Love & Friendship
Lecture 15: Aristotle's Six Reasons for Studying Friendship

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And even those, he says, who are in the prime of life. He doesn't say middle age. He calls that, in between the young and old, the prime of life. You need friends in order to accomplish great things, right? So hardly any man can accomplish anything great all by himself, right? So he doesn't have that same need that the young have because of their maturity and so on, and the old because of their feeding powers and so on. But in order to accomplish something worthwhile, something great, they need help, right? For when two go together, they are more able both to understand and to act. Okay? So I used to see, you know, when I was a student in Quebec there, you know, I'd sometimes be walking up there towards where I stayed, and I'd see, once he'd be on there, you know, he's about to go in to have a conversation with Charles de Connick. And Dion was walking back and forth, he must be taking out something. And I knew, I'd just say, hello, and move on quickly, you know, because if you do want to be interrupted, it's been the thought. So that's when two go together, right? Because De Connick and Dion, they're more able to understand, right? And I know with my best friend, and sometimes in life he would influence my thinking, you know, because he had some, you know, especially I didn't have or something. And other times I would be influencing very much his thinking with my reading and my understanding and so on. So we're both more able to understand working together, right? And likewise in acting, right? Even more so in acting, right? You require somebody else, huh? So this is the second reason, in general, that ethics and political philosophy are about the things that are necessary in human life, and necessary to live well, right? And he shows this by two inductions, right? From the condition of people in life as far as wealth or poverty is concerned, or from their age, young, old, or in the prime of life, right? But he prefaced all that by saying no one would choose to live without, what, friends, huh? Now the third reason here might seem at first strange, huh? Because he's saying that friendship seems to be something natural. And some might say, well, is that a reason for it being considered in ethics and political philosophy? Wouldn't there be a reason to consider it in natural philosophy? We'll come and answer that objection, but let's look at the way he brings out this natural. And it seems to exist by nature within the parent for its offspring, huh? So I always speak of friendship, even between the father and the son. A friendship between equals, as he calls it, huh? Okay? And in the offspring for its, what, parent, huh? I happened to see on TV there about a week ago that famous cat, you know, that was in the burning building. It's been on before. It's kind of a famous example. The cat was in the burning building with her new litter of kittens. And she was taking each kitten by nap and nap and nap and bringing it out of the burning building, right? Then going back into the burning building and getting this kitten. And each time she was getting, you know, more and more singed, right? And the firemen were actually so impressed, they were actually cheering seeing this mother cat do this. And then, of course, they called the, you know, the main society, wherever it was, and, you know, found homes for all the kittens and nursed them all back to health, you know. I mean, and... But there you see that, what, how natural it is, right? Between the parent and the, what, offspring, huh? I know in my daughter's cat, Tabitha had her kittens, and when they get old enough to drink, you know, out of a bowl instead of their mother's milk, and you have six or seven kittens, and you make a great big bowl, and the kittens all run out of the bowl, you know. But Tabitha would sit there, you know, back and watch the six or seven kittens drink, and it's not until the last kitten finished drinking, right, that she'd walk over and drink some milk herself. So my respect for her motherhood there went way up, you know. And, you know, Shakespeare says in Macbeth there, you know, that the, what, some bird, they're a very small bird there, but the most diminutive of a bird will fight for its young, you know, even when this was attacked. So he says this is natural not only in men, but also in birds, right? That's the example that you have in Shakespeare's Macbeth and most other animals, right, huh? Of course, more the mother of the other animals, huh? And then he says, to those of the same race, huh? And especially to men, once we praise lovers of what? Mankind. Philanthropists, right? Okay. He gives a little interesting sign here. For one can see in wanderings that every man is akin to and friend of man. The way he gives somebody directions. How many times have you given somebody directions on the street or something like that, right? Some stranger. You know, he says, oh, that's the wrong way. You've got to go this way, you know? And it shows that it's kind of something natural about friendship between all men, right? And not just those, he says, of the same race, but even all men. Now, coming