Socrates 'Translation Of The Lysis'

Translation of the Lysis
Lysis is a dialogue of Plato that discusses the nature of friendship. Socrates runs into Ctesippus and Hippothales. These two wanted Socrates to join them for a conversation. Hippothales had a crush on Lysis. The reason Socrates joined them was to show Hippothales how to woo Lysis. What Socrates noticed is that Hippothales is inflating Lysis with too much praise that might make him harder to catch. They all went to the wrestling school. Socrates sat with Lysis and Manexenus to talk. Manexenus is Lysis’s friend and he also was there. Conversation started between them when Socrates started asking Menexenus questions about age, about who is born better and who is actually better. Some kind of rivalry was going on between

The good can be friends. Socrates says, “Perhaps half of it, and perhaps the whole of it, but we’re just not understanding” (p.339, 214B). What he means by half is that half of similar people can be friends; the good can be friends and the bad cannot be friends. Friendship has to do with sharing of thoughts, private and sensitive things and not only property. If you know a friend is good then you can trust him or her. You can trust a friend when he or she has a good character. Later on, Socrates says what if good equals to self sufficient? Because that way you need nothing, but of course that cannot be human beings since human beings cannot be self sufficient. We cannot serve someone who has no need. Self sufficient people can deal with you and do things for you. For example, God can do things for us but we cannot be friends with him. We notice that friendship between two good people is not possible. When Socrates says that good people cannot be friends he means that perfect beings or the self sufficient beings cannot be friends, but if we have good character we still have problems and we still have needs, so good human beings will still have friends. What Socrates proposes is that perhaps the friend is simply the good. And it is good for two good people to be friends, but they will not benefit from each other. The problem with the proposition that the good is the friend is same as the problem with like befriending like. The good

Friendship between two good people is impossible. And we also found out from this dialogue that the bad people cannot be friends with anyone. I personally don 't agree with some of those. I believe that two good people can be friends and also two bad people can be friends. If one habit or some things are bad in a person, that doesn 't make the person a totally bad one. Saddam Hussein, the ex president of Iraq and Stalin are different cases, however they still might have bad friends like themselves. Two years ago, when I experienced the loss of my father, that is when I truly knew who are the real friends of mine. During difficult times people can know who are the real ones and who the fake friends are. I believe the worst kind of people can still have a good part in them. It is all circumstances that changes people, otherwise we are all born good. But the surrounding can have lots of effects on us and keeping your circle positive and small can make life