aristotle on friendship's possibility.pdf
TRANSCRIPT
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Approaching Others: Aristotle on Friendship's PossibilityAuthor(s): Bradley BryanSource: Political Theory, Vol. 37, No. 6 (December 2009), pp. 754-779Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25655519 .
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Political
Theory
37(6)
754-779
?TheAuthor(s)
2009
Reprints
and
permission:
http://www.
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0090591709345463
http://ptx.sagepub.com
?SAGE
Bradley Bryan
Abstract
The
essay
sheds
light
n
Aristotle's
understanding
of
friendship
nd
its
elation
to
political
life.The uthor
challenges
the
usual
view
thatAristotle
postulates
three
distinct
kinds of
friendship.
nstead
the author
argues
that
Aristotle
understood
there
to
be
only
one
kind of
friendship,
nd
that other
"friendships"
were
to
Aristotle "unfinished"
and thus
not
friendship
t
all.
Aristotle
shows that the
relation between
friendship
nd
politics
is
grounded
in
friendship'spossibility
for human
beings,
nd
not
as
something
cherished for
its
actuality.
y
looking
t
proper
friendship
s
possibility
and
not
actuality,
e
could
only
ever
interpret
the
infamous
statement
attributed
to
Aristotle?"my
friends,
there
are
no
friends"?not
as
illuminating
f what
friendship
is but rather
as
a
nostalgic
diagnosis
of
the
decay
of
the
possibility
of
friendship,
nd hence of
politics.
By
extension,
and
more
poignantly,
nterpreting
ristotle's
work
on
friendship
in
this
light,
e
stand
ready
to
reinterpret
the mobilization
of
Aristotelian
friendship
for
contemporary understandings
of
democratic
practice.
Keywords
Aristotle,
friendship, emocracy, politics,
nostalgia
Introduction
In
considerations
ofAristotle's
account
of
friendship,
much has been
made of
a remark attributed toAristotle by Diogenes Laertius inLives: "My friends,
Corresponding
Author:
Bradley
Bryan
Department
of
Political
Science,
University
ofVictoria,
PO Box
3060
STN
CSC.Victoria,
BC,
Canada
V8W
3R4
Email:
Approaching
Others:
Aristotle on Friendship's
Possibility
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Bryan
755
there
are no
friends."1
In these
considerations,
it
is
claimed
that
Diogenes's
anecdote suggestsmore toAristotle's discussion of friendship than isusually
believed?and
in
this
the
following
discussion
concurs,
as
the
phrase
itself
begs
the
question
of
the
possibility
of
friendship.
The "secret
history"
that
such
an
anecdote reveals
admonishes
us
to
reconsider
Aristotle and
our uses
of
him: for
what
else
might
this otherwise
hidden
story
serve to
do?2
And
so
rather than
simply
seek
the conditions
under
which
friendship
does
or
does
not
occur,
in
this
essay
I
consider
the
nostalgic
tenor
of
such
an
anecdote
by
thinking
through
what
could
possibly
be
meant
in
saying
that
friendship
is
"possible." While echoing Derrida's suggestion that the very question of
friendship
has
been
constitutive
of
politics,
I aim
to
clarify
the
way
nostalgia
can
occupy
the anecdote
("friendship
is
no
longer")
and
our
own
preoccupa
tions
with
Aristotle
on
friendship
("friendship
is
a
model
for
our
politics").
The
nostalgia
of both
the anecdote
and
our
theorizing
ofAristotle
on
friend
ship
demands
that
we
think
through
how
we come across
something
like
"Aristotle
on
friendship,"
and thus
continues
to
beg
the
very
question
of how
something
like
friendship
is
possible
at
all.
It
demands
this
thinking
because
it isnot clear how nostalgia has come to animate our thinkingabout politics
by
way
of
friendship.
This
final
phrasing
lets
the
rich
ambiguity
of
our
own
nostalgia
press
us
into
the
question
of the
relation between
possibility
and
excellence
in
poli
tics
in
general
for
Aristotle,
and
yet
it does
so
by housing
the
pursuit
of
politics
in
the
question
of
friendship.
