Socratic Dialogue Cont.

Since the start of the mentorship, Dr. Ruderman and I have spent time figuring out what literature would be most helpful for me to start out reading.

Due to this, we decided to start out at the beginning with The Classics. We decided to begin reading a Socratic Dialogue called Lysis: The Meaning of Friendship translated by Bolotin. Lysis, is a dialogue of Plato which discusses the nature of philia, translated to friendship. During this meeting, we read the first subsection of the text.

A number of causes of friendship and definitions of "the friend" are considered and rejected in the dialogue. We took notice of the underlying context of selfishness and self interest in regards to friendship. I was able to notice that Socrates portrays love more honestly, as a transaction of sorts, rather than the romanticized “pure” love we manufacture in our own minds and lives. We can see Plato playing with some important notions, particularly in the areas of identity (likeness), harmony (with oneself and with others), and good and evil.

We'll be continuing to read this Socratic dialogue and analyze it in the following weeks.