The Plato Paradigm

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...

With Lysis, Socrates concluded that the friend is not of like to like. With Menexenus, Socrates has concluded that the friend is not of opposite to opposite. It would seem reasonable, then, to suggest that the friend is the good to the neither good nor bad. It is actually not all that reasonable. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the Greek text as I go. The resu...

Having argued with Lysis that the friendly is not friendly to its like, and with Menexenus that the friendly is not friendly to its opposite, Socrates proposes (still with Menexenus) what might seem to be an uneristic and therefore more plausible solution, that the friendly is friendly to something between the two extremes. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the...

Socrates continues to develop a highly provocative position he claims to have heard from someone clever, that the most opposite is most friendly to the most opposite, apparently contradicting the earlier claim that like is friendly to like. Menexenus takes over the conversation from Lysis, and Socrates returns to eristics. Here I read through Platonic dialogues, translating and commenting on the G...

Socrates provides only an argument from authority for his outrageous claim not only that the same are hostile to the same, but that most hostile are good people to good people. Even the argument from authority is problematic since Socrates deliberately misquotes two of the most famous lines of the poet Hesiod. We might almost suspect that he is looking for a reaction from his interlocutors. Here I...

Socrates continues to try to make Lysis think dialectically, but fails miserably. Lysis accepts that the same is useless and not a friend to the same, although the good person is a friend to the good person (this is a contradicton), Once again, it is Socrates himself who has to discover that they have been seriously misled (they have, by him), and he adduces someone who is said to have claimed tha...

Socrates leads Lysis by the nose, and Lysis does not object. Socrates "interprets" the poet and the physikoi as claiming that only the similar to the simlar are friends, but if those who are dissimilar in themselves are bad, this means that only the good are friends. Since this doesn't cause Lysis to object, Socrates adds another problem, that the similar add nothing useful to the similar; if anot...

If like is friendly to like, what are we to make of bad people? 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 previous section featured a discussion between Socrates and Menexenus asking whether the friend is the loving or the loved. Socrates changes the subject with Lysis to consider whether friends are similar people or opposites, 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

What was supposed to be an eristic debate designed to embarrass Menexenus turns into an intriguing discussion on friends which leads Lysis to intervene spontaneously and much to his own embarrassment. This is yet again a clear example of Socrates talking to one interlocutor (Menexenus) while his eye is on another (Lysis, and we should not forget Hippothales, although I don't mention him this time)...

Treating philos as the beloved friend leads to problems easily demonstrated by Ancient Greek usage. While we do not use Ancient Greek, the underlying problems are common to all. 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

What was supposed to be an eristic debate has turned into a semi-philosophical enquiry into the nature of a philos ("friend"), being the one who loves or the one being loved, or whether the partners in such a relationsihp in which only one loves are both friends or both not friends. Socrates exploits to confusing effect an ambiguity in the word philos, which as an adjective (its original usage)  i...