The intimate friendship Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin shared is puzzling and did not fade away in chess games or conversations. On the contrary, it left its trace on important motifs of the thinker such as her theory of action. The purpose of this article is to trace Arendt’s silent affinities with her friend Benjamin. The central thesis is that both share a critical view of modernity corresponding with their philosophies of history. Benjamin showed the intrinsically political character (...) of history by criticizing the idea of progress, while Arendt historicizes the political with the event and its remembrance. (shrink)

Today, friendship, love and sexuality are mostly viewed as private, personal and informal relations. In the mediaeval and early modern period, just like in ancient times, this was different. The classical philosophy of friendship included both friendship and love in the concept of philia. It was also linked to an argument about the virtues needed to become an excellent member of the city state. Thus, close relations were not only thought to be a matter of pleasant gatherings (...) in privacy, but just as much a matter of ethics and politics.What, then, happened to the classical ideas of close relations when they were transmitted to philosophers, clerical and monastic thinkers, state officials or other people in the medieval and early modern period? To what extent did friendship transcend the distinctions between private and public that then existed? How were close relations shaped in practice? Did dialogues with close friends help to contribute to the process of subject-formation in the Renaissance and Enlightenment? To what degree did institutions of power or individual thinkers find it necessary to caution against friendship or love and sexuality? (shrink)

This volume celebrates the remarkable career of Dr. Preston King, an African American political philosopher with an international reputation. King's first degree was from Fisk University (1956). He moved directly to the London School of Economics (LSE), completing his M.Sc. (Econ) in 1958 with a Mark of Distinction. He taught at LSE for the next two years. A scrap with Jim Crow America kept him in exile for the next 40 years. Major friends and influences at LSE were Professors Sir (...) Karl Popper, Michael Oakeshott, and Dr Bernard Crick. King took up subsequent lectureships at the Universities of Keele, Ghana, and Sheffield. He was Senior Research Assistant at the Acton Society Trust (London), then professor at the Universities of Nairobi, New South Wales (Sydney), Lancaster, returning at last to the USA as joint Woodruff Professor at Emory and Distinguished Professor at Morehouse. The essays comprising this volume are by internationally renowned figures. They creatively explore History, Toleration, and Friendship, as three seminal themes running through Preston King's sizeable oeuvre. This book's first third consists of essays on Time and History, with brilliant contributions by Professors Browning, Lawson, Moore, and Cherribi. The second third consists of essays on Time and Toleration, with memorable and penetrating analyses by Professors Jones, Read, Modood/Dobbernak, and Brown. The third part consists of essays on Time and Friendship, with offerings - both charming and insightful - by Professors Devere, Smith, and Coleman. The book concludes with a novel and captivating chapter by King himself, on the philosophy of time, which constitutes the substratum of so much of his work and reflection. (shrink)

In Friendship, Italian philosopher Claudia Baracchi explores the philosophical underpinnings of friendship. Tackling the issue of friendship in the era of Facebook and online social networks requires courage and even a certain impertinence. The friendship relationship involves trust, fidelity, and availability for profound sharing. Sociologists assure us this attitude was never more improbable than in our time of dramatic anthropological reconfiguration. Research on friendship cannot therefore ignore ancient thought: with unparalleled depth, Friendship examines the (...) broader implications of relationship, both emotional and political. Today, the grand socio-political structures of the world are trembling. The hold of valued paradigms that traditionally positioned individuals, determined their destinies, and assigned them their roles and reciprocal responsibilities is becoming uncertain. In these many global shifts, previously unforeseen possibilities for individual and collective becoming are unleashed. Perhaps friendship has to do with worlds that are not: that are not yet, and that should be desired all the more. Focusing on the works of Aristotle, Baracchi explores ancient reflections on friendship, in the belief that they have much to teach us about our relationships in the present day. (shrink)

This book explores for the first time an idea common to both Plato and Aristotle: although people are separate, their lives need not be; one person's life may overflow into another's, so that helping someone else is a way of serving oneself. Price considers how this idea unites the philosophers' treatments of love and friendship (which are otherwise very different), and demonstrates that this view of love and friendship, applied not only to personal relationships, but also to the (...) household and even the city-state, promises to resolve the old dichotomy between egoism and altruism. (shrink)

Love and Friendship in the Western Tradition comprises a collection of essays written over a 25 year period by the late Rev. Professor James McEvoy on the theme of friendship. The book traces the genesis and development of philosophical treatments of friendship from Greek philosophy, through the Middle Ages, to modern and postmodern philosophy. The collection's three major concerns are: (1) the history of philosophical discussions of friendship; (2) the role of friendship in the (...) cultivation of the philosophical life; (3) the marginalization of friendship as a theme for philosophical reflection and practice in the modern period. As the author was primarily a medievalist, a great deal of the focus of the essays is on the development of the theme of friendship in the Middle Ages (in the thought of Augustine, Aquinas, Aelred of Rievaulx, Henry of Ghent, Robert Grosseteste, etc.). However, this focus, while a value in itself, also serves to connect philosophical perspectives on friendship from before and after the middle ages. It connects to the time before inasmuch as much of the work done on friendship in the Middle Ages is anchored in interpretations of Aristotle and Plato, and it connects to the time after by providing a counterpoint to the modern paradigm of what constitutes the philosophical life. The collection combines historical with thematic approaches to scholarship on this issue and is one of the only books of its kind to do so. It is, perhaps, unique in its historical sweep and will prove to be a canonical source for further research on this topic. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive account of the major philosophical works on friendship and its relationship to self-love. The book gives central place to Aristotle's searching examination of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics. Lorraine Pangle argues that the difficulties surrounding this discussion are soon dispelled once one understands the purpose of the Ethics as both a source of practical guidance for life and a profound, theoretical investigation into human nature. The book also provides fresh interpretations of works on (...) friendship by Plato, Cicero, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne and Bacon. The author shows how each of these thinkers sheds light on central questions of moral philosophy: is human sociability rooted in neediness or strength? is the best life chiefly solitary, or dedicated to a community with others? Clearly structured and engagingly written, this book will appeal to a broad swathe of readers across philosophy, classics and political science. (shrink)

