Lysis

Characters

Socrate ;
Hippothalès : Hippothalès, wire of Hiéronyme, are known only by this dialog. The young boy is characterized by the powerful desire which it tests for his Lysis comrade. He does not blow a word in the principal part of the dialog, fear of importuning his beloved, and is used for the reader of concrete example to the topic of the discussion;
Ctésippe : Ctésippe, of Paeanie, is a young disciple of the sophists, friend of Hippothalès and cousin of Ménexène. It expresses a certain mocking remark condescending with regard to the feelings which his/her comrade for Lysis feels. This character also appears in the Euthydème . One knows finally him that, just like Ménexène, it attended dead of Socrate;
Ménexène : Menexene, cousin of Ctésippe and large friendly of Lysis, with the reputation of a young intelligent boy knowing to handle the ideas. It still misses, actually, of a little maturity, and cannot compete with the dialectical one of Socrate;
Lysis : Lysis, a young charming boy seeming avoided of all the physical virtues and morals, is the son of Democrat of Aixonè. It has for better friend Ménexène, and a secret admiror Hippothalès.

The dialog: to define the friendship in the Greek direction of the term

The Lysis treats nature of the friendship. This concept must however get along in its Greek meaning, where the friendship recovers at the same time the friendly relations between two people and the homosexual desire.

Introductory scene

Whereas it passes in front of a gymnasium to Athens, Socrate meets Hippothalès and Ctésippe, accompanied by several other young people. They take part in it regularly, explain him, to conversations in company of Masters sophists, and invite Socrate to join them.

This last immediately notices the visible disorder of Hippothalès and makes him share of it. As he had guessed, the young man is in love with a comrade, of which he learns that he is called Lysis. Ctésippe explains to Socrate, without care for his/her friend, the way in which this last does not have why the name of its beloved to the mouth and importunes them its poems.

It is, thinks Socrate, quite bad manners to make its court, because to charge with as well praises the person as one wishes will have for only effect to make it even less accessible prouder and. Hippothalès, eager to know of it as much as possible about the good manners to act, is not opposed so that Socrate returns with them in the gymnasium to converse with Lysis, which is there.

Once inside, in order to encourage the Lysis shy person to join them and to take share with the conversation, Ctésippe will seek his/her Ménexène cousin, who is also the best friend of Lysis. Enhardi by this presence, Lysis joint with the group. Hippothalès is placed in withdrawal not to be seen of the young boy.

A ignoramus cannot be to trust of itself

In preamble with the conversation on the friendship, Socrate wants discreetly to indicate to Hippothalès the way in which it is advisable to fold back and to restrict the self-esteem of that which one likes for conquering best.

It is thus put to question Lysis. It goes without saying the parents of this last carry a great love to him and wish of any heart its happiness. How, consequently, to explain why his/her father prohibits to him to lead itself a tank at the time of a race, or the authority of a pedagog imposes to him, of a social condition quite less than his? It is, answers Lysis, which it does not have yet the necessary age to escape all these things.

However, counterpart Socrate, it is certain things which the parents of Lysis let to him make, and even make him make in priority compared to the other people of the hearth, like writing letters or playing of the quadrant. How to explain this difference in attitude?

Lysis finds immediately the answer awaited: it is that it is erudite in certain matters and still being unaware of in others. The erudite people stick the friendship and the confidence of all, while the ignoramuses are appreciated of nobody. If Lysis always requires for a Master, it is that it is not informed yet perfectly. And if it is not informed yet perfectly, it is thus that under no circumstances would it in no case to feel pride for itself.

The “friend” is it that which likes, that which is liked, or both?

Socrat calls some with the experiment of Ménexène

This having been agreed, Lysis requests Socrate to agree to discuss with Ménexène, which can according to him speak with elegance on many subjects.

Socrat starts by acknowledging his desire to make one day the knowledge of a true friend, which was hitherto never carried out, and compliments Ménexène on the beautiful friendship which it maintains with Lysis. Perhaps could Ménexène light it on the matter its visible experiment?

The friend is neither that which likes, neither that which is liked, nor that meeting the two conditions

The question, continues it, arises in these terms: it would initially wish to know, when a man likes some another, which of both is the “friend”. That which likes, that which is liked or both at the same time?

Menexene is tempted to answer that they are the two people at the same time. But Socrate objects to him that a man by liking another can not be paid in return, or to even be haï by that which he likes. In this case, on the contrary, neither one nor the other seem to be able to be qualified friends.

