Note 26 — Chapter XX · LYSIS.

Among the many points of analogy between the Lysis and the Charmidês, one is, That both of them are declared to be spurious and unworthy of Plato, by Socher as well as by Ast (Ast, Platon’s Leben, pp. 429-434; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp. 137-144).

Schleiermacher ranks the Lysis as second in his Platonic series of dialogues, an appendix to the Phædrus (Einl. p. 174 seq.); K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, and nearly all the other critics dissent from this view: they place the Lysis as an early dialogue, along with Charmidês and Lachês, anterior to the Protagoras (K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. Plat. Phil. pp. 447-448; Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Lys. p. 90 (110 2nd ed.); Steinhart, Einl. p. 221) near to or during the government of the Thirty. All of them profess to discover in the Lysis “adolescentiæ vestigia”.

Ast and Socher characterise the dialogue as a tissue of subtle sophistry and eristic contradiction, such as (in their opinion) Plato cannot have composed. Stallbaum concedes the sophistry, but contends that it is put by Plato intentionally, for the purpose of deriding, exposing, disgracing, the Sophists and their dialectical tricks: “ludibrii causâ” (p. 88); “ut illustri aliquo exemplo demonstretur dialecticam istam, quam adolescentes magno quodam studio sectabantur, nihil esse aliud, nisi inanem quandam argutiarum captatricem,” &c. (p. 87). Nevertheless he contends that along with this derisory matter there is intermingled serious reasoning which may be easily distinguished (p. 87), but which certainly he does not clearly point out. (Compare pp. 108-9-14-15, 2nd ed.) Schleiermacher and Steinhart also (pp. 222-224-227) admit the sophistry in which Sokrates is here made to indulge. But Steinhart maintains that there is an assignable philosophical purpose in the dialogue, which Plato purposely wrapped up in enigmatical language, but of which he (Steinhart) professes to give the solution (p. 228).