This essay brings together some lines of thought contained in Maria Markus’s ‘Lovers and Friends’ (2010) and ‘Decent Society and/or Civil Society?’ (2001), and, on that basis, explores possibilities for thinking about friendship in the context of contemporary social change. I begin by situating current problems concerning the semantics of friendship in their historical trajectory. I then go on to elaborate friendship’s ‘normative flexibility’, that is, its relative immunity to reifying societal pressures. Finally, I reflect upon the connexions between friendship’s (...) normative particularities and Markus’s elaboration of ‘decency’. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the plausibility of the concept of ‘Civic Friendship’ as a philosophical model for a conceptualisation of ‘belonging’. Such a concept, would hold enormous interest for educators in enabling the identification of particular virtues, attitudes and values that would need to be taught and nurtured to enable the civic relationship to be passed on from generation to generation. I consider both of the standard arguments for civic friendship: that it can be understood within the Aristotelian typology (...) as either a form of utility friendship or as a form of virtue friendship. I argue that civic friendship may not be the most appropriate model and that attempts to resolve the problems through looking on it as a political metaphor leave it unable to fulfil the function for which it was originally designed in Ancient Greece. Finally, I emphasize the need to carefully consider which particular metaphors we choose for civic relationships and how we subsequently use them. (shrink)

Dean Cocking and Steve Matthews’ article “Unreal Friends” argues that the formation of purely mediated friendships via the Internet is impossible. I critique their argument and contend that mediated contexts, including the Internet, can actually promote exceptionally strong friendships according to the very conceptual criteria utilized by Cocking and Matthews. I first argue that offline relationships can be constrictive and insincere, distorting important indicators and dynamics in the formation of close friends. The distance of mediated friendships mitigates this problem by (...) promoting the courage to be candid. Next, I argue that the offline world of largely oral exchanges is often too shallow and hasty to promote deep bonds. The deliberateness of written correspondence acts as a weight to submerge friendships to greater depths and as a brake to enhance attentiveness to and precision about one’s own and one’s friend’s character. Nonetheless, close friendships may fail to develop on the Internet. Insofar as this failure occurs, however, it would be for reasons other than those identified by Cocking and Matthews. (shrink)

همراه با احیای دوبارۀ اخلاق فضیلت در سال 1958 بحث‌های فلسفی جدیدی در حوزۀ دوستی پا گرفت. در عصر حاضر نوارسطوییان از جمله مکاتبی هستند که علاوه بر احیا و نیز جرح‌وتعدیل مفاهیم ارسطویی دوران باستان بر مکاتب پساارسطویی دوران باستان نیز تعمق کرده و مهم‌ترین مطالبۀ اخلاق فضیلت را شکل دادن عقلانی احساسات، عواطف و هیجانات درونی فرد برای خوب زندگی کردن به لحاظ درونی تلقی کرده‌اند. مهم شمردن درونیات انسانی به این شکل سبب وارد آمدن اتهاماتی مانند خودگزینانه (...) بودن به آنها شده است. در این مقاله، ضمن پرداختن به «دغدغۀ دیگری» به منزلۀ مؤلفه‌ای جدید در اخلاق فضیلت نوین و بررسی اهمیت و نقش «دغدغۀ دیگری» و دوستی در سعادت انسان از منظر ارسطو و مکاتب پساارسطویی و نوارسطوییان، به این مهم پرداخته می‌شود که جولیا آناس در مقام فیلسوفی نوارسطویی بر چه اساسی نظریه‌های مکاتب باستانی در باب سعادت را آغشته به خودگزینی نمی‌داند، و چه جایگاه و حد مرزی برای دوستی و دغدغۀ دیگری متصور است. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a brief account of some of Kierkegaard’s key concerns about friendship: its “preferential” nature and its being a form of self-love. Kierkegaard’s endorsement of the ancient idea of the friend as “second self” involves a common but misguided assumption: that friendship depends largely upon likeness between friends. This focus obscures a vitally important element, highlighted by the so-called “drawing” view of friendship. Once this is emphasized, we can see a significant aspect - though by no (...) means all - of Kierkegaard’s worry as misplaced. However, the “drawing” view also enables us to begin to see what a “Kierkegaardian” friendship might look like. (shrink)

Preliminary existential hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of data based on 24 protocols, and our own reflexive discussion, reveals how “kindred spirit connections” manifest in myriad elusive, evocative ways. These special connections are experienced variously from briefly felt moments of friendship to enduringly profound body-soul love connections. This paper explicates five intertwined dimensions: shared bonding; the mutual exchange and affirmation of fellowship; the destined meeting or relationship; immediate bodily-felt attraction; and the pervasive presence of love. A wide ranging literature around the theme (...) of love is outlined and the concept of kindred spirit is briefly applied to the psychotherapy practice context. (shrink)

This article explores a particular connection between friendship and social solidarity and seeks to contribute to understanding the societal significance of non-institutionalised relationships. Commonly the benefits of friendship are assumed to accrue to friends only. But this is only part of the story. Friendship, as instantiation of intimacy and site of moral learning, is conducive to solidarity understood as felt concern for unknown others. That potentiality rests on a specific characteristic: friendship’s loose institutional anchorage. Beginning with an explanation of friendship’s (...) institutional deficit, the article elaborates Durkheim’s ‘positive solidarity’ juxtaposed with Honneth’s recent take on solidarity. It then discusses the contribution personal relationships make to morality, before turning to the specifics of moral learning in friendship. Finally, the article argues that although undesirable as social organising principle, friendship’s institutional deficit renders it conducive to the relational acquisition of a comprehensive understanding of solidarity. (shrink)

The individual and social formation of a human self, from its emergence in early childhood through adolescence to adult life, has been described within philosophy, psychology and sociology as a product of developmental and social processes mediating a linguistic and social world. Semiotic scaffolding is a multi-level phenomenon. Focusing upon levels of semiosis specific to humans, the formation of the personal self and the role of friendship and similar interpersonal relations in this process is explored through Aristotle’s classical idea of (...) the friend as ‘another self’, and sociologist Margaret Archer’s empirical and theoretical work on the interplay between individual subjectivity, social structure and interpersonal relations in a dynamics of human agency. It is shown that although processes of reflexivity and friendship can indeed be seen as instances of semiotic scaffolding of the emerging self, such processes are heterogeneous and contingent upon different modes of reflexivity. (shrink)