Socrat draws the contestable conclusion from it that the friend is neither that which likes, neither that which is loved, nor even that which any unit likes and is liked.

Reflection on the bases of the friendship

Can the friendship be born only between two similar people?

Recognizing that the discussion began on bad bases, Socrate takes again research since the beginning by another question, destiny this time at Lysis: is it true that the friendship can be born only between two similar people? It is in any case what Homère seems to have thought when he wrote:

Un God always leads the similar one towards its similar.
(Odyssey, XVII, 218)

At best, such an idea is not true that partly: one can conceive indeed with difficulty that a malicious man binds friendship with another malicious man, spite rejecting by nature any form of friendship. But this thesis does not find either an application for the men of good: a perfectly good man suffices himself for itself and does not need the friendship of other good men.

More generally, one can thus say that the similar one does not need the similar one, and that the resemblance prevents the birth of the friendship instead of encouraging it, as proves it this quotation of Hésiode:

Le potter envies the potter, the singer the singer, 
the beggar the beggar.
(Work and Days, 25 and suiv.)

Can the friendship be born only between two contrary people?

Should it be concluded from it that contrary, the friendship can appear only between people not having anything jointly?

Socrat points out here the ideas of Héraclite d' Éphèse, according to which each one wishes its opposite: “ thus dryness wishes the wet one, the cold the heat, the land-mark the soft one, acute the blunt one, the vacuum the full one, full the vacuum, and thus of the remainder ”. However it is obvious that many types of opposites are impossible to link: friendship and hatred, the Juste and the unjust one, the good and the bad one…

This second idea is consequently quite as false as the first.

The thesis of Socrate: the friendship is the report/ratio of an imperfect being to a good being

To leave all contradictions accumulating since the beginning of the dialog, Socrate subjects to its young public its own theory.

With this intention, it first of all establishes a distinction between the three concepts of the good, bad and neither good nor bad. Like agreed previously, the good is sufficed for itself and cannot thus take the initiative of a friendly relation. It is the same of bad, from which spite excludes any form from friendship.

Remain it neither good nor bad. It cannot be friendly of what resembles to him, the friendship not being able to be born between two similar beings, just like it cannot be the friend of bad. The only valid combination is thus that the friendship can be felt by neither good the nor bad one for the good.

The body, for example, which is in oneself neither good nor bad, likes the medicine, which is a good, because of the danger which the disease represents, which is an evil. In the same way a disciple likes the knowledge exempted by his Master, who is a good, by fear of the ignorance, which is an evil.

Socrat thus draws from it the conclusion that what is neither good nor bad likes the good, because of the presence of the evil. In short, the friendship would be what characterizes the existing relationship between an imperfect being, neither good nor bad, and a good being.

The first object of the friendship

But Socrate wants to further go that this first definition, by showing that the things or the people being the subject of a feeling of friendship are not loved for themselves, but for another thing, which are also liked for another thing, and so on until arriving at the principle first, with the first object of the friendship.

The doctor, for example, is not loved for itself but for the health which it gets. Health, as for it, is not liked for itself but for the general wellbeing to which it contributes, and so on. While continuing on this way, affirms Socrate, we could arrive at a principle first which will not return us any more to another liked object, but which will be liked for itself. However it keeps silence on the nature of this first object of the friendship.

Conclusion: Socrat refutes his own thesis

Whereas the end of the conversation approaches, Socrate announced the doubts which suddenly attack it in connection with the validity of the definition that it gave of the friendship.

It appears to him indeed that the fear of the evil is the only reason for which neither good the nor bad one can feel friendship: if the evil were abolished, the friendship disappears then in the same way, become useless. But the desires, which are not based on the fear of the evil, them, would remain. And as that which wishes inevitably likes the object of its desires, the friendship would also remain, in spite of the disappearance of the evil. In short the definition is bad, and does not recover all the cases where can be born the friendship.

Socrat was going to continue the discussion when the pedagogs of Lysis and Ménexène come to seek them, which puts an end to the discussion without it succeeding.

Philosophical range

The Lysis is the first dialog of Plato proposing an outline of the theory of the Ideas. One can indeed suppose that behind the principle first of the friendship, hides actually the absolute Good, i.e. the Idea of the Good.

It also acts, par excellence, of a dialog anatreptic where the goal of the author is to reverse the usually allowed opinions on a subject, without necessarily proposing a solution, which it is reserved to do in later texts.

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