Plato’s Dialogues famously represent the earliest serious inquiry written into universal human problems that plague us still. This work is not usually included in those major works though its format is still of a dialogue. Many scholars do not find that this inquiry into friendship deserves a serious place, likely a reflection of the place friendship holds in our culture. Or it could be because this work concludes that friendship is ultimately undefinable, yet people still universally consider other acquaintances to be friends.
What is a friend? This dialogue takes many attempts at that question. For instance, Socrates, the main speaker in the dialogue, debates whether friendships are based on having things in common. However, he notes that those who are bad do not form friendships with others who are bad. This is presumably so because they do not trust each other. Therefore, common traits do not necessitate and are not the same thing as friendship.
Socrates also engages the idea that friendships are instrumental – that is, they facilitate transfer of something good, as in a doctor to a sick patient. However, he soon finds himself arguing that those who are most wise and most good do not need friendships because they do not have need of others’ instrumental skills. Although Aristotle also takes up this argument, human experience shows that friendship is a universal human trait among the best among us.
So Plato leaves us with a mystery. Still as with most inquiries, we are wiser to have intellectually travelled down the road of the questions. According to this view, we humans like friends, but we do not understand fully what that means. Next time someone tightly parses categorical differences between words like acquaintance and friend, you might just want to call her/his bluff. If Plato and Socrates can’t figure it out, perhaps neither can they.
Lysis
By Plato; translated by Benjamin Jowett
Public Domain
ASIN B0082T0W86
Page Count: 53
Genre: Philosophy
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