The article presents interpersonal relations and mutual influences between German logician Heinrich Scholz and Polish scholars, first of all Jan Łukasiewicz. The background for presenting these relationships consists of reflections on the development of logic in Poland and various conceptions of how to apply logic to philosophical issues. Firstly, Jan Łukasiewicz’s program of logicisation of philosophy and his search for allies is presented. Secondly, the forms of cooperation between Łukasiewicz and Scholz, as well as contacts between the latter and other (...) Polish scholars are sketched. Finally, forms of Scholz’s help to Polish friends during the tumultuous period of World War II are examined. The article provides also some reflections on the approach to logic in various European centers of analytic philosophy and historical comments on the continuity of philosophical and logical schools. (shrink)

Love—unconditional, selfless, unchanging, sincere, and totally accepting—is worshipped today as the West's only universal religion. To challenge it is one of our few remaining taboos. In this pathbreaking and superbly written book, philosopher Simon May does just that, dissecting our resilient ruling ideas of love and showing how they are the product of a long and powerful cultural heritage. Tracing over 2,500 years of human thought and history, May shows how our ideal of love developed from its Hebraic and (...) Greek origins alongside Christianity until, during the last two centuries, "God is love" became "love is God"—so hubristic, so escapist, so untruthful to the real nature of love, that it has booby-trapped relationships everywhere with deluded expectations. Brilliantly, May explores the very different philosophers and writers, both skeptics and believers, who dared to think differently: from Aristotle's perfect friendship and Ovid's celebration of sex and "the chase," to Rousseau's personal authenticity, Nietzsche's affirmation, Freud's concepts of loss and mourning, and boredom in Proust. Against our belief that love is an all-powerful solution to finding meaning, security, and happiness in life, May reveals with great clarity what love actually is: the intense desire for someone whom we believe can ground and affirm our very existence. The feeling that "makes the world go round" turns out to be a harbinger of home--and in that sense, of the sacred. (shrink)

Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida's "political turn," marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea of (...) friendship pursued down the ages. Derrida's thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, "my friends, there is no friend" and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought--friendship and enmity, private and public life--have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar and male-centered notion of fraternity and the virile virtue whose authority has gone unquestioned in our culture of friendship and our models of democracy. The future of the political, for Derrida, becomes the future of friends, the invention of a radically new friendship, of a deeper and more inclusive democracy. This remarkable book, his most profoundly important for many years, offers a challenging and inspiring vision of that future. (shrink)

Scholars have disagreed on whether Cicero’s De Amicitia is a philosophically serious or even coherent work. Such criticisms, I believe, can be met by an examination of the successive accounts of friendship that the character of Gaius Laelius provides in the dialogue. I argue that the dialogue offers three such accounts of friendship which taken together provide a comprehensive and coherent account of friendship. Further, I defend Cicero’s account against criticisms that Aulus Gellius had raised in the (...) 2nd century CE (criticisms that have been repeated to the modern day). The problem of defining friendship is a thread that brings unity to the entire dialogue and shows Cicero philosophizing about both the origins of friendship and its dissolution, especially when the bonds of friendship are in tension with obligations to the political community. (shrink)

When we, from a Nietzschean perspective, read through the history of philosophical thinking about friendship, we find that the idealization of friendship leads inevitably to the problem of nihilism. This confronts us with the question whether friendship is still possible under nihilistic conditions. Nietzsche himself claims on the one hand that in our nihilistic condition only something like friendship can save us, but on the other hand that friendship itself has been unmasked and has (...) become impossible by these very conditions. It seems we are struck in the nihilistic paradox of not being allowed to believe in the possibility of what we cannot do without. Literary imagination since the 19th century seems to make us even more skeptical. Maybe Beckett provides an illustration of a way out that fits well with Nietzsche’s claim that only “the most moderate, those who do not require any extreme articles of faith‘ will be able to cope with nihilism. We might extend this to a moderate concept of friendship: in an age in which the great ideal of friendship erodes together with all ideality, we can only survive as long as we know that we’re not alone. Maybe that’s friendship: no perfection, no virtuosity, no lofty ideal, but simply this: to know that one is not all alone. (shrink)

