Plato's Concept of Friendship

Introduction

In the Plato's dialogue known as Lysis, the nature of friendship is discussed (Plato, 380 BCE). Plato discussed the friendship as a reciprocal relation of love between human beings, which often becomes illusory and problematic (Nichols, 2006). He discussed the concept that how the people try to be friends with those who are superior to them. For example, a sick likes to be friends with a doctor, a poor man wants to be friends with the rich, and a weak person wants to be friends with the strong. On the contrary, the people of same social status do not prove to be good friends more often because of the feelings of jealousy, envy and hatred with each other. For example, a wicked man would never like to be a friend of another wicked person. Thus, Plato made his interesting point that totally opposite things prove to be good friends as everyone likes to see his opposite characteristics in his friends. In the dialogue, Plato described the cross sex friendship as imperfect. Most of the times in such friendships, one person begins to feel romantically about other.

Critical Analysis

The ancient Greek philosopher attempted to answer the questions such as what is friendship, and how the people should behave with the people they call friends. Most of the arguments presented in the dialogue are valid even today. One question posed by Socrates in the article is that if one person loves another, so he is actually the friend, the lover or the loved one. Also, the case is discussed when a person loves someone, but he gets hatred in return. Socrates answered the question by suggesting that the loved one is the friend; however the claim is not valid for the situation if a person is in love with his enemy. ...