As
I will
suggest,
it is
of
no conse
quence
whether Aristotle
actually
ever
uttered thewords
Diogenes
attributes
to him
because
they
do
not
illuminate
his
own
thinking
on
friendship
except
togive us pause towonder at thepossibility of truefriendship,of belonging
among
the
good,
or
to
wonder
at
the
sense
that
the anecdotal
can
have in
such
matters.
Once
we
give thought
again
to
Aristotle
on
friendship,
we
will
be
in
a
place
to
fathom
what
such
an
utterance,
were
it
his,
could stand
to
tell,
both
about
the
Aristotelian
posture
toward
politics
as
well
as our
own
posturings.
What is
at
stake
in
this
interpretation
s
not
simply
the "number"
of
the "kinds" of
friendship
Aristotle
delineated,
but rather how
friendship
constitutes
theAristotelian
polity?but
not
our own.
That
is,
when
we
think
through thepossibility of friendshipforAristotle, we will be hard pressed to
see
its relevance
for
contemporary
political practice.
Indeed
we
do well to
wonder
after
our own
nostalgic
longing
for
theAthenian virtue of
excelling
with
and
before
our
friends.
If
"friendship"
is
what
we
have with
our
"friends,"
its
presence
and
possibility
envelope
us
in
the
lonely
desire
to
see
this
promise
of
friendship
and
having
friends fulfilled.
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756
Political
Theory 37(6)
How does
friendship
belong
to
politics
forAristotle?
I
argue
that
friend
ship forAristotle exists only in itspossibility (dunamis) not its actuality
(energeia),
and
it
is
only
in
this that
it
holds
out
excellence
for
human
beings.
To
see
the
importance
of
prioritizing
friendship's
possibility
over
its
actuality
(in
existence,
not
time),
the
following
discussion
begins
with the
usual
interpretation
f
Aristotelian
friendship.
That
account
usually
stresses
three distinct
kinds of
friendship?as
laid
out
in
Books
8
and
9 of the
Nicomachean Ethics.
In
what
follows
I
depart
from this
view
by suggesting
that
ristotle's
account
of
proper
friendship
needs
to
be
interpreted
n
light
of
his work on the difference between thepotential and the actual, on identity
and
excellence,
and in
light
of his
own manner
of
interpreting
he
problem
of
the
relation
between doxa
(as
opinion
and
semblance)
and
truth. o
say
that
there
are
not
three kinds of
friendship,
that there
is
only
one,
is
to
say
that
anything
other
than
proper
friendship
does
not
properly
or
fully
bind
us
to
each
other.
Is the
binding
of
the
polls
of
thiskind?
By
reconstructing,
first,
ristotle's
method of
distinguishing
kinds
of
things
based
on
how
they
appear
or seem
(or, as Iwill show, as the "semblance" thatbelongs todoxa), and second,
Aristotle's
arguments
on
potentiality
and
actuality
as
the basis of how human
beings
become
excellent
by becoming
who
they
properly
are,
I
suggest
why
Aristotle's
understanding
of
friendship
occupies
the central
position
of his
political
and ethical
writings.
For
Aristotle,
proper
friendship
is
political
only
because
it is
possible
and
not
actual?the
sense
of
which
becomes
clear
if
we
give
thought
to
a
politics,
and hence
a
polity,
where
we
"become
human"
through
the
possibility
of
a
deep
engagement
with
our
otherness,
an
otherness
we experience best and most properly in the sight of our friends.Only by
grasping
Aristotle's
account
of
a
singularity
to
friendship
can
we
possibly
make
sense
of the
phrase
cited
by Diogenes
as
a
kind of
commentary
on
the
political
life
of
the times.
If
there
"are"
no
friends,
"is"
no
friend,
is
friend
ship something possible
for
we
who
come
to
political
life
today?
