ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a main theme of those Platonic reflections and tries to bring out its illuminating power. In the speech, Lysias argues that the older lover should pretend that he does not love the young man under his guidance, so the latter will be not be frightened off by the risk of entanglement in jealousy and obsessiveness. The creative work of love can thus be done unselfconsciously, and sometimes not just in excess of intention but even in opposition to it. The key idea is then of love as a mutual orientation furthering the true self-realization of the beloved and lover alike. One problem with Gregory Vlastos’s critique of Platonic love is that he does not himself give up the “teleological” perspective. He just says that Plato gets the teleology of real love of another wrong: that genuine love of another is “directed at” realizing the other’s good, not the good of the lover.