The loss of friendship can be a frequent occurrence for children as they explore their social worlds and navigate their way through the demands of particular relationships. Given that friendship is a relationship of special regard, and associated with a particular partiality to our friends, the ending of friendship and the subsequent interactions between former friends, can be difficult areas for schools to deal with. Whilst there has been considerable research on the formation and maintenance of (...) class='Hi'>friendship, a consideration of what happens after friendship has had surprisingly limited attention. Much of our current understanding of issues on moral behaviour fails to fully address the positioning of former friends in our moral thinking particularly as regards matters arising from the priority of attachment. Recent empirical research seems to indicate that the memory of prior encounters has a far greater influence on future reciprocal exchanges than previously accepted. This paper considers suggests that this view of memory can be played out in two contrasting ways. First, a prudential view suggests that as our former friends were previously given access to our intimate secrets and confidences, self-interest would seem to indicate that we treat them well. Secondly, a residual duties view suggests that some obligations remain after the friendship has ended based on the history of the relationship. Finally, I then draw out some of the implications this may have for schools and the education of children. (shrink)

Using friendship studies from the perspectives of philosophy, psychology, history, classics, political science, sociology, ethology, neuroscience, semiotics and other disciplines, the volume uses the encyclopedic format to construct both a positive ontology (based on empirical evidence) of friendship, as well as discussing friendship's "negative ontology" (i.e., its uncertainties, ambivalences, unknowns, and ineffable aspects), to outline a multidisciplinary comparative approach to different philosophical models of friendship (e.g., ancient Greek, Indian, Roman, modern), and to explore the inner (...) connection between friendship and philosophy (as a way of life and a friendship with wisdom). Among the emergent categories are 1. Issues (e.g., money, mutuality, satisfaction). 2. Models (e.g., the ancient Greek, the Indian, the modern model of friendship). 3. Kinds or types of friendship (e.g., bad friends, noblest friendship, typologies). 4. Incoherence of theoretical typologies (e.g., complexity, ineffability, thisness). 5. Technical terms (e.g., bestowal, friend-shield effect, homophily). 6. Theories, accounts (e.g. Silver’s thesis, Dunbar’s number, mirror account of friendship). 7. Cases of friendships (e.g., Achilles and Patroclus, Murdoch’s friends, famous friends). 8. Philosophers on friendship (e.g., Aristotle, Kant, Weil). 9. Motifs and themes (e.g., gift, pleasure, social media). 10. Concepts (e.g., eros, presentism, tacit knowledge). 11. Proverbs (e.g., Faroese, Jamaican, Swahili proverbs). 12. Friendship studies (e.g., anthropology, history, semiotics of friendship). (shrink)

Research in general, and research on friendship in particular, uses metaphors and analogies, and research itself can be seen in analogy with map making. This chapter takes us on a meandering walk along mono- and multidisciplinary inquiries into friendship as seen from many perspectives, like that of history and philosophy of science (that has analogical modelling as a canonical style of reasoning) and semiotics, to reflect on the uses of metaphor and analogy. Semiotics as founded by C. (...) S. Peirce is the science of representations, how representational devises relate to their objects and how the meaning generated depends upon context and interpretation. Metaphor and analogy are such representational tools, at once cognitive and common as we all use them to think with, but also specialized within the sciences and humanities where they can be used in effective and misleading ways. It is shown how the general map analogy can be semiotically analysed as a diagram and how its general form can be applied to the aspects of friendship that concern the friends’ knowledge of Self and Other. We not only think, but also do things with metaphors, such as transforming a friend into some kin, or vice versa. (shrink)

The volume “Conceptualizing Friendship in Time and Place” brings together reflections on the meaning and practice of friendship in a variety of social and cultural settings in history and in the present time, focusing on Asia and the Western world.

A philosophical exploration of the meaning and significance of friendship.This book explains the persistence of friendship today in the light of the history of philosophical approaches to the subject. It considers ideals of intimacy and fusion in the context of claims that such ideals are unrealistic and even dangerous. Cicero's scepticism about friendship in the public realm is compared with the Aristotelian view of friendship as a genuine political bond, and with Derrida's development of that (...) view via an exploration of Aristotle's alleged and provocative announcement 'O my friends, there is no friend'. Tensions between love and respect, identity and difference, a focus on the self and a focus on the other are closely examined.From Aristotle to contemporary theorists, the book explores the conditions that enable the development of self-understanding in friendship, the delicate and unstable pairing of concepts like inclination and duty and distinctions between self-love, self esteem and self-concern in relations between friends.Key Features* Recognition of the variety of the term 'friend' in the history of philosophy* The treatment of the tension between identity and difference in relations between friends* Discussion of the contribution of friendship to self-understanding. (shrink)

An unusual and thought-provoking history of humankind traces the evolution of emotions and personal relationships through the ages and among diverse cultures, discussing such varied topics as the art of conversation, inter-gender friendships, lifestyles, and cookery.