In
thinking
about
friendship
in
Aristotle's
work,
all
the
while
we
must
consider
theback
ground
yet
open
question
as
to
what
sense
approaching
others
as
friends
makes of the
political
life of
our
day,
a
questioning
that situates
nostalgia
as
an animating force of modern political theorizing. This is not to say we
should
not
do
it.
But
by
implication, gathering
Aristotle's rich
understanding
of
friendship
as
existent
in
its
possibility
and
not
its
actuality,
one
can
also
surmise
that
ristotle has been
mobilized
and
misused
by
contemporary
the
orists
to
give
credence
to
a
deliberative ideal
for democratic
politics,
to
forms
of effective association
around
common
values. The
so-called
humanizing
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Bryan
757
effect
of
deliberation
in
politics
"with"
or
"among"
friends in
fact
misplaces
reconstructions
of
Aristotelian
notions
of
friendship
as a
particular
form
of
being
with
others
(as
"society").
Proper
friendship
tells
us
not
what
we
gain
from
others
by
consort
(i.e.,
we
do
not
"gain"
our
excellence),
but how
we
approach
them
and
what
approaching
others
shows
of how
we
already belong
together,
because how
we
come
to
approach
others is
always
latentwith
the
possibility
of
politics
for
Aristotle.
I.The
Traditional
Account
of
Aristotelian
Friendship
The traditional
interpretations
of
Aristotelian
friendship
assert
that friend
ship
is of three
kinds,
based
as
they usually
are on
the
existing
translations
of
Aristotle's
Nicomachean
Ethics?
These
interpretations
state
that friend
ship
is
based
on
utility,
pleasure,
or
virtue.4
Friendships
based
on
utility
are
convenient;
that
is,
they
involve the kind of
familiarity
one
might
have
with
another
insofar
as
the
two
meet
around
some
kind of
activity
or
purpose
such
that their
engagement
furthers
the
achievement
of
their
respective
ends.
For
example,
I
may
come
to
know the
owner
of
a
local
coffee
shop
that
I
frequent,
and
our
acquaintance
is
convenient and
useful,
since it
provides
a
limited kind
of
companionship
that
revolves
around
my
use
of the
ser
vices
she
or
he
provides.
Pleasurable
friendships
are
those
acquaintances
that
bring pleasure
or
are
occasioned
through
our
mutual
participation
in
pleasurable
activities.
For
example,
I
may
come
to
know
someone
whose
company
I
enjoy
and who
also
enjoys
my
company?this
friendship
is
plea
surable
because
the
mutuality
is
grounded
upon
the
pleasure
that
we
bring
to
each
other.
It
may
be that
many
of
our
so-called
friendships
are
of
this kind.
These
two
fall short
ofwhat is
often called
"virtue"
friendship,
which
I
will
call
proper
or
true
friendship.
Arete is
often translated
as
"virtue,"
but
makes
us
think
of
it
s
a
capacity
of
strength
or
manliness);
I
prefer
to
think
of it
as
an
"excellence"
or
"fitness"
that rients
us
to
what is
required
of
us.
Arete
is
a
capacity
of
sorts.
Excellence
does
not
suggest
a
capacity,
but does
suggest
something
that
an
individual
has
or
bears,
fitness likewise.
The
ambiguity
of
fitness,
however,
is
that
it
does
not
necessarily
specify
excellence,
whereas
arete
presumes
it.
In
arete
we
hear
reference
to
Ares?the
god
that
calls
forth
the
war-like
exercising
of
muscle,
drawing
one
into
a
kind
of
physical
excel
lence
(not
like
the call
to
war
of
Athena).5
Arete
is
the
"property"
of
excellence
or
fitness,
of
being
"up
to"
a
call;
it
can
belong
to
an
individual,
as
does the
possibility
for
the
individual
to
be called
forth
by
excellence
or
by
that
which
would make
us
excellent.
The fact
that
friendship
is
described
as
akin
to
"virtue" in
the
Nicomachean
Ethics should
not
confuse
us.
