Cicero, Lucullus 38: ‘…non potest animal ullum non adpetere id quod accommodatum ad naturam adpareat …’ From earliest childhood every man wants to possess something. One man collects horses. Another wants gold. Socrates has a passion for companions. He would rather have a good friend than a quail or a rooster. In this way, Socrates begins his interrogation of Menexenus. He then congratulates Menexenus and Lysis for each having what he himself still does not possess. How is it that one (...) gets a friend, Socrates asks? Since the nineteenth century many who have read these lines have found them repulsive. Scholars have damned the Lysis for its selfish egoism, for regarding persons as personal belongings. At the turn of the century some sought to discredit the dialogue as a forgery and a calumny. Others debated the dating of the dialogue as Socratic or Platonic, seeking whom to blame rather than whom to credit. And those who have regarded the dialogue as Platonic have tried to redeem it by detecting hints of Plato's theory of Forms. A few have attempted to salvage reputations by understanding the argument of the Lysis as a reductio of egoism, or else by invoking the loyalty of Socrates' friends and the history of Plato's friendship for Dion of Syracuse to speak up for their defence. Guthrie has condemned the dialogue as a failure of method and presentation , and Vlastos has pronounced it a failure of love: ‘The lover Socrates has in view seems positively incapable of loving others for their own sake, else why must he feel no affection for anyone whose good-producing qualities he did not happen to need?’ The Lysis appears to make no positive contribution to the Greek tradition on friendship when compared to the Symposium or the Phaedrus. And in the subsequent tradition, whatever Aristotle might have borrowed from the dialogue he uses for his own purposes. Aristotle too is quite critical of specific points raised in the Lysis. Now it might seem that Aristotle made a place for the selfish love of the Lysis in his own theory, as an inferior grade of utility love. But even this cannot be so, if we are to agree with recent studies of Aristotle's ethics. According to Aristotle, if a client is friendly to his benefactor because of the latter's usefulness, this utilitarian motive must accompany a genuine concern for the benefactor's own interest in that relation, if they are to be friends. Inferior and genuine friendship may differ in purpose but not in regard for the well-being of the beloved. This respect for the object of one's love has no parallel in the Lysis, according to the standard reading of the dialogue. (shrink)

Within an interpretive community, conversation will not cease until voices are silenced by circumstance.1 Less than three months after lecturing at Lake Forest College in November of 1911, Royce suffered a stroke.2 Within a year, Royce had adequately recovered and recuperated, so as to redouble his preparations for a lecture series on Christianity, initially presented in part at the Lowell Institute and then in a more completed version at Oxford. These lectures would come to constitute The Problem of Christianity.3 Publication (...) preceded Royce’s passing by a mere three years.In Royce’s day, both the United States and England were largely Christian nations. They are no longer so today.... (shrink)

The eristic paradox served as a starting point for Josiah Royce's metaphysical and moral outlook, beginning with "The Religious Aspect of Philosophy" (1885) and continuing to his final "Hope of the Great Community" (1916). In particular, Royce's early reflections on how error proves possible, as the puzzle was specifically presented in Plato's "Theaetetus", proved foundational for Royce's entire philosophical development. Royce's particular solution to the puzzles of the waxed table and the aviary is suggestive of similar moves in Frege, Wittgenstein, (...) and the neopragmatism of Richard Rorty, not to mention Royce's own theory of community. (shrink)

Having been set free from sin,You have become slaves of righteousness.Beginning with The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, Josiah Royce's views gradually evolved into a growing celebration of community affiliations. Philosophy of Loyalty eloquently articulated his distinctive social philosophy.1 Royce's vision of ideal community life soon became beatified in The Problem of Christianity in the form of "the Beloved Community," where Royce venerated the Pauline model of a gathered community consisting of those who share a common faith. Heartfelt community loyalty thereby (...) acquired a spiritual dimension that transformed human nature. Against the background of this transfiguration, Royce downplayed the... (shrink)