International friendship is often neglected in international relations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze international friendship empirically as a result of the construction of multiple institutional facts. Two main fields are investigated in this study: the development of city twinnings and cultural institutes. Paying attention to emotions, rituals, and unusual events, allows in which to understand the ways friendship is socially constructed. Studying international friendship as a pattern of institutional facts invites attention to the (...) specific contexts in which they emerge. In Europe, after World War II, the embeddedness of friendship politics in local communities has partly gone through a process of invention of communal traditions. European communal history has been a major symbolic resource in this process. The embeddedness of international friendship in local communities has favoured the longstanding relations. Governmental initiatives might have big impacts, but rarely go on without local support or relief. Yet, achieving friendship might not favour a broad and open community but, on the contrary, favour a dense network of closed communities. This is what we may call Tocqueville’s paradox. (shrink)

Throughout the history of Western political philosophy, the idea of friendship has occupied a central place in the conversation. It is only in the context of the modern era that friendship has lost its prominence. By retrieving the concept of friendship for philosophical investigation, these essays invite readers to consider how our political principles become manifest in our private lives. They provide a timely corrective to contemporary confusion plaguing this central experience of our public and our (...) private life. This volume assembles essays by well-known scholars who address contemporary concerns about community in the context of philosophical ideas about friendship. Part One includes essays on ancient philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Part Two considers treatments of friendship by Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, and Part Three continues with Thomas Hobbes, Montaigne, the American founders, and de Tocqueville. The volume concludes with two essays that address the postmodern emphasis on fragmentation and the dynamics of power within the modern state. “This is an outstanding anthology in every respect. _Friendship and Politics_ brings into focus a topic that lies at the heart of the political, even while it has not always garnered the attention it deserves. Friendship, the contributors demonstrate, is an indispensable concept for the analysis of the bonds of political association. The case is most convincingly made by drawing upon the analyses of the greatest thinkers within the history of political thought.” —_David Walsh, Catholic University of America _ “Contemporary political theory assumes that friendship is a private affair, a human relationship that should be quarantined from explorations of politics. The essays in this volume—uniformly excellent, by our best political thinkers—put those assumptions to the test. Together, the essays point to a conception of politics that necessarily includes the highest and best form of human companionship as a necessary means, and even worthwhile end, of the good life. They consider friendship to be a good and at times a challenge that should properly be the concern of political thought and political action. This is an indispensable volume on the inescapable relationship between friendship and politics.” —_Patrick J. Deneen, Georgetown University_. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Greek FriendshipDavid KonstanIn this paper I examine the nomenclature and conception of friendship among the ancient Greeks. More specifically, I challenge the current consensus that the classical Greek notion of friendship was wider or more inclusive than the modern. My focus will be on the significance of the terms philos (as noun) and philia, which do not, as is commonly assumed, denote the same range of relations. (...) I shall argue that philos in the classical period denotes something very like the modern sense of "friend," while philia refers to affectionate sentiments (not objective obligations) characteristic of a wide range of relationships, not excluding friendship proper. I examine evidence drawn primarily from Aristotle, Xenophon and the Greek orators in order to exhibit the uses of the nouns philos and philia, and look also at Sophocles' Antigone, since a number of recent interpretations of this play presuppose that kin are philoi and that philia represents the objective bond among them.In his recent book on Athenian finance, Paul Millett writes: "It is true that from the viewpoint of comparative sociology, to say nothing of our own experience, the all-inclusive quality of Greek friendship is anomalous."1 Millett cites the article on "Friendship" by Odd Ramsøy for the generalization that "most other important social relationships exclude friendship," which "tends to be incompatible with such relationships as those of mother and child, lovers, and employer and employee."2 Millett goes on to observe that Greek usage, as illustrated for example by Aristotle, admits of the term philos or "friend" in respect to "parents, brothers, benefactors, fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens," as well as to "husbands and wives, fellow-voyagers, comrades-in-arms, guest-friends, and cousins," and he adds that "perhaps the clearest illustration comes from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, plotting the extension of philia both inside and outside the family circle." [End Page 71]Millett expresses with exemplary clarity and a wealth of citations a point of view shared by virtually every scholar writing these days on Greek friendship. For example, Mary Whitlock Blundell, in her study of Sophoclean ethics, classifies Greek conceptions of friendship under three main heads or circles: the family, fellow-citizens, and "the third main group of philoi" that "approximates most closely to modern conceptions of a friend."3 Barry Strauss, in his history of fourth-century Athens, writes: "Friendship was of fundamental importance in Athenian society. Second only to parent-child and kinship ties in the intensity of its obligations, friendship is central to the thought of many ancient Greek writers."4 This seems to promise a distinction between kinship and friendship, but in the next sentence Strauss continues: "Philia, as the Greeks called it, is much broader in its meaning than the English 'friendship,'" and he goes on to quote with approval N. R. E. Fisher, who asserts: "Linguistically, the most general word for what belongs to a person, in his group or on his side, is philos (noun philia), which we usually translate 'friend,' but which, when applied to persons, systematically spans both kin and non-kin, those with whom one has links of mutual aid and benevolence."5 Sally Humphreys states the matter succinctly in a footnote:" Philos can refer both to kin and to friends."6 The philosophers too are in agreement on this point. Thus, Michael Pakaluk, in the introduction to a collection of philosophical essays on friendship, observes of Aristotle's treatise: "Religious societies, familial bonds, affinities among travellers, civility among citizens, arrangements of hospitality, and tacit contractual agreements-all of these are woven into his account of friendship."7The Greeks, then, are said not to have discriminated linguistically between a wide range of associations that we, and most societies, regard as categorically distinct. Friends are assimilated to relatives, fellow citizens, and just about anyone else with whom one shares some common experience or interest. This view, however, is inexact and misleading as stated. I shall argue that in Greek usage of the classical period and later, [End Page 72] just as in English today, kin and fellow citizens were not normally spoken of as friends or philoi, and that the categories were in fact distinct and... (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented here. In an attempt to resolve these tensions, and understand the assumption that gives rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, (...) moral conduct is that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship that realizes harmony through a focus on shared activities, and the quality of interaction achieved between people as they participate in shared social events. This account offers a novel way of conceptualizing friendship, which also avoids the tension between the impartial standpoint and close friendship. (shrink)

