From the book
Lysis
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAlogia means want of sense; an unreasonable or absurd result.
- In LysisAt 206b Hippothales calls it a great want of sense to describe someone harmed by his own poetry as a good poet.
- Reading contextIts local work is evaluative: a proposed account of who counts as φίλος has produced a relationship description that the speakers will not accept.
- A place to readThe Greek example means “And yet it is a great want of sense.”
- English renderings
- Want of sense; an unreasonable or absurd result
Meaning
Want of sense; an unreasonable or absurd result.
Grammatical category: feminine noun.
Use in the book
At 206b Hippothales calls it a great want of sense to describe someone harmed by his own poetry as a good poet. The word later marks another result the speakers find unacceptable.
Socrates calls it πολλὴ ἀλογία to be an enemy to a friend and a friend to an enemy, then strengthens the objection to ἀδύνατον, “impossible.” The noun expresses the unacceptability of the result before that stronger logical description is added.
This is not a technical name for every failed argument, nor an assertion that a person lacks speech. Its local work is evaluative: a proposed account of who counts as φίλος has produced a relationship description that the speakers will not accept.