For
friendship
is
in
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758
Political
heory7(6)
one
way
something
excellent
and in another
is
not
an
excellence
(or
"virtue"
for
that
matter)
like
courage
or
temperance.
"Virtue"
friendship
is,
for
Aristotle,
"proper"
or
"true"
friendship
because
it
is
what
orients
us
to
what is
required
of
us
by
those
we
love and who love
us.
Proper
friendship,
where the telos of
friendship
has
been reached
(inso
far
as
this is
possible
at
all),
is
commonly interpreted
s
both
involving
arete
and
being
one.
Some view this ultimate
friendship
as
not
fully possible
for
humans
because
it
would still be convenient
or
advantageous
for human
beings
in
the
attainment
of their
ends.6
Elsewhere
it
is
interpreted
s
thekind
of
friendship
that
exists
among
the
excellent,
and is
exhibited
in
the
love that
is
mutually
felt
for
the other?a love
that
is
also
a
love
of
(not
desire
for)
the
good.7
It is
traditionally
held
that
proper
friendship
is
rare
because
it
is
not
often
that the
excellent
come
to
share
in
the
sight
of
the
good
together.8
In
sympathy
with the
view
that there
are
three kinds of
friendship,
it
is
admitted
that
Aristotle often
provides
descriptions
of
"kinds"
that
approach
taxonomy,
and
so
an
elaboration
of threekinds
of
friendship
would
not
be
out
of character.
Furthermore,
this
simple
taxonomy
also
allows for
a
teleologi
cal
rendering, namely,
that
friendshipprogresses
into its fullness
as
proper
friendship precisely
because
the actualization of
arete
is,
for
Aristotle,
what
leads
to
flourishing
(or
to
become
"happy").
It is
important
to
the traditional
account
that
the
three kinds
of
friendship
are
not
only
taxonomically
explained,
but also
delineate the
progression
that
friendship
often takes
from
its first instance
of
convenience,
through
pleasure,
to
the kind
of
excellence
that
belongs
to
friendship.
This
progression,
it is
held,
can
inform
politics
because of
the
way
"virtue"
and
politics
are
thought
to
be
corequisite
insofar
as
the existence
of
the
former
allows
the
latter
to
enable
the
good among
citizens.
Indeed,
proper
friendship
as
"virtue
friendship"
is
at
times under
stood
to
be the
model
of
political
community
among
citizens who have
come
to
properly
understand
each
other and the
nature
of
their
bond,
even
though
such
friendship
is characterized
as
both convenient
and
pleasurable.9
Jill
Frank has noted:
Citizens
are
made
not
only
by
their
particular
or
individual
activities but
also
by sharing
in
a
constitution,
in
other
words, by
their ollective
activ
ity.
t
the
same
time,
collective
activity
produces
the
social and
political
institutions
hat
contribute
to
the
making
of citizens
in thefirst
place
...
There
is
an
interdependence
between
polity
and citizen
identity.10
On the
other
hand,
"political
friendship"
for
Frank
and
others
need
not
be
entirely
virtuous:
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Bryan
759
Modeled
on use
friendship
and
involving
the
practice
of
virtue,
politi
cal
friendship
is best
understood
as
a
mixed
good
concerned
with
judging
and
acting
well
with
a
view
to
a
polity's
common
good.11
Notice
that,
for
Frank,
the
sharing
in the
good?which
is what
the
polity
allows?makes
political friendship contingent
on
an
effective
practice.
By
contrast,
Arendt claims that theGreeks "dreaded" the
degradation
of
their
citizenry
bond
by
considerations
of
utility:
It
is
quite
obvious
that theGreeks dreaded this
devaluation
of
theworld
and
nature
with
its
inherent
anthropocentrism?the
"absurd"
opinion
that
man
is
the
highest being
and
that
everything
else
is
subject
to
the
exigencies
of
human
life
(Aristotle)?no
less
than
they
despised
the
sheer
vulgarity
of all
consistent
utilitarianism.12
Arendt
goes
on
to
clarify
that the
kind
of "love" that
the citizen has for
another is
brought
forth
in
public
in
a
sense
because
of the kind of
sharing
that the
citizen
has with
another.
