Concept
Friendship
Overview
relationship between people who have mutual affection for each other
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Friendship is discussed.
Leaving the Greek or ancient point of view, we may regard the question in a more general way. Friendship is the union of two persons in mutual affection and remembrance of one another. The friend can do for his friend what he cannot do for himself.
Plato, Lysis
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea
As the motives to Friendship differ in kind so do the respective feelings and Friendships. The species then of Friendship are three, in number equal to the objects of it, since in the line of each there may be “mutual affection mutually known.” Now they who have Friendship for one another desire one another’s good according to the motive of their Friendship; accordingly they whose motive is utility have no…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
The Latin word for friendship--_amicitia_--is derived from that for love--_amor_; and love is certainly the prime mover in contracting mutual affection. For as to material advantages, it often happens that those are obtained even by men who are courted by a mere show of friendship and treated with respect from interested motives.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; the book is about it; opens on it
As soone as it creepeth into the termes of friendship, that is to say, in the agreement of wits, it languisheth and vanisheth away: enjoying doth lose it, as having a corporall end, and subject to satietie. On the other side, friendship is enjoyed according as it is desired, it is neither bred, nourished, nor increaseth but in jovissance, as being spirituall, and the minde being refined by use custome. Under this…
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is…
Francis Bacon, Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Friendship
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Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Reason.