Friendship
More than affection — a sharing of life and the good, which Aristotle ranked among the things most necessary for a flourishing life.
Philia is the broad Greek notion of friendship and affectionate bond, spanning relationships from family and comrades to civic ties. Aristotle devoted two whole books of the Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BCE) to it, distinguishing friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and the highest kind — friendship grounded in shared virtue, where each loves the other for their own sake. Such friendship, he held, is essential to a good life, a kind of mirror in which we come to know ourselves.
How it traveled
- OdysseyIos · -700explains
- IliadIos · -700explains
- Works and DaysAscra · -650explains
- SymposiumAthens · -385explains
- LysisAthens · -380explains
- PanegyricusAthens · -380explains
- PhaedrusAthens · -370explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- CyropaediaAthens · -354explains
- SymposiumAthens · -354explains
- HellenicaAthens · -354explains
- HieroAthens · -354explains
- AnabasisAthens · -354explains
- AgesilausAthens · -354explains
- EconomicsAthens · -354explains
- LettersAthens · -348explains
- LawsAthens · -348explains
- Alcibiades 1Athens · -348explains
- Against TimarchusAthens · -346explains
- To DemonicusAthens · -338explains
- AntidosisAthens · -338explains
- RhetoricChalcis · -335explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Eudemian EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Magna MoraliaChalcis · -322explains
- PoliticsChalcis · -322explains
- The Erotic EssayAthens · -322explains
- Divisiones AristoteleaeChalcis · -322explains
- BacchidesRome · -195explains
- TrinummusRome · -194explains
Key passages(20)
Guide for the Perplexed · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1190 CE
קדֵשה: מיסוד הקשר הזוגי וחשיבות האחווה2 ואומר: ידוע שחברים הם דבר שהאדם זקוק לו כל ימי חייו. אריסטו ביאר זאת בספר התשיעי של "אתיקה" (לפי הסדר בתרגום הערבי. לפנינו: ח,1). בשעת בריאותו ואושרו הוא נהנה מ
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In Ethica Nicomachea Paraphrasis (Pseudepigraphum Olim A Constantino Palaeocappa confectum et olim sub auctore Heliodoro Prusensi vel Andronico Rhodio vel Olympiodoro) · Anonymi In Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea
In Ethica Nicomachea Paraphrasis (Pseudepigraphum Olim A Constantino Palaeocappa confectum et olim sub auctore Heliodoro Prusensi vel Andronico Rhodio vel Olympiodoro) · Anonymi In Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea
In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium · Anonymi in Aristotelis Artem Rhetoricam
Divisiones Aristoteleae · Pseudo-Aristotle
Divisiones Aristoteleae · Pseudo-Aristotle