son perfectly well, there would be no need for such things which are not actually friendly in their...

Socrates develops the possibility that like can actually be friendly to like into a slightly different argument with a somewhat horrific example whereby a father values his son above all other things, but in an emergency supposedly values all the things contributing to the wellbeing of his son. He has not yet said that wine and the winecup are friendly to the son, but he should at some point if th...

Now Socrates considers the case of like being friendly to like - something which was rejected in one of the earlier arguments. Like being friendlly to like allows for a chain of friendly things, all being friendly because of the ultimate reason for them acting together. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found...

Back to the argument concerning the body being a friend of the medical art because of disease. This time, the argument has a new twist. The body is a friend of the friendl medical art because of the hostile disease, but now we also have to deal wtih health, which is why the medical art "takes up the friendship". Health, too, is a friend. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and comm...

Socrates revisits the eristic argument about the neutral body having sickness in it, and it doesn't sound any better this time around. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

Socrates expresses dissatisfaction, just when he has led his current audience to think that he has successfully hunted the boys. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

Socrates is concluding the argument with both boys which combines the arguments he had had with them separately. With Lysis, the Philon is not of like with like, with Menexenus, the Philon is not of opposite with opposite, with both, the Philon is of the not like and not opposite (i.e, the neutral) with the good. This apparently successful outcome agreed to by both boys is a dismal failure for Soc...

Socrates is still developing the notion of two different kinds of agent, one making a thing appear, and another making a thing be. He has moved from the examples of disease in the body and whiteness in hair to ignorance in - we may assume, since he doesn't say yet - the soul. We learn (please don't!) that a totally expert and a totally inexpert person would both not philosophize. Only the neither...

Socrates develops his sophistic argument that what is neither one extreme nor its opposite may contain one of the extremes without acquiring the characteristic of that extreme, or indeed may acquire that characteristic. The boys accept everything he says, despite his best efforts to confuse them. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resu...

A lesson in sophistry. We also learn that Menexenus had brown hair. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resulting analyses may be found at: https://theplatoparadigm.com

Socrates argues sophistically for the position that what is neither good nor bad is dear to, or conversely a friend of (slipping between philon with dative and genitive), the good. He uses as his example a body, per se neither good nor bad, which with health has no need of a physician, but with disease is required to welcome and be dear to the physician. Socrates tries several formulations designe...

Socrates reminds Menexenus that the previous argument has led them to conclude that the friendly is not of like to like or of opposite to opposite, and he proposes that it is neither of like or of opposite. He needs to resort to a particular characteristic to exemplify what he means, and he chooses the good, a characteristic which has already been used in the argument. They settle on the friendly...