Power Of Love

Power Of Love

Power of Love
Lysis, Symposium and Phaedrus are philosophical tales woven between Socrates and his friends about love (eros) and friendship (philia).   Lysis is a tale of how Socrates instructs a young boy, Hippothales, on techniques necessary to woo true love.   Symposium is a round table discussion that illuminates the finer points of love as told by all in attendance.   Phaedrus is a tale of divine madness in accordance to love and friendship.   The tale of Alcibiades does not follow the typical format of love and friendship.   Here Socrates mentors a young man he loves, on the finer points of being a great leader, thus a lover.
Lysis
In Plato's writing of Lysis, he explores a number of opportunities for friendship; the beloved, the lover, the good, the like, the unlike and the evil.   Socrates first concept of friendship is that of the beloved and the lover.   Here he considers whether "when someone loves someone else, which of the two becomes the friend of the other, the one loves or the one who is loved?" (Lysis212b)   This conjecture is thrown out because, from time to time love, is not returned or one could be hated by the lover "so nothing is a friend of the lover unless it loves him in return." (Lysis 211d)   Socrates theory of friendship based on like being drawn to like suggest that two people are drawn together for the purpose of usefulness.   However, Socrates dismisses this theory stating "that the like is totally unqualified to be friend to the like; that just the opposite is true, that the things that are completely in opposition to each other are friends to the highest degree, since everything desires its opposite and not it's like." (Lysis 215c)   The third notion Socrates has in mind is "that which is neither good nor bad itself is by the presence of evil, a friend of the good." (Lysis 218c)   Once more this notion is dismissed on the foundation that evil cannot be the determining factor in friendship because it is not in harmony with itself.  

The...