It
is,
she
says,
a
kind of
friendship
that is
somehow without
intimacy
and
closeness,
and
yet
is
forged
out
of
a
firm
regard
and
respect.13
So
while
Frank's
instinct
is
likely
correct
regarding
the
politics
of
today
(as
it is
difficult
to
imagine politics
that
does
not
involve
"using"
others
to
promote
collective
aims),
Aristotle
seems
to
think that
there
is
no
"using"
others
in
the
polis
strictly
speaking
because all
activity
there is
singularly regarding
the
good.
A
friendship
is
not
good
because of
what it
leads
to,
but
because
of
the excellence
it
shows.
The
cultivation of
arete
is
strengthened through
its
performance
in
the
polis among
others.
Our
friends
are
those
others
before
whom
we
shine,
and
we
have
a
kind
of love
for
them
not
reducible
to
a
desire for them
or
for
something
for
which
they
would
be
mere
means?something
both
Arendt and
Frank
are
clear
on.
But
I think
the
demarcation
regarding
"use"
begs
the
critical
question
of the
possible
difference
between
political
friendship
and
proper
friendship,
both
for
Aristotle and
ourselves.
(As
we
will
see,
there is
no
difference between
political
friendship
and
proper
friendship
for
Aristotle,
whereas
it
would be
hard
to
imagine
otherwise
for
us.)
What
is
perhaps
most
"traditional" about other
accounts
of
Aristotelian
friendship
is
the
way
they
seek
to
translate the
Greek
experience
into
our
own
by
mobilizing
it
to
make
sense
of the
democratic
politics
of
our
own
time.
Rather
than
approach
Aristotle this
way,
my
approach
privileges thinking
through
the
sense
that
ertain
specific
key
words had for
Aristotle.
This
means
something
other than
simply
finding
an
appropriate
English
word,
and rather
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760
Political
Theory 37(6)
involves
attempting
to
translate
a
host
of
English
words
and
phrases
into
the
words Aristotle
used,
to
translate ourselves
into
the
Greek,
an
impossibility
that
allows
us
to
see
the
very
limit
of
our
own
thinking
in the
approach
to
Aristotle, and,
I
would
argue,
in
the
approach
of
and
to
our
friends.14
n
what
follows
I
attempt
to
shed
light
n
the
sense
that
some
of
Aristotle's
key
words
have
for
how
we can
think f
the
possibility
of
friendship
for thekind of
poli
tics
he
contemplates
in
his
work.15
While
we
contemplate
Aristotle
we can
remain
cognizant
not
only
of the
foreignness
of
these
words,
but of the
limit
that
allows
us
to
see
the
possibility
of their
presence
in
our
own
thinking?a
limit conditioned
by
our
own
sense
of
longing
for
the
kind
of
belonging
said
to
constitute the
Athenian
polity.
II.
Definition,
Interpretation,
and
the Problem of
Doxa
What
is
perhaps
most
striking
bout
the traditional
account
is
how
easily
one
can
reconcile
itwith
contemporary
friendship
and
politics?that
somehow
our
devotion
to
each other
must
"run
its
course"
throughutility
and
pleasure
before
we
discover its truth
n
the
pursuit
of
thingsworthy
of
us,
as
in
poli
tics. But
I
think the traditional
account
errs
not
only
because
of
the
ease
with
which
we
think
we
can
grasp
friendship
as
existing
in
three
kinds?indeed
its
ease
only
suggests
we
have
overlooked
something.
Is
the
fragility
of
friendship
and the
elusiveness
of
intimacy
not
signpost
enough
that somehow
friendship
and
politics,
like
friendship
and
freedom,
have
something
other
than
an
automatic
and clear relation?
