Aristotle’s Notion of Friendship

Abstract

Philia, the Greek word for friendship, characterizes a wide field of human relationships (much broader than the field designated by the corresponding terms of modern European languages), including family bonds and even political relationships. In fact, Aristotle, whose inquiries into friendship are probably the best known in the history of Western philosophy, maintains that friendship characterizes every human association. In the two long essays dealing with friendship (Nicomachean Ethics Books VIII and IX and Eudemian Ethics Book VII), Aristotle attempts to support this thesis by claiming that, while there are various cases of friendship based on a variety of human relationships, all of them should still be understood in relation to a primary or central form of friendship: the intimate relationship between two (or very few) virtuous men, in which each one constitutes a good per se for the other — a case akin to our own current idea of friendship.¹ But what is the specific conception of friendship that supports this idea? Moreover, why does Aristotle decide that the study of an intimate personal relationship and the study of a feature which (in a variety of forms) characterizes every human association belong to the very same inquiry? It seems to me that an answer to these questions would also explain one further issue, namely that of the philosophical importance that Aristotle attributes to friendship.