Narrative desire, according to philosopher Adriana Cavarero, is the desire for one’s own history. What can semiotics of literature say about friendship as a dialogic phenomenon and the narrative desire for personal-historical knowledge in friendship, and how is this kind of knowledge semiotically different from knowledge achieved by science and scholarship? As an interpersonal relation, friendship is discussed here from the perspective of semiotics and precarious knowledge, i.e., as a historically contingent relation that can be semiotically (...) modelled (represented by mappings that are to some degree cognitively adequate and emotionally convincing) both within fiction literature and academic disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology and history. Friendship as a complex phenomenon has recently received increased attention from many distinct theoretical perspectives and disciplines. There are forms of “hidden interdisciplinarity” in friendship studies, as well as mono- and multidisciplinary approaches. A good case in point is recent discussions on how well a novel can model friendship. The opposite claims of philosopher Alexander Nehamas and literary critic Gregory Jusdanis on the adequacy of the novel for describing friendship will be discussed. By considering ‘The Neapolitan Novels’ by Elena Ferrante, depicting a close, difficult, life-long friendship between two women and its concerns with precarious dialogues and knowledge (like what the two very different persons really know about each other), as well as recent scholarship on Ferrante’s work, I show how her novels are not just inspired by, but also indirectly a critical comment upon the work on narrative friendship by Cavarero. Friends differ, and some of their differences constitute a challenge for universal models of friendship and narrative desire. Furthermore, Ferrante’s novels add a challenging complexity to a central insight analysed by Santaella as Peirce’s dialogism – that the action of signs is not merely individual but social, and that this applies as well to the person, whose thoughts are what she is “saying to that other self that is just coming into life in the flow of time” (CP 5.421; Santaella 2004: 132). The novels can be seen as modelling the very genesis of that dialogic self in the precarious process of finding a balance between dependency and autonomy between the friends. (shrink)

Social and cultural difference. "Only historicize": history, material culture (food, clothes, books), and the future of Dante studies -- Dante's sympathy for the other, or the non-stereotyping imagination: sexual and racialized others in the Commedia -- Contemporaries who found heterodoxy in Dante: Cecco d'Ascoli, Boccaccio, and Benvenuto da Imola on Fortuna and Inferno 7.89 -- Dante's limbo and equity of access: non-Christians, children, and criteria of inclusion and exclusion, form Inferno 4 to Paradiso 32 -- Metaphysical difference. Toward a (...) Dantean theology of eros: form Dante's lyrics to the Paradiso -- Amicus eius: Dante and the semantics of friendship -- Paradiso and the mimesis of ideas: realism versus reality -- Dante squares the circle: textual and philosophical affinities of Monarchia and Paradiso (Solutio distinctiva in Mon. 3.4.17 and Par. 4.94-114) -- Difference as punishment or difference as pleasure: from the tower of Babel in De vulgari eloquentia to the death of Babel in Paradiso 26 -- Aristotelian disruptions 1: wealth and society. Aristotle's Mezzo, courtly Misura, and Dante's Canzone "Le doci rime": humanism, ethics, and social anxiety -- Dante and wealth, between Aristotle and Cortesia: from the moral Canzoni "Le dolci rime" and "Poscia ch'amor" through Convivio to Inferno 6 and 7 -- Aristotelian disruptions 2: love and compulsion. Archeology of the Donna Gentile: the importance of disconversion in conversion narratives -- Dante and Cecco d'Ascoli on love and compulsion: the epistle to Cino, "Io sono stato," the third heaven -- "Voi che 'ntendendo il terzo ciel movete," a dramatization of "utrum de passione in passionem possit anima transformari": conflict, compulsion, consent, conversion -- Critical philology and Italian cultural history. The case of the lost original ending of Dante's Vita nuova: more notes toward a critical philology -- Critical philology and Dante's Rime. (shrink)

How could Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who fled Germany in 1931, have reconciled with Martin Heidegger, whom she knew had joined and actively participated in the Nazi Party? In this remarkable biography, Antonia Grunenberg tells how the relationship between Arendt and Heidegger embraced both love and thought and made their passions inseparable, both philosophically and romantically. Grunenberg recounts how the history between Arendt and Heidegger is entwined with the history of the twentieth century with its breaks, catastrophes, (...) and crises. Against the violent backdrop of the last century, she details their complicated and often fissured relationship as well as their intense commitments to thinking. (shrink)

