http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/lysis.html
It's a short read. Thoughts on it? I've read it four times over the years and agree with the general consensus that it's one of Plato's weaker works. As for the "solution" to the dialogue, Socrates entered into a conversation with Lysis, having not been friends in the beginning. By the end of the conversation, they were friends. Therefore, whatever caused the friendship occurred during the period between the beginning of the conversation and the end of it. Occam's razor would probably lead me to argue that engaging in dialogue or working together in search of an answer leads to friendship. This would be consistent with a) Plato's emphasis on Philosophers as those who love and seek wisdom, The Good, etc., and b) the fact that this specific solution (two neutrals [a commonality] with complementary [an opposite] problems who share friendship) isn't refuted in his verbal exercise. Not that I'd bet any money on that solution, though. It's nearly 2,500 years later and no one has come up with anything definitive yet. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