I
take it
that
we
do
not turn to
Aristotle
simply
to
see
where the
fragility
of
friendship
is
something
other
than the
way
we
experience
it
today,
even
though
this
begs
the
question
of
what
we
expect
to
unearth
in
our
meditations
on
friendship
in
Aristotle.
When
we
hear
the
famous anecdote of
Aristotle's
utterance to
his
friends,
"my
friends,
there
are no
friends,"
we
are
unable
to
reconcile this
contradictory
story
ofAristotle
among
his friends
with
a
vision of
friendship
as one
that
is
"perfected"
or
has
"arrived"
at
its telos.
If
we
can
linger
a
moment
on
friendship
and
our own
impressions
and intuitions of
it,
there is
nothing
obvious
about there
being
"kinds"
of
friendship,
much
less
a
certain number.
Anyone
who
has had
a
friend
knows
that
friendship
is
precious
and
requires
time
to
develop beyond
its
first
awkward
strivings?strivings
that
may
not
be convenient
nor
pleas
ant,
even
if
they
fill
us
with
hope.
Derrida's
gentle
suggestion
of
a
friendship
of
promise
does
hold
something
for
a
politics
of the
future,
ven
if
it
obscures
his and
our
nostalgia
in
thinking through
friendship
in
the
first
place.
In addition
to
thewisdom
of
our
immediate
intuitions,
two
specific
aspects
of
Aristotelian
thinking
do
indeed
tell
us
that
friendship
does
not
need
to
exist
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Bryan
761
as
a
natural evolution
through
pleasure
and
utility.
First,
Aristotle follows
Plato's
dialectical thinking
to
ground
or
negate
the
existence
of
things
and
their
aspects:
if
utility
friendship
is
not
proper
(or
"true"
or
"finished"
or
"perfected")
friendship,
then
it is
quite
clearly
not
friendship.16
tility
friend
ship
may
never
arrive
at
being
friendship
proper,
and hence
was never
really
friendship
at
all
because
it
must
have
always
been
deficient,
indeed it
was
deficient.
The
acorn
that
rots
is
not
an
oak,
though
it
held such
in
it
s
poten
tiality.
tility friendship
can
be said
to
approach friendship
only
insofar
as
it
is
possible
for
that
form of
acquaintance
to
become
proper
friendship.
While
our
convenient
relations
may
hold
the
possibility
of
friendship, they
are
not,
strictly
speaking,
friendships.
Second,
and
in
my
view
more
importantly,
Aristotle is
very
careful and
very
explicit
to
note
that
the first
two
kinds
of
friendship
suffer
from
the
semblance of
opinion: they
"seem"
to
be friend
ship,
and
are
imbued
with
doxa}1
"It
seems
[dokei]
not
everything
is
loved,
only
what is
lovable,
and
this
is
eitherwhat
is
good,
or
pleasant,
or
useful."18
Doxa
is
never
simply
"our
views"
or
"their views"
on
something,
or
what is
held
in
one's
mind,
rather
it
is thatwhich
we
hold
in
our
view,
that
is,
the
content
of
that
view,
what is
manifest
in
a
viewing.
It
is
a
feature of theworld
and
our
existence
in
it.
To
thinkof
doxa
as
simply opinion
is
to
thinkof
it
as
one's
view,
and
to
arrogate
to
the
subject
more
of
a
presence
than is
contem
plated
by
Aristotle
or
the
Greeks
in
general.
By
noting
that
friendship
seems
to
have different elements
invites
us
to
think
that the
appearance
of
friendship
in
semblance
is
what itmust
be,
rather
than
methodologically
beginning
with
our
first
impressions
and
moving
toward
what
must
be the
case.
Here Aristotle
notes
that
we
seem
to
love the
good,
the
pleasant,
and theuseful.