back to the little objection that I raised. Why does Aristotle point out that there's something natural about friendship? Well, you could say in general that if there was nothing naturally good, and something naturally bad in human affairs, there would be no ethics. There would just be sociology or an account of what the customs are, you know? Customs in my country is to eat daddy when he gets to be 70, you know? Or customs in my house is to eat the, you know, those who defeated in battle, or whatever it is, right? But there would only be a narration of customs. There wouldn't be any ethics deciding what's good and what's bad, and what's the road to happiness, and what's the road to misery, right? It'd all be indifferent, huh? So Aristotle is always trying to follow nature. And as he says in the second book of Natural Hearing, nature seems to be something of an art in things, but not human art. So it's something of the divine art in things. So when we follow nature, if we know how to follow nature and so on, we're in a way following what? God, right? So when reason or art imitates nature, as we say, one's learning from God in the way we first learn, which is by imitation. So it's interesting that Aristotle would give that as his third reason there. There's something naturally good about friendship, huh? Now the fourth reason here is in terms of the good of the city. And friendship seems to hold together cities. So you want friendship among the citizens, right? If there's enmity and hatred among the citizens, that's going to be, what, destructive, right? And he says, lawgivers are more concerned about it even than justice, huh? Because sometimes even, you know, justice, punishing somebody, even when it's just to do so, may encourage, what, hatred among his friends or supporters or stuff like that, right? Okay? And so you might have enmity among the classes because of justice, huh? So the friendship seems to be even more important than justice. And justice among the moral virtues is the one that is especially emphasized, huh? And so Aristotle devotes a whole book five of the Nicomachian Ethics to justice, huh? But the other virtues take up only part of one of the other books, huh? So justice is the main thing. But if friendship is even more necessary in the view of the law, you get it, right? Then it's obviously a concern for ethics and political philosophy because justice is already agreed upon as something very necessary in ethics, right? So if friendship is even better and more necessary than justice, then even more so is it a concern of the, what, philosopher? And as they say, he devotes two books to friendship, and only one to justice and less than one to, you know, courage and temperance and the other virtues. For harmony seems to be something like, what, friendship, right? And this they most of all desire, peace, harmony among the citizens. And they especially try to banish discord as being something, what, unfriendly, right? So a civil war, like our civil war, there's a kind of... of what? Like a friendship there between the North and the South, right, huh? Between the slave states and the free states and so on, huh? Trying to overcome that, huh? Just got through reading a biography of Henry Clay, you know, the great compromiser. They say he delayed the Civil War, what, 10 years, right? He died, finally, in 1852, but the last compromise in 1850. So the war could have come even sooner, but terrible thing. If you look at the Peloponnesian War there by Thucydides, huh? Some of the Greek cities are democracies, in a sense, which had democracies in those days. Others were oligarchies, right? So the democratic cities and the oligarchy cities were in conflict, huh? Within the democratic cities, there would be an oligarchic faction, which the oligarchies were trying to help, right? And in the oligarchic cities, there would be a democratic faction, and the democratic cities were. So you're fighting, you know, with the other city states, as they call them now. But likewise, there was a kind of a civil war, almost, inside each of these cities, huh? So that's terrible, right? Terrible, being torn apart. So that's the fourth reason that Aristotle gives in this premium, huh? And now he comes to the fifth reason, which is again in terms of, what, justice, right? In being friends, there is no need of justice. If I'm your friend, I'm going to give you what you need, right? What is yours. I'll do more than that, right? See? So if you and I have friendship, we don't have to worry about justice, right? If I'm your friend, I'm not going to steal from you or take what is yours, am I? See? But if you have just justice, right, is that enough in human affairs? Sometimes I take the example of marriage, you know, and should a husband and wife, you know, say, well, this is your responsibility to mow the lawn. This is your responsibility to do the dishes or something like that. I'm not going to do your job. No, that's not the way it works, does it, huh? See? Because sometimes you see the wife out there mowing the lawn, right, because her husband's working extra hours or, you know, she wants to surprise him or you see the husband often do the dishes or whatever it may be, right? But in other words, you