In the context of a symposium on enmity, this article—the product of extensive research done by a group of colleagues in St. Petersburg—concerns characteristic types of friendship in Russia. The author distinguishes in particular between instrumental political friendship, which Russians tend to scorn, and the intensely emotional and intimate sort of friendship, usually shared in a group rather than a dyad, that Russians consider uniquely their own. Both types, however, have long histories in Russia, which this article (...) undertakes to trace. Intimate friendship appears to be an overlay of attitudes and characteristics, originating in the age of sensibility, onto medieval notions about friendship in Christ. An argument is made for a more general acceptance by Russians of instrumental friendship, since even friendship in Christ can be shown to depend extensively on things held in common. The essay argues too, however, for bringing some of the peculiarities, especially the linguistic peculiarities, of intimate friendship to Russian political friendship, in both domestic and international contexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Friendship in the Classical World by David KonstanDavid K. GliddenDavid Konstan. Friendship in the Classical World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. xiv + 206. Paper, $18.95.Despite its brevity, Konstan’s history of friendship in classical antiquity speaks volumes. With admirable precision and economy of expression, Konstan cites and surveys scores of ancient authors—poets, playwrights, politicians, novelists and historians, sophists, satirists, philosophers, and theologians—from Homer’s (...) legendary portrait of Achilles and Patroclus to the Christian fusions of Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century of the common era. An impressive array of anthropologists, philosophers, and classical scholars enter into the discussion at specific interstices connecting philology, textual interpretation, ancient history, and modern social psychology all together, so as to display an evolving array of ancient philosophies, faiths, and attitudes concerned with friendly relations of one sort or another. Konstan grounds this history in a richly informed context of exacting detail. Yet, he charitably leaves his reader with the feeling that so much more needs to be explored.At the same time, what largely motivates this work is Konstan’s demonstrable conviction that ancient friendship exhibits recognizable resemblances with its contemporary counterpart, notwithstanding all the varieties exhibited over the fifteen hundred years or so of ancient Greek and Roman practices. “Ideas of friendship were adapted to different practices, but the core sense of a private bond based on mutual affection, esteem, and liberality—within the capabilities of the respective partners—abided” (148). What is foreign in ancient human relations may be considerable, but it [End Page 359] does not efface what remains familiar and what continues to be prized about the company of friends. Regardless of the peculiarities of ancient political associations, protocols of reciprocity, the relations of clients to their patrons, strains between honesty and flattery, divided loyalties among families, friends, and countries, and the dramatic effects of early Christianity on human relations when faced with a relationship to God, there is, all the same, something comfortably familiar about the ways friends related to one another throughout the ancient world. This abides even in the face of ancient/modern barriers segregating friendships from, say, sexual relationships or restricting friendships across genders, or so it would seem.Konstan’s anthropological approach employs an approximating master concept of friendship with which to tie his story together, a conception which places great emphasis on “mutual affection, esteem, and liberality.” Aristotle’s understanding of friendship consequently plays a special role in this history, both as an influential model within antiquity and also as a vehicle for Konstan’s own narrative construction.Aristotle famously portrayed a prototype of human friendship in which persons are bound together first and foremost by a personal affinity due in large part to the content of their character, in contrast to those who are friends for lesser reasons, due to usefulness or pleasure. At the same time, Aristotle’s focus on virtue friendship as a primary vehicle for fathoming other varieties of human relations became something of a self-fulfilling methodology. Armed with such a normative model, a philosophical anthropologist would then rank other varieties of human relations accordingly, as lesser forms of friendship. Aristotle’s template serves Konstan’s purpose nicely, since he too sees character affinity as primary to the various ways we human beings relate with one another. Yet, normative ideals of what friendship ought to be when at its best inevitably affect, in turn, how we read the ways friends are and were historically.Following Aristotle, Konstan lays great emphasis on the originating Greek conception of the friend (philos as a noun), as opposed to the various instantiations of whatever objects may be loved or cherished generally (philos as an adjective). So too, the broader, underlying account of caring (philein the verb; philia the abstracted noun) is displaced as well, to maintain a steady focus on the living witness of friends, both real and ideal. While this tidy terminological division between philos (noun) and philos (adjective) might work well for Aristotle and for Konstan, Plato found it less appealing. And it was Plato’s Lysis, after all, that Aristotle’s originating model of friendship was responding to. Had a modern... (shrink)

Women thinking and writing about friendship in the early modern period were indebted to traditional interest in this topic dating back to Plato and Aristotle. This tradition was deeply misogynistic: real friendship was often claimed to be beyond the grasp of women. However, some women philosophers—most notably Marie le Jars de Gournay, Mary Astell, and Gabrielle Suchon—wrote about friendship in ways that both emerge from the history of Western philosophy and yet resist this inegalitarian framework. This (...) chapter explores the views of these three philosophers: for each, real friendship represents a means to obtain a different kind of meaningful freedom. For Gournay, friendship is a means to epistemic freedom and epistemic justice; for Astell, friendship is a means to moral freedom and relational autonomy, and for Suchon, friendship provides support that facilitates political freedom—freedom from institutional commitments or constraints. (shrink)

