• Pretty
    7
    Tried posting this on reddit and got no responses. Hope someone can take the time to review this.

    I've always wanted to have more words to interpret and comprehend this section in the Lysis [218d-221d], and it kind of clicked with me just now. Hoping for some other ancient heads to confirm this or point out what I might be missing.

    When Plato investigates the idea of the neither-good-nor-bad having philia towards the good, as the only possible outcome of his preceding investigation, he delves into this question of cause and sake. He says that the neither-good-nor-bad (ngnb) must be friends with the good out of some cause, and for the sake of something further. He first finds that it must be because of the (mere) presence of some bad, and for the sake of another friend. He then finds the chain of further friends to end at the "first friend". And then he worries that since the bad is the cause, the first friend is really for the sake of the bad, the argument being "take away the bad, and the good is no longer a friend." Finally, he saves the good by finding that there are ngnb desires, desires which are not because of anything bad, but because of something ngnb. So take away the bad, and the first friend now still remains.

    It seems like "sake" and "cause" of friendship here can be mapped easily to Aristotle's efficient and final causes, respectively, despite Plato's deliberate conflation towards the end. When Plato mentions "cause", he is mentioning some presence of bad, a bad which is distinct from the ngnb thing it is present in, since it has not fully corrupted its ngnb host. This seems clear to be efficient cause, since it is something distinct from the thing itself which causes some thing to take place (that is, friendship). For "sake" of friendship however, Plato in that passage also explicitly mentions the object of sake as being distinct from the friend in question, so that whether it is also a friend is then up for inquiry. Common notion of the word "sake" (Plato uses "διά," but its translation to "sake" seems unanimous) tells us that it is simply whatever the end of a certain purpose is intended to be. This, again, seems to clearly be final cause, which details the cause of purpose.

    Plato does then conflate the two when saying the first friend is for the sake of the bad, but it seems he is rather genuinely disproving any potential false dichotomy between the categories of cause. For what he shows is that when something is done (like gaining friendship) for the purpose of achieving good, that purpose can many times be seen as the purpose of eliminating a bad (even though Plato shows this interchangeability isn't always true). And from there, this purpose of friendship to eliminate a bad (which is a final cause) can be seen to necessarily have a further cause (an efficient cause), that being the presence of bad -- the purpose could not exist if it did not have a present bad to refer to. And through that, the final cause seems to only be a product of specific efficient causes, these being the presence of bads or ngnbs. At least, this is by the Platonic arguments put forth, and of course the definitions of sake and cause here do not necessarily apply across the rest of the dialogues in the same way.

    So, is this BS or does it make sense? Is there anything between these two pairs of terms that don't map as well on to each other?
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    I see it all as final cause. Where does efficient cause fit in?
  • tim wood
    9.2k
    Hi and welcome - if you haven't already been welcomed. A word about MU: you're probably OK asking MU about Aristotle; on that he has well-developed and strong opinions. But he also seems unable to distinguish between his beliefs and what is the case, thinking that what he believes actually is the case. And if pressed he will retreat in a familiar pattern, usually repeating his claims without substantive argument, ending with his saying that he does not understand what you wrote and that he is not interested in continuing the discussion. This isn't to say you will have this experience, but if you do and you feel the worse for it, know that many of us have been there, and that the remedy is just simply to disengage. I myself am not so good at taking my own advice: I have questions pending to MU which he disdains to answer.
  • Pretty
    7


    As I understand it, efficient cause is what describes the coming-to-be or creation of one distinct thing by another distinct thing. What Plato mentions as cause here would fill that role, because he is looking for what makes friendship come to be, what creates it. Since the bad or desire that is present is considered a distinct thing from the friendship, even more conveniently from the friend itself, and the bad or desire is seen to be what makes the friendship/friends come to be, then it seems to be the efficient cause. If I am misunderstanding efficient cause though I would be glad to be corrected.
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    I believe efficient cause refers to the source of motion, the moving thing which acts as a force to cause change. The ngnb could be portrayed as efficient cause, because it would be activity, simply causing change without any view toward good or bad. That's the way we see activity today, and efficient causation, in physics for example. Activity must be directed toward good or bad, by a conscious choice of free will. But Plato doesn't represent it this way in that passage. Plato says that the ngnb must be moved toward a good. Once he does this, he is bound to say that it must then already be bad in that respect.

    So the neutrality of the efficient cause is denied by Plato, saying that the thing which becomes from the activity of cause is always better than the prior state. And that is why you say he "conflates" efficient and final cause, he really annihilates the idea of efficient cause in that discussion, to say all causes must be fundamentally final causes, acting for the sake of something.

    But this denies the reality of what we would call misfortune. This is when acts which appear to be ngnb have a bad effect. We cannot say the act is for the sake of some good, like Plato does, because it appears to be all bad. And when we see the activity as leading from a better state to a worse state, we cannot apprehend the source of the act as for the "sake" of something, because nobody intentionally moves toward something apprehended as bad.
  • Pretty
    7
    (pressed post early — reply under construction. Check back soon lol)
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k

    A premature ejaculate, nothing to be ash
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    13.1k
    OMG, the cat grabbed my hand. I meant to say "nothing to be ashamed of".
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