require something more than strict justice in human life to live pleasantly with somebody else, huh? And so if you've got friendship, you'll do more than what is just to the other person, right? You'll go out of your way to be generous with them, right? Okay? So if you have friendship, you don't really need justice. But if you have justice, you still need friendship, right? So if everybody's agreed that the city depends upon justice, I need, you know, courts and all the rest of it, huh? But friendship does the job even better, huh? Okay? And notice what he says, and what is most just seems to fit a friend. He's touching upon that likeness of friendship to justice, huh? Like St. Catherine of Siena says, huh? Don't forget to pay the debt of love. So you have an obligation there, right? You owe your neighbor love, huh? That's like justice, isn't it? Giving you what I owe you. And I love you. Okay? So those two arguments there, the fourth and the fifth ones, were involving somewhat the comparison to justice, right? Now friendship in some ways seems to be even more important than justice, and even more necessary, right? And yet we all agree that justice is necessary, huh? Now the sixth argument, huh? And here he's saying, it seems to be not only necessary in life, like he was saying, especially the second argument, and as the argument here in terms of the city, you know, friendship among the citizens is very necessary in the city, right? And the army and so on. But he says, no, it's necessary for human life, but it seems to be something noble, something desirable for its own sake, huh? For we pray. It's those who love their friends, huh? There's just something noble about that, right? And to have many friends seems something, what? Beautiful, right? And some think that good men and friends are the same. Well, we Christians think that, don't we, right? Because you think you're made good by caritas, by charity, right? And that's a kind of, what? Friendship, right? Okay? So in that sense, good men and friends in that sense are the same, right? Now, later on, Aristotle would distinguish a number of kinds of friendship, huh? And there's one kind of friendship, which is the best kind, and the fullest kind of friendship. And that's only possible between men who are good, right? And there are lesser kinds of friendship that fall away from the full definition of friendship. And there, even bad men can be friends of bad men, or even bad men of good men, right? Okay? Now, in the next paragraph, it goes into some of the disagreement that goes back to our problems that Plato raises in the dialogues, right? About who is a friend and not. And he says, But there is no little disagreement about this, he says. For some lay down that is a likeness in those who are like our friends. Because we saw in our study of love that likeness is a cause of love, right? Once they say, like to like, huh? And jackdaw to jackdaw. Apparently, these are like Greek sayings, huh? We have one like birds of a feather flock together. But same idea, right? And others, on the contrary, say that all such are potters to each other. Now, we saw that reference there, huh? That's kind of a Greek proverb that potters are always fighting, right? If I want you to buy my pot, he wants to sell his pot to you, too, right? So we're in friction, right? Because we're both potters, right? Now, if he was selling wine and I was selling pots, we maybe, you know, sell you a pot and eat full of wine. No conflict, right? But if we're both trying to sell a pot and you can't buy two pots, well, then we're enemies, right? Because we're alike, right? Okay? So, some people say opposites attract, right? You hear that said again and don't, don't you, right? Okay? See, the French of DeSales almost speaks as if there were two, huh? Opposites attract, huh? And grandparents like their grandchildren, right, huh? You know? The old like they're very young and so on, right? Okay, so there's all kinds of ways that opposites seem to attract each other. So, what's the truth? Is it that you're drawn to one who's like you or attracted to the opposite, huh? He says, And some seek higher and more in accordance with nature about these things, huh? As Euripides says that the earth, when dry, wants rain. It wants the opposite of what it is, right? It's all dry and it wants the rain, huh? The dry wants the wet. And the revered heavens filled with rain want to fall upon the earth, huh? And Heraclitus says that the opposite is useful. Well, when we examine that phrase in natural philosophy, the opposite is useful, I say, Well, the whole American way of life is based on this, right? Because our economic system is based on, what? Competition, right? And that's useful to prevent me from overcharging the customer, right? Because they'll go to somebody else who's getting a more reasonable price. And if you improve your product, if you want to buy your product, I've got to improve my product, right? A guy down in the Chevrolet place told me, you know, We're making our cars better because the Japanese are making them better than us, and we're losing so much market to them, you know? So, our economic system is based upon that, right? And what about the courtroom? See, we think in the