The role of affinity and asymmetry in Plato’s <i>Lysis</i>

Abstract

Are the true and the good friendless, for Plato, or is friendship a mode of truth and value? This article will examine Plato’s exploration of the aporias of friendship and the broader relationship to the question of the status of finite mediation and participation, as presented in Plato’s Lysis. One can note at the outset that this wider bearing is indicated by the term philia itself, which, in addition to friendship, denotes ‘self-belonging’, and includes the relations that are conducive to such self-belonging, as well as indicating both befriender and befriended (Lysis 218d). The stakes of the discourse seem to concern the sustainability of this polyvalent word: is our self-belonging in true goodness compatible with relational affection, and does the self-belonging of the good encompass any exterior concern? Must the double implication of philia be prised apart?