From the book
Lysis
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordApollymi means destroy; in the middle/intransitive forms, perish or disappear.
- In LysisThe forms ἀπόληται and ἀπολομένου belong to the imagined removal of badness and to the test of a proposed cause.
- Reading contextDistinguishing the two sets allows Socrates to retain morally neutral desires in the thought experiment and challenge the claim that badness alone explains friendship.
- A place to readThe Greek example means “Even if bad things perish.”
- English renderings
- Destroy; in the middle/intransitive forms, perish or disappear
Meaning
Destroy; in the middle/intransitive forms, perish or disappear.
Grammatical category: verb.
Use in the book
The forms ἀπόληται and ἀπολομένου belong to the imagined removal of badness and to the test of a proposed cause. “Perish” here need not describe a person’s death: bad things or a cause can be the grammatical subject.
The compound συναπόλλυσθαι asks why things that are not bad should perish together with bad things. Distinguishing the two sets allows Socrates to retain morally neutral desires in the thought experiment and challenge the claim that badness alone explains friendship.