Plato's Lysis

by Terry Penner , Christopher Rowe

• ISBN13: 9780521791304
• ISBN10: 0521791308
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Lysis is one of Plato's most engaging but also puzzling dialogues; it has often been regarded, in the modern period, as a philosophical failure. The full philosophical and literary exploration of the dialogue illustrates how it in fact provides a systematic and coherent, if incomplete, account of a special theory about, and special explanation of, human desire and action. Furthermore, it shows how that theory and explanation are fundamental to a whole range of other Platonic dialogues and indeed to the understanding of the corpus as a whole. Part One offers an analysis of, or running commentary on, the dialogue. In Part Two Professors Penner and Rowe examine the philosophical and methodological implications of the argument uncovered by the analysis. The whole is rounded off by an epilogue on the relation between the Lysis and some other Platonic (and Aristotelian) texts.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
PART I: AN ANALYSIS OF THE LYSIS
203AI--207B7: the cast assembles, and the main conversation is set up	3	(9)
207B8--210D8 (Socrates and Lysis): do Lysis' parents really love him?	12	(27)
207B8--D4: a few preliminary questions	12	(4)
207D5--209C6	16	(5)
209C7--210D8	21	(15)
Retrospect and prospect	36	(3)
210EI--213C9: Socrates and Menexenus -- how does one get a friend?	39	(25)
Translation	40	(5)
Some preliminaries	45	(6)
The argument (212A8--213C8)	51	(10)
Socrates, Lysis, Menexenus: three different levels of understanding	61	(3)
213DI--216B9: Socrates and Lysis again, then Menexenus -- poets and cosmologists on what is friend of what (like of like; or opposite of opposite?)	64	(35)
A brief overview of the new discussion ('the poets and the cosmologists')	65	(6)
213D1--214A2	71	(3)
214A2--E2	74	(10)
214E2--215C2	84	(8)
Can we really take Socrates seriously when he concludes that the good will not be friends to the good (215B7--C1)?	92	(2)
215C3--216B9	94	(5)
216C1--221D6: what it is that loves, what it really loves, and why	99	(58)
216C1--217A2	99	(8)
217A3--221D6	107	(50)
217A3--218C3: the cause of `friendship', philia, as presence of bad (?)	111	(10)
218C4--219B4: what is philon is philon for the sake of the philon because of the echthron(?)	121	(4)
219B5--220B5: the first, and true, thing that is friend (philon), contrasted with so-called `friends', which are for the sake of this first friend	125	(8)
220B6--221C5: presence of bad is not the cause of `friendship'	133	(6)
219B5--221C5 and the identity of the `first friend'	139	(14)
221C5--D6: the true cause of philia?	153	(4)
221D6--222B2: the main argument reaches its conclusion	157	(16)
221D6--E5: is the object of philia what belongs (to oikeion)?	157	(3)
221E5--222B2: . . . and so the genuine lover must be loved by his darling (?)	160	(13)
222B3--E7: some further questions from Socrates about the argument, leading to (apparent) impasse	173	(12)
223A1--B8: the dialogue ends -- people will say that Socrates and the boys think they are friends, but that they haven't been able to discover what `the friend' is	185	(4)
203A1--207B7 revisited	189	(6)
PART II: THE THEORY OF THE LYSIS
A re-reading of the Lysis: some preliminaries	195	(36)
Some methodological prolegomena; and a major objection from proponents of the `Analytical--Elenctic' approach	195	(10)
`The principle of real reference'	205	(6)
Principal conclusions about the Lysis to be argued for in the next chapter; and a problem about self-interest	211	(5)
Socratic intellectualism introduced	216	(15)
A re-reading of the Lysis	231	(49)
Socrates talks to Hippothales, then Lysis and Menexenus, then Lysis by himself (203A--210D)	231	(5)
The Menexenus discussion (211A--213D)	236	(6)
The poets and the cosmologists (213E--216B)	242	(1)
The great central passage of the Lysis (216C--221D)	243	(2)
Task (A): a preliminary identification of the `first friend' as whatever else it may be -- the ultimate term of a certain means--end hierarchy	245	(3)
The next two tasks: (B) why does Socrates say that the cause of the neither good nor bad's loving the `first friend' is not the bad, but desire? And (c) what sort of desire is it that allows him to say that what one loves one desires?	248	(3)
Task (D): the problem that Socrates now seems to be saying that we do not love our children, our dogs, wine, or our friends; is he really saying that?	251	(9)
On what is good in itself or desired for its own sake	260	(9)
The relation between philia ('friendship'), eros ('passion', `romantic love'), and epithumia ('desire') in the Lysis	269	(4)
The further identification of the `first friend'	273	(2)
If the `first friend' is knowledge or wisdom, does that rule out its being happiness?	275	(3)
If the `first friend' is knowledge or wisdom, does that rule out any connection with what the Socrates of the Republic would call `the Form of the Good'?	278	(2)
On seeking the good of others independently of one's own good; and other unfinished business	280	(17)
The Vlastosian, Kantian requirement that love be for the good of others independently of one's own good	280	(11)
Unfinished business	291	(6)
Epilogue	297	(29)
The Lysis and the Symposium	300	(7)
The Lysis and the Phaedrus	307	(5)
Aristotle and the Lysis	312	(10)
Beyond Aristotle	322	(4)
Translation of the Lysis	326	(26)
Bibliography	352	(7)
Index of names	359	(2)
Index of subjects	361