courtroom there should be one guy trying to prove he is guilty, and someone else trying to prove he's not guilty, right? We think it's useful for the jury to hear both sides, right? So, the opposite is useful. So, our economic system, our judicial system is based on that. Our political system, we have opposing parties, right? Each trying to point out the defects of the, or alleged defects of the opposite, huh? Our one-party state seems to be almost what tyranny has been in the 20th century, right? The Nazis or the Communists or someone else, right? The Ba'athists there in Iraq and so on. We see in Thomas there how every article in the Summa begins with the opposite, right? The opposite is useful, Thomas is saying, right? To make someone stop and think. So Heraclitus says a lot, right? And another saying of Heraclitus, the most beautiful harmony is from those differing, right? So I say this to him. So what would he think of homosexual marriage, huh? Right. The most beautiful harmony is from those differing, huh? If you look at a painting like, say, the man in the helmet there, everybody's seen that painting of Rembrandt, right? If the whole painting was flooded with light, it would be beautiful, right? If the whole painting was dark, it would be beautiful. Once there's a shack of light that falls in the helmet or something, and you have that contrast, then it's more beautiful, huh? The evening, the night sky with the stars is beautiful because you have the stars against the black sky. If the whole sky was illuminated, it would be garish, right? If the whole sky is dark, it wouldn't be beautiful. But from the stars against the black sky, it's more beautiful that way, huh? And usually it's more beautiful at sunrise or sunset, where you have that contrast of opposites, huh? And sometimes you've been in the winter, you know, where the leaves have all left the trees and it's kind of barren, but you get a nice moonlight, night, and you get the moon going through the trees and casting on the snow those shadows, you know, that black and white. That's beautiful, huh? And so he's saying, huh? The most beautiful harmony is from those differing, huh? And all things come to be by strife, he said. But on the contrary, others such as Empedocles, another famous natural philosopher, says that like wants what? Like, huh? Now, Aristotle says we're not going to be concerned about this question of natural philosophy. That's left to natural philosophy. So he says, let the doubts about natural things be set aside, for they do not belong to the present inquiry. But whatever are human and pertain to customs and passions, these we'll examine as whether friendship comes to be in all, or it is not possible for the bad to be friends, right? Aristotle's going to give a nuanced answer to that, right? It's not possible for the bad to be friends in the perfect kind of friendship, he'll say, right? But in some imperfect and defective kind of friendship, the bad can be friends of each other or even of the good. But only the good can be friends of each other in the highest kind of friendship, huh? But it's getting ahead of the park here, right? He's just raising the question, right? And again, the question, whether there's one form of friendship or many, huh? You see, some people say, well, friendship is really one thing, you can have more or less of the same thing, right? Just like if someone said sweet is really one thing, but something can be more or less sweet than another, right? But then it's the same kind of thing that you're having more or less of. Or is it that there are really different kinds of friendship, right? Now he says, those thinking it is one because it admits of more and less, right? Do not believe, he says, by sufficient sign. For things other in kind or in form can still be more and less. So just like we might say, for example, that wisdom is better than what? Candy, right? It's more good than candy. Candy is less good than wisdom, right? But are they really good in the same way? Candy and wisdom? Is the fact that one is more or less enough to say it's the same kind of thing? You'll find Aristotle, you know, disagreeing with what you find in the Bataille dialogue sometimes where Plato is saying, is the rule, let's say, of a father over his family and the rule of a king over the city? Plato seems to speak as if they differ similarly and more. less, huh? Ruling a family, I'm ruling whatever the family is, 5, 6, 7, 8, you know, some number, right? Ruling the city, I'm ruling 10,000 or whatever the city is, right? Or is the rule of a father over his children and of a king over the citizens really a different kind of rule? What would you say? Yeah, I think so, yeah. But that's a question that's raised because some people speak as if it's really the same thing, right? Just differing in degree, more or less, huh? Okay? Now, convinced we should study friendship, okay? Now, this other group of readings here that I passed out here are ones I kind of use to loosen up your mind a bit, right? To get you thinking about friendship and different aspects of friendship, some of which will meet in Aristotle's treatise, right? Well, it's a little less formal, right, than the treatise will be, right? Okay? So the first