In the following essay I explore the hermeneutical significance of Gadamer’s writings on the relational, and thus ethical, components of understanding. First, I look at his discussion in Truth and Method of the significance of the “I-Thou” relation for interpretation. I then turn to his 1985 essay on Aristotle’s notion of friendship, “Friendship and Self-Knowledge: Reflections on the Role of Friendship in Greek Ethics.” My interest is to think about the implications of these writings for his theory (...) of hermeneutics in general. I conclude that both motifs indicate the importance of openness to the other that leads to a deeper realization of our solidarity with the other. (shrink)

Author of "Kubla Khan" and the epic "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Samuel Taylor Coleridge is remembered principally for his contributions as a romantic poet. This innovative reconsideration of Coleridge's thought and career not only demonstrates his importance as a philosopher but also recovers romanticism as both an aesthetic and a political movement. Pamela Edwards radically departs from classic theories of Coleridge's development and reads his writing within the framework of a constantly shifting political and social landscape. Drawing on (...) the ideology, rhetoric, and institutional theory at the turn of the late British Enlightenment, Edwards unearths the fundamental continuities in Coleridge's writing during the revolutionary period of 1794 to 1834, paying particular attention to the rhetoric of Coleridge's pamphlet and miscellaneous writings, the journalism of the Napoleonic years, his philosophical and ultimately political treatises within the contexts of his notebooks and letters, and his readings and intellectual friendships. What emerges is a clearer understanding of Coleridge's political philosophy and his contributions to the origins and ideology of British Liberalism. Coleridge's interest in history, nature, and law as inherently interconnected projects producing an ideal or scientific reading of society reveals a developed progressive social and cultural state theory anchored in individual conscience, moral autonomy, and a civic and participatory human agency. If the Statesman could understand and finally master this scientific view of the world, he would be able not only to adjust political and social institutions to comprehend the historical contingencies of the moment but to see through the problem of the moment to the dynamic of change itself. (shrink)

Surveys the ideals of friendship in ancient Greco-Roman philosophy. The notion of the best friendship inevitably reflects the various conceptions of a good life.

In his discussions of justice and of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle appeals frequently—without much explanation—to temporal considerations. I take these indications as a key for sorting out the systematic significance of Aristotle’s claim that “when people are friends, there is no need for justice” (NE VIII.1.1155a26). Anaximander’s fragmentary claim that coming-to-be is itself an injustice serves as a touchstone for the analysis; I ask whether and how Aristotle might agree with such a claim. I first isolate some (...) problems, especially those involving time, that underlie Aristotle’s various dialectical articulations of justice in NE V and show that friendship addresses them more beautifully than does justice. Then I try to establish that the ultimate work of friendship is to alter human temporality, interweaving multiple particular lives into a whole that both imitates and fits into the cosmic whole. (shrink)

According to some contemporary epistemologists, truth is a norm of belief: for any proposition p, one ought to believe that p only if p is true. It is sometimes also held that the evaluation of beliefs in terms of their truth-value is universal: truth is a norm of all, and not merely some, of one’s beliefs. Taken together, these claims have inspired the “friendship objection” to the truth-norm. According to this objection, friendship sometimes requires that friends violate the (...) truth-norm when it comes to their beliefs about each other. I begin by discussing how the friendship objection poses a potential problem for the Catholic philosophical tradition. Then, I attempt to resolve the objection by arguing that it is committed to a false dilemma about friendship. Drawing on insights of Gabriel Marcel and Dietrich von Hildebrand, I sketch a virtue by which friends negotiate the demands of both friendship and truth. (shrink)

According to Aristotle’s reply to what I call the divine wish aporia (NE VIII.7 1159a5–12), perfect friendship entails wishing many great goods for one’s friend, but precludes wishing that one’s friend become a god—“the greatest of goods”—for the realization of this wish would destroy the friendship. Counter both to this reply and to the slim body of existing commentary, which appeals to the external criterion of equalizable reciprocation, I demonstrate how the perspective internal to the virtuous activity of (...) perfect friendship affords properly Aristotelian grounds for retaining the divine wish as its constitutive limit. While the practicable scope of perfect friendship remains circumscribed within human limits, its characteristic wishing at once reaches beyond the human—and the friendship. (shrink)

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for (...) most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends, joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’s conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith’s private religious views were considerably closer to Hume’s public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics—and Smith contributed more to philosophy—than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u nd. The article critically examines the concept of peace in the context of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. This study delves into the historical, diplomatic, and philosophical dimensions of the Treaty between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China in the mid-twentieth century. M e t h o d s. The study is based on a systematic analysis of the original documents of the Sino-Soviet Treaty (...) and other primary sources that record the context and content of the agreement. The article uses a comprehensive analysis of primary sources, diplomatic correspondence, political discourse, and philosophical narrative to illuminate various interpretations and implementations of the treaty's peace provisions. Analyzing the philosophical basis of the agreement, it is taken into account how the ideas and concepts of friendship, union and mutual assistance were interpreted in the philosophical context of both countries. The article uses methods of comparative analysis to establish common and distinctive features between the ideology of the Sino-Soviet Treaty. Re s u l t s. The study provides valuable information about the geopolitical dynamics of the 20th century, shedding light on how the two major communist powers managed their diplomatic relations. By examining the ideological underpinnings and practical implications of the Treaty's peace-oriented provisions, the article contributes to understanding the broader landscape of international relations in this dynamic period. C o n c l u s i o n s. The study provides important information about the geopolitical dynamics of the 20th century, revealing how the two leading communist states managed their diplomatic relations. The article also considers the prospects for the development of dynamics between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, examining the difficulties and problems that arose in maintaining peaceful relations between powerful states with common political ideologies based on the principles of Marxism. Analyzing the ideological foundation and practical consequences of the peacekeeping principles in the treaty, the article contributes to a better understanding of the broad context of international relations and philosophical narrative. (shrink)

