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An issue for reflection
WHAT DOES IT MEAN
TO BE A TRUE FRIEND?
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“I am a good friend of Mary, but not so good of Julia.” What does “good” friend mean? When can we count a friendship as “good” or “deep”?
“I am his friend, but he is not my friend.”
Is this possible? Can we call a one-sided relationship “friendship?”
“My dog is my best friend!”
Is this possible? Can friendship exist between two unequal partners? Can you be a friend of your cow? And of your frog? Can you be a friend of your laptop computer? What could that possibly mean?
“I am my best friend!”
Is that possible?
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Thinking with others: THE PHILOSOPHICAL COMPANIONSHIP
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Now that you are familiar with the issue of authenticity, you can reflect about it in the company of your friends, whether online or face-to-face. There are different ways of running such a group. It can be a reading group which discusses a short text, or a discussion group about a specific case-study, perhaps from the literature or the cinema. But an especially powerful way of doing it is in the “Contemplative Companionship.”
In a Contemplative Companionship, the participants don’t argue with each other. They don’t speak from their opinions, but from their heart, from their deep self – in togetherness with the others. Like a group of musicians creating music together, they create a philosophical symphony together.
Here is a video-recording of the contemplative companionship of several Agora team-members.
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If you decide to start your own contemplative companionship, we invite you send us the results!
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August Week 2 quotation
C.S.Lewis
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C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was an English novelist and thinker. Although he is most known for his fantasy and science fiction novels (such as The Chronicles of Narnia), he was also a philosophy and English professor at Oxford University and Cambridge University.
The following quotation is adapted from Lewis’ book The Four Loves, in which he explores Storge (empathy bond), Philia (friendship bond), Eros (erotic bond), and Agape (charity love).
Adapted from C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960)
To the ancients, friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves, the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.
…We can have erotic love and friendship for the same person, yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love;
Friends hardly ever talk about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends are side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between only two people. But two is not the necessary number of Friendship, it is not even the best… Hence, true Friendship is the least jealous kind of love. Two friends delight to be joined by a third friend, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend.
…Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest, or even taste, which other people do not share, and which each of them believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
…Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not.
… In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? Means Do you see the same truth? – Or at least, Do you care about the same truth? The person who agrees with us that some question, which is little regarded by others, is of great importance, can be our Friend. He doesn’t have to agree with us about the answer.
…When the two people who discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass into erotic love… And conversely, erotic love may lead to Friendship between the lovers… The co-existence of Friendship and Eros may help us realize that Friendship is in reality a love, and even a love that is as great as Eros.
…Friendship, unlike Eros, is not inquisitive. You become a person’s Friend without knowing or caring whether he is married or single, or how he earns his living. What do all these matters have to do with the real question, Do you see the same truth? In a true circle of Friends, each man is simply what he is: he stands for nothing but himself… Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. 
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A quotation for reflection
Immanuel Kant
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Immanuel Kant, Metaphysic of Morals
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a major figure in modern philosophy. Kant was a German philosopher who wrote influential books on many topics, including metaphysics, theory of knowledge, and ethics. He argued that the source of morality is reason, and that it defines our moral duties.
The following quotation is somewhat simplified from the complex original. Note the role of moral duty in friendship, as well as the balance between love and respect.
From Metaphysic of Morals, Part II: The doctrine of virtue, section 46.
 Friendship, if it is perfect, is an association of two persons through equal and mutual love and respect. (…)
In this balance, love can be regarded as attraction, and respect can be regarded as repulsion. While the principle of love requires friends to come closer together, the principle of respect requires them to keep an appropriate distance… Even the best friends should not make themselves too familiar in their relations to one another. (…)
From a moral perspective, a friend has the duty to point out to his partner his faults, because this is in the partner’s best interest, and it is therefore a duty of love. His partner, however, regards this as a lack of respect… Even the mere fact that his friend examines him and admonishes him feels like an insult. (…)
How good it is to have a friend at time of need – provided that he is an active friend who is ready to help at his own expense! Yet, it is also a heavy burden to feel chained to the fate of another person, and to feel weighed down by someone else’s needs. Therefore, friendship cannot be aimed at mutual advantage; the association must be purely moral. The help which each friend may expect must not be regarded as the purpose of his friendship, or else the friend would lose the other’s respect. It must be understood only as an external expression of inner love of the heart, and should not be put to test, which is always dangerous. In other words, each friend must be generous and try to spare the other his own burden, to carry it solely by himself, and even to conceal it from the other. And yet, he can feel lucky that in case of need he would be able to count with assurance on the other’s help. (…)
It is sweet to feel a mutual possession verging on complete fusion into one person. Friendship is a thing so delicate, that it is never for a moment safe from rifts, if we let it rest on emotions, and if we fail to subject it to rules for preventing over-familiarity, and for limiting mutual love by the requirements of respect… In any case, the love of friendship cannot be a sudden and overwhelming passion, because passion is blind in its choice, and in the end it goes up in smoke.
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