friendly topic here is the excellence of friendship. Now, notice in these words of Lorenzo de Portia, you may recall the scene of the merchant of Venice. Portia and Bassanio just got, you might say, married, right? And then Bassanio gets the letter from the merchant of Venice that he's in danger now of losing his life to the Jew. And Portia can see how upset he is, huh? And she urges him to go to the relief, if he can, of the merchant of Venice, right? No honeymoon. Out today, right? So after Bassanio leaves, Lorenzo kind of praises Portia, right? For her appreciation of the friendship between her husband, right? Her new husband and the merchant of Venice, huh? So he says, you have a noble, right? And a true conceit, that's the old word, concept, understanding, right? You have a noble and a true thought or understanding of godlike enmity. Now, enmity is a word derived from the French word for friendship, right? But notice he's calling friendship here godlike. That's interesting, isn't it? Because we think that friendship is something godlike too, don't we? The friendship between the Father and the Son, right? The Trinity. Now, Shakespeare doesn't call many things godlike, huh? In the exhortation to use reason, he says, he calls reason godlike, right? Well, here he's calling, what? Friendship godlike, right? Well, that's quite a, what? A praise of the excellence, you might say, of friendship, huh? There's something godlike about friendship. And if you go to the greatest works of Greek fiction, huh? The Iliad of Homer and the Odyssey of Homer, right? Well, the Iliad of Homer is a celebration, in a way, of the friendship of what? Achilles and Patroclus, huh? A friendship among equals, as we call it in the treatise on friendship. And the Odyssey is a celebration of the friendship among unequals, between the husband and the wife, the father and the son, and the master and his, what, slave or servant, huh? And you have those three friendships, huh? The wife and the son and the servant, Eumaeus, huh? The swineherd. They're all very faithful to what? To Odysseus, right? Yeah. When I was first in Worcester there, he used to go to the Greek restaurant. And one of the waitresses, you know, they always called her Penny. And I was eating there one time with a Greek guy, and I said, what's really her name? Well, Penelope. But they called her Penny for short, right? But they always regarded as a great thing to call the girl Penelope, is to recall to the Greek mind, huh? The faithfulness of Penelope waiting for 20 years, I guess, to Odysseus got the Trojan War, huh? And, uh, but you might say that that's, in a sense, the highest thing, almost, in fiction there, to be presented. Friendship, huh? Just like in The Merchant of Venice, the friendship between The Merchant of Venice and Bassanio. 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They have all kinds of references to friendship in the science, but I just quoted a couple of the couplets to kind of sum up. You know, the science has 14 lines, and you have three quatrains that are completed, you know, by a couplet, sometimes which sums up the thing. So he's got a lot of problems in life. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored, and sorrows end. Well, it's quite a thing if that's true, right? What? Friendship. Or for thy sweet love, remembered, such wealth brings, that then I scorn to change my state with, what? Kings, huh? Well, Shakespeare's two metaphors there. Wealth, right? Even our Lord uses wealth metaphorically for heaven and so on, huh? Man who found the treasure there in the field and so on. And then the word sweet, huh? And I mentioned before, I think, of how the best explanation of the metaphor sweet is given by Thomas in his commentary on the Psalms. He has to explain the words taste and see how sweet is the Lord, right? But I think I've explained this metaphor before, haven't I, with you? But just recall it very briefly. A metaphor is a figure of speech based on likeness. And in the metaphor sweet, the most obvious likeness is that of being pleasant, right? Okay? So every kid likes candy, right? It's pleasant to eat something sweet. But a second reason Thomas gives is that it's something restful and tranquil about it. And so the policeman gives, what? An ice cream cone to the kid who's lost until they find the parents, because it calms them down, huh? Or I would take some candy in the car, you know, to give to the kids, and they got a little bit too restless, huh? Driving across country. And then it's, what? Refreshing, right? Okay? Well, isn't that true about the love of a friend, right? It's pleasant to be loved by somebody, right? There's something refreshing about it, right? And there's something, what? Let's say the likeness. Something restful about it, right? You can rest in the friend, huh? Why hate, if you experience hate in someone before you, right? It's not a pleasant thing to be hated, right? It's kind of unsettling, you know? It's not a restful thing at all, right? And it's kind of wearying, huh? You know? But William F. Buckley speak of the tenacious ill will. And where do I think it's all chosen? Tenacious. Tenacious ill will of some of his opponents. Okay? So Shakespeare uses that word