Adam Smith (1723–90) provided a novel and subtle account of the new social physics that emerged to accommodate the economic changes taking place in his time. This article explores Smith’s views on the effect of commercialization on friendship, and then questions one prominent interpretation of his approach, that of Allan Silver. Against the contested reading, we argue that the new ‘strangership’ described by Smith is not warm, but rather, cool-friendship enhancing. We suggest that Cicero’s treatment of friendship (...) illuminates Smith’s views on this topic. (shrink)

The thirty year long friendship between Imre Lakatos and the classic scholar and historian of mathematics Árpád Szabó had a considerable influence on the ideas, scholarly career and personal life of both scholars. After recalling some relevant facts from their lives, this paper will investigate Szabó's works about the history of pre-Euclidean mathematics and its philosophy. We can find many similarities with Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics and science, both in the self-interpretation of early axiomatic Greek mathematics as Szabó (...) reconstructs it, and in the general overview Szabó provides us about the turn from the intuitive methods of Greek mathematicians to the strict axiomatic method of Euclid's Elements. As a conclusion, I will argue that the correct explanation of these similarities is that in their main works they developed ideas they had in common from the period of intimate intellectual contact in Hungarian academic life in the mid-twentieth century. In closing, I will recall some relevant features of this background that deserve further research. (shrink)

This paper uses the friendship and collaboration of Edwin Ray Lankester , zoologist, and Herbert George Wells , novelist and journalist, to challenge the current interpretation of late Victorian concern over degeneration as essentially an intellectual movement with little influence in contemporary debates over social and political problems. Degeneration theory provided for Lankester and Wells the basis both for a personal bond and for an active programme of social and educational reform. I trace the construction of Lankester’s account of (...) degeneration, initially as empirical ‘fact’ and later as ideologically inflected theory, and the reciprocal relationship between this theory and his critique of the British university system. I use Wells’s Outline of history to illustrate the profound influence of Lankester’s degenerationist worldview on Wells’s scientific and socio-political thought. Lankester’s synthesis of his theory and his critique led the two men to reject eugenics as an unscientific and ideologically incompatible solution to the problem of national deterioration. Instead, they campaigned for the reform of scientific education as a means of keeping mankind from physical, intellectual and cultural degeneration. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY has always made use of its past. In doing so, it resembles literature more than it does the natural sciences, which generally regard the scientific concepts and systems of history as superseded, useless hulks drifting in the wake of empirical and conceptual progress. Literature, on the contrary, cherishes the monumental achievements of previous ages; they retain value and importance, and can be turned to for interest and for inspiration again and again. Philosophy has sometimes claimed to take a (...) radical turn which leaves the past behind, but in the long run the past returns to assert itself as living and useful. There are fashions in philosophy, of course, but it is never safe to regard any major philosophic system or approach as forever refuted and surpassed. As witness, we see how the current analytic movement is rediscovering pragmatism, once thought hopelessly old hat. (shrink)

Recorded in Ithaca, NY by Cornell University., Sponsored by: Andrew D. White Professors-At-Large Program., Speaker: Professor of the History of Philosophy, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large., Lecture, October 3, 1988.

It is often said that because physicians and other healthcare professionals frequently play a critical role in determining the fate of their patients, they ought if at all possible to be their patient's friend. The relationship of necessity is intimate: physicians have knowledge of their patients' histories and of their bodies which under other circumstances would be reserved to the most intimate of friends, and physicians and patients meet under more or less critical situations. In this paper, I briefly examine (...) the role of the physician as “friend,” an Issue to be much more extensively explored In a book In preparation. (shrink)

This collection brings together different philosophical points of view discussing two important aspects of human life, namely love and friendship, within the broad context of comparative philosophy. These points of view differ in terms of their cultural orientations - East or West, ancient or modern; philosophical methodologies - analytical, historical, experimental, or phenomenological, broadly construed; and motivation - explanatory, revisionary, or argumentative. The volume is a comparative treatment of how diverse philosophical cultures view love and friendship, such as (...) how Aristotle and Confucius’ views on friendship are similar and different, how the ancient Greeks and the Buddhists view friendship and happiness, and how posthumous love is possible. With contributions from a diverse set of scholars, this book presents the emerging views of Southeast Asian philosophers compared with those of philosophers from other regions, including Europe and North America. The volume thus provides a multi-faceted way of understanding love and friendship across cultures, and will be relevant to scholars interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, Asian Studies, and religious studies. (shrink)

A superb compilation that explores the history, major topics, and controversies in philosophical work on friendship. It gives an overview and in-depth exploration of the connections between friendship and the history of philosophy, morality, practical rationality, value theory, and interpersonal relationships more generally.