This
is
not
only
a
statement
ofwhat
friendship
seems
to
be,
but
is
Aristotle
characteristically
following
a
method of
moving
from
what
is familiar
to
most
of
us
most
of the time
(as
the
opinions
or
doxa
of the
hoipolloi?who
we
are
most
of the
time)
toward
what is
true.19
or
Aristotle,
any
inquirybegins, always,
with
what
appears
to
us?we
have
no
choice,
not
being
able
to
clearly
see
what
beings properly
are
in
the
first
nstance.20
oxa
is
not
necessarily
untrue,
it
is
simply
unthought,
and
sowe
must
think
ur
way
through
what
appears
to
us
(by
semblance,
by
opinion).
It
may
be thatwhat
seems
to
be
actually
is: the
true
always originally
seems
to
be.
Beginning
with
the
way
friendships
appear
to
us
in
everyday
living,
we
can
indeed
notice
that
sometimes friends
do
seem
devoted
to
each
other
out
of
convenience
or
pleasure.
However
forAristotle
the
activity
of
thinking
about
friendship
shows it
to
be also
something
of
a
singular
kind
beyond
these,
as
an
excellence
proper
to
human
living.
Let
us
turn
to
carefully
parse
the
account
given
in
The
Nicomachean
Ethics
to
see
how Aristotle
moves
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762
Political
Theory 37(6)
from
seeming
to
proper
friendship,
how it
is
a
true
possibility
for human
beings
in
a
polis,
and
how
friendship
is
thus
related
not
just
to
"flourishing"
but
to
the
kind of
shining
forth
in
the
sight
of
the
gods
that
belongs
to
every
human
as
their
own-most
possibility.21
Furthermore,
and
finally,
let
us
also
turn
to
see
what
there is inAristotle's
account
of
friendship
that
simply
does
not
hearken
to
a
politics
of
today,
notwithstanding
that it
may
indeed tell
us
much about
what
modern
politics
must
resign
itself
to.
III.The
Singularity
of
Proper
Friendship
Aristotle claims
that
the three
kinds
only
"seem"
to
be
friendship
based
on
the kinds
of
things
that
can
be
loved,
and the
way
they
are
loved.
Dokein
is
what
"seems,"
and is
not
what
"is"?einai.22
Note that
Aristotle
begins
with
what
is lovable:
"It
seems
(dokein)
that
not
everything
is
loved,
but
only
what
is
lovable,
and
that
this
is eitherwhat is
good,
or
pleasant,
or
useful.
.
.
."?
and then
proceeds
to
distinguish
how
the human loves:
"Then,
do
men
love
what is
properly good,
or
(only)
what
is
good
for
them?"23
s
we
have
noted,
Aristotle arrives
at
thiscritical distinction between love ofwhat isgood and
what is
"good
for
us"
only
after
examining
the
way
our
love
of
things
comes
to
us
"in
the
first
instance"?that
is,
as
it
"seems"
to
most
of
us
most
of
the
time
(hoi
polloi).
This is
captured
in "it
seems,"
that
is,
dokein. His initial
differentiation
is
between whether
we
pursue
what
we
love
out
of
a
sense
of
self-interest,
or
whether
we
pursue
it for its
own
sake. To
begin
with what
"seems"
forAristotle
may
seem
similar
to
Plato,
and
both
are
concerned
with
the
problem
of
how
things
seem.24
But
rather
than
distrustwhat
"seems"
as
necessarily deficient,Aristotle,
much
more
prominently
than
Plato,
refuses
to
privilege
the
ideational
over
the
phenomenal;
that
is,
Aristotle
says
we are
always
confronted
first
with the
phenomenon,
not
the eidos
or
form
of its
look.
This
is
important
because
of
the
way
entities
come
to
presence
before
us
prior
to
their intellection.
The
elaboration
of the kinds of
friendship
as
progressions
away
from
how
they
seem
is
important
if
we are
to
make
sense
of
why
Aristotle lists
what
belongs
to
proper
friendship
while also
describing
the
kinds of defec
tive
friendship
as
friendship
nonetheless.