sweet, huh? With those three likenesses in mind, huh? Sometimes he speaks of your sweet form, meaning your beautiful form, right? But the beautiful is that which pleases when seen, right? So it has that likeness to the sweet. But we also speak of what? How restful we see a beautiful scene, huh? If you go to somebody's house and overlooks the ocean, overlooks the mountains, you know, and so on. How restful. And how refreshing, you know. You see a beautiful girl. A sight for sore eyes, right? Refreshes you, huh? So Shakespeare is saying very well, huh? Now, from Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson on the most famous biography in the English language, the one in the great books, Johnson says to Boswell, The longer we live and the more we think. Okay? The higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends. As I mentioned before, Aristotle will use the word friendship between parents and children, too. Though sometimes we just use it for the other. Parents we can have but once, right? And he promised himself too much. Who enters life with the expectation of finding many? True friends, huh? Now, Smollett there, the novice of the 18th century there. And his travels through France and Italy. I'm at last in a situation to indulge my view with the sight of Britain now. As you can see across the order. After an absence of two years, he's anxious to get back to England, right? And indeed, you cannot imagine what pleasure I feel but I don't know. while I surveyed the white cliffs of Dover at this distance. I am attached to my country because it is a land of liberty, cleanliness, he's fed up with France, and convenience. English inns better. But I love it still more tenderly as the scene of all my interesting connections. That's interesting, huh? Well, he says it, huh? All my interesting connections. As the habitation of my friends, right? For whose conversation, correspondence, and esteem I wish alone to live. That's all he lives for, right? That's very strong, right? That's all he wishes to live for, is for the conversation, correspondence, and esteem of his friends. It's his great attachment to that. Excellence of friendship, right? The importance of it, huh? Now, one of his novels here, the most famous one, the very famous one, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, right? Like these old guys that met after many, many years, right? And they're all decrepit, you know, and they've got canes and so on. And he's describing the effect upon them, right? Our former correspondence was forthwith renewed with the most hearty expressions of mutual goodwill. Notice that mutual goodwill. That's involved in friendship, right? To what? The love of wishing well, right? But it's got to be mutual for friendship, right? And as we had met so unexpectedly, we agreed to dine together that very day at the tavern. Truly, this was the most happy day I've passed these 20 years. You and I, Lewis, having been always together, that's his friend he's writing to his too, never tasted friendship in this high goo, contracted from long absence. I cannot express the half of what I felt at this casual meeting of three or four companions who had been so long separated and so roughly treated by the storms of life. It was a renovation of youth, a kind of recitation of the dead, a resurrection of the dead, right? That realized those interesting dreams in which we sometimes retrieve our ancient friends from the grave. Perhaps my enjoyment is not the less pleasing for being mixed with the strain of melancholy produced by the remembrance of past scenes that conjured up the ideas of some endearing connections which the hand of death has actually dissolved. The spirits and good humor of the company seem to triumph over their regular constitutions. They had even philosophy enough to joke upon their calamities, such as the power of friendship, right? The sovereign cordial of life. Okay? You can go and multiply these things a bit just to give a little taste there of the excellence of friendship, huh? The next little friendly topic there is concordia, the bond of friendship, right? Ensure bind this knot of amity, of friendship, right? It's a synonym for friendship. Amity, huh? Amity. We carry not a heart with us from hence that grows not in a fair consent with ours. Concordia heart, agreement of hearts. This ring I gave him when he prayed for me, Julia, and the poutius, the not-too-faithful lover, huh? To bind him to remember my, what? Goodwill. But that's your friendship with him, right? Mutual. They that thrive well take counsel with your friends, huh? This next topic here is return of love, huh? And of course, there has to be a return of love for there to be, what, friendship, right? So if I love you, but you don't return my love, right? Then we're not friends, huh? Okay? I think it's kind of interesting, that expression, return of love. Because it doesn't mean I'm returning your love or that I'm giving you my love in return for your love, you know? I mean, if I give you, if I lend you something and you return it, you no longer have it, right? But if you return my love, you still have my love, right? But why do we speak as if the very love you have received, you are, what, returning, right? Okay? Okay.