Love and Friendship in Plato's Lysis: A Socratic Account

Abstract

Abstract The Lysis is often considered barren—empty of any positive Socratic answers concerning friendship.1 Moreover, following Charles Kahn, many commentators treat the Lysis as a mere prolegomenon to later dialogues like Symposium. I believe these interpretive trends are misguided.2 I seek to provide a new interpretation. On my interpretation, the Lysis contains a positive Socratic answer about friendship. In order to uncover the positive answer, however, we must read Lysis alongside other early dialogues of definition. By reading Lysis alongside Charmides, I manage to solve two interpretive problems—the problem of the first friend and the problem of egoism. First, concerning the problem of the first friend, after concluding that intermediates are friendly to the good because of (διά) the presence of badness and for the sake of (ἕνɛκα τοῦ) goodness, Socrates acknowledges that the conclusion was only a dream (218c10). He then proceeds to suggest that the body (an intermediate) is friendly to medicine because of the presence of disease and for the sake of health. But if health is pursued for the sake of some further end, this end becomes a friend, as well. In order to stop the regress, we must posit a first friend (πρῶτον ϕίλον)—some final end for the sake of which all other friends are friends (219d5). But commentators disagree about what the first friend refers to, thus generating an interpretive debate. Second, concerning the problem of egoism, Socrates's account of love and friendship has been denounced by Gregory Vlastos (1981) for being purely egoistic. On a straightforward reading of the prologue, for instance, Socrates holds that we befriend others only insofar as they contribute to our own good. Drawing primarily from Charmides, I offer a new interpretation. Friendship (ϕιλία), for Socrates, amounts to a relation between intermediates (second friends) who recognize their own ignorance and band together in pursuit of wisdom by means of conversation (καλοὶ λόγοι) with the aim of helping one another achieve eudaimonia (the first friend). On this interpretation, friendship requires that we love others for their own sake, not merely for their contribution to our own good.