We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
This book has had relatively little to say about rival modern interpretations of the Lysis. This is for two reasons. The first reason is that it is one of the general and stated aims of the series to which the book belongs to engage first and foremost with Plato, and with his text. The second, and more important, reason is that for the most part other modern interpreters have – in our view – tended to give up too easily on Plato and his argument; and not to do that was the second, and crucial, part of our brief in approaching the Lysis. We quote a recent writer, who seems to us accurately to catch the spirit of the generality of modern interpretations:
Contemporary interpretations of the Lysis appear to be governed by two commonplaces. The first is that the Lysis is not to be counted among Plato's nobler accomplishments and its contents may be judiciously ignored since the general topic it investigates is given a fuller and certainly more satisfying treatment in the Symposium. Perhaps no present-day writer on the Lysis has expressed this view with more verve or wit than W. K. C. Guthrie in his marvellously succinct one-line summation: ‘Even Plato can nod.’ The second commonplace is that the Lysis not only provides rather fertile acreage for harvesting a crop of Socratic doctrine regarding the meaning and philosophical import of such terms as philos and philia, but that the crucial elements of that doctrine are not difficult to ascertain. […]
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
