Intrinsic Friendship

Abstract

In Chapter 1 I tried to emphasise one essential feature of love — the feature of desire or need for the other, or some kind of investment of the self in the other. I now want to approach this feature by another route, a route less obviously connected with the notion of desire or eroticism. Here Aristotle’s discussion of philia is very useful (Nic. Eth., Bks 8 and 9, p. 227 ff.). The word is normally translated by the English ‘friendship’, but the two terms do not actually cover the same ground. Frequently philia, friendship, is distinguished from eras, erotic love or passion. Certainly there is a difference between them, most obviously the presence/absence of sexual relationships. Nevertheless there is something very important which is common to both; and that is what I want to bring out here.