Plato on the reciprocity of friendship

The Philosophy Garden: Stoicism and Beyond

“Ever since I was a boy I’ve always desired to acquire a certain thing. You know how different people desire different things: for example one man desires to acquire horses; another, to acquire dogs; another, gold; another, honors. I’m quite indifferent to those things, but I do passionately love acquiring friends. I’d rather get a good friend than the best quail or cock in the world. …

When I see you two, you and Lysis, I’m amazed, and think you must be very happy because, though you are so young, you’ve been able to acquire that possession quickly and easily: you’ve acquired Lysis as a friend so quickly and firmly; and he, you. Whereas I’m so far from acquiring one that I don’t even know how one man becomes the friend of another. That’s what I want to ask you about, in view of your experience.

Tell me, when a man loves someone, which is the friend of which? Is it the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved? Or is it the one who is loved who is the friend of the one who loves? Or is there no difference?

[After a spirited back and forth, Socrates concludes:]

Then, Menexenus, it would appear that what is loved is dear to what loves it whether it loves what loves it or whether it actually hates it. For example, some newly born children do not yet love, while others actually hate their mother or father when they are punished by them. None the less they are most dear to their parents at the time they actually hate them. …

That will mean, then, that we must allow exactly what we allowed earlier in our discussion, that a man is often the friend of what is not his friend, and often of what is actually his enemy, when he either loves what doesn’t love him, or loves what actually hates him; and that a man is often the enemy of what is not his enemy, or of what is actually his friend, when he either hates what does not hate him, or hates what actually loves him. …

‘Heavens, Socrates,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Can it be that we were not conducting our investigation properly at all, Menexenus?, I asked.”

(Lysis, 211d-213d)

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