The Plato Paradigm

Ivor Ludlam
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  • PHILOSOPHY
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What Plato Dramatized

  1. 3D AGO

    0239 Lysis 218b

    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 Socrates, and he will have to try harder to rouse them out of their stupor.

    14 min

  2. FEB 20

    0238 Lysis 217e

    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 expert nor inexpert would philosophize. By analogy with the neutral body loving the physician in order to remove the disease, we might suppose that the neutral soul would love the expert in order to remove ignorance, but not in order to acquire expertise. We need not take the argument literally, but in order to understand the fallacious nature of the argument, we must start by taking the argument at face value.

    14 min

  3. FEB 13

    0237 Lysis 217d

    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.

    14 min

  4. FEB 6

    0236 Lysis 217c

    A lesson in sophistry. We also learn that Menexenus had brown hair.

    14 min

  5. JAN 30

    0235 Lysis 217a

    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 designed to wake the boys up from their mental slumber, but without success. It would seem that Socrates is more concerned with making the boys think critically than with providing a serious argument. Sophistry and a terrible argument have more chance of arousing critical thinking - arguably!

    14 min

  6. JAN 23

    0234 Lysis 216d

    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 being of the neither-good-nor- bad to the good. Menexenus is clearly unable to remember that it had been agreed with Lysis that the good requires no friend since it is self-sufficient (this had led to the conclusion that the good is not the friend of the good, and hence that the friendly is not of like to like).

    14 min

  7. JAN 16

    0233 Lysis 216d

    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.

    14 min

  8. JAN 9

    0232 Lysis 216b

    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.

    14 min
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About

What Plato Dramatized

Information

  • Creator
    Ivor Ludlam
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    239
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Ivor Ludlam
  • Show Website
    The Plato Paradigm