For
proper friendship
to
exist
certain elements
must
be
in
place:
To
be friends
therefore,
men
must
(i)
feel
goodwill
for
each
other,
that
is,
wish each other's
good,
and
(ii)
be
aware
of
each other's
goodwill,
and
(iii)
the
cause
of
their
goodwill
must
be
one
of the
lovable
qualities
mentioned
above.25
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Notice also
that
in the
description
of
proper
friendship
we
are
not
directed
to
understanding
friendship
as
"what
seems,"
or
dokei,
but
as
it
is
and
in terms
of the constituent elements that friendshipmust have to be friendship.26
Recall
thatfor
Aristotle,
there
is
no
difference between
"friendship"
and
"per
fected
friendship"
in
the strict
ense
because
"perfected
friendship"
is
simply
friendship
that
has reached
it
telos
and
thus is
what
it
most
properly
is.
This
notion
of
true
friendship
as
a
way
of
relating,
one
grounded
in
virtue,
is
strictly peaking
possible
for
human
beings.
Perfected
[or
"finished"
or
"proper"-te/e*'#] riendship
is thatbetween
the good, who resemble each other in excellence [areten homoion].
These
friends each
wish the
other's
good
(in respect
of their
goodness),
and
are
good
in
themselves;
(only)
those who wish the
good
of
their
friends
for their friends'
sake who
are
properly
friends,
they
love
the
other
for
themselves
and
not
accidentally.27
Aristotle
speaks
of
friendship
as a
wishing
of the
good for nothing
but
the
friend
s
sake,
because
friendship
is
not
pursued
for
anything
else
but this
good.
Thus the other two "seeming" or "defective" kinds are opposed to "proper" or
"perfected"
friendship precisely
because
they
are
not
undertaken
for
the
good
of
the
friend.
As
such,
they
cannot
be
friendships,
and
will
only
ever
"seem"
like
friendship
unless
properly
pursued
such that
it
can
become
it.
Proper
friendship
is
the
kind that
s
"perfected"
or
has reached its
telos
as
friendship.28
The
traditional
account
has
an
important bjection
to
offer
here:
if
friend
ship
is
not
inherent,
but
develops,
then
how
are we
to
understand
the
way
friendship
emerges
out
of its absence?
Or,
more
directly,
is there
not
some
ground fornaming convenience and pleasure friendships as stages of friend
ship's blossoming
rather than
almost
arbitrarily
dismissing
these
unfulfilled
friendships
as
nonfriendships?
Or
is the
kind
of
friendship
one
finds
in
a
polis
political
friendship
or
simply
on
the
way
to
friendship
proper?
These
three
questions
are
important
because
they
ask
after
the
identity
f the
unfulfilled,
and
as
such bear
a
direct
relation
to
what
it
is
for
a
human
being
to
become
excellent
among
a
variety
of forms
of
acquaintance.
These
questions
also
help
us
see
that
friendship's
existence
can
be tied
to
the
identity
of its
own
possibility rather than itsactuality, thusdemanding we clear on the relation
between
identity
ousia,
or
what
something
is)
and
excellence
(arete).
IV.
Identity
and Excellence
Ousia denotes
identity,
nd I
recognize
that I
am
using
the
term
in
perhaps
a
more
philosophical,
less
political
way
than
is
usually
understood.
And
while
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Political
Theory 37(6)
"identity"
is
not
a
common
translation
for
ousia,
a
point
helpfully
clarified
by
Martha
Nussbaum,
I
agree
with and follow
Nussbaum
in
claiming
it
as a
defensible sense of the term,within limits.29 usia denotes what something
is
in
its
own
particularity,
as
it
is
on
its
own
as
what
it
is.30
The word for
identity
is
not
commonly
thought
in
terms
of
essence
but
in
terms
of
particu
larity,
ut
note
that
ristotle
thinks of
the
essence
of
something
as
what it
is
in the
particularities
that
belong
to
it?x
Aristotle
begins
with convenience
friendship
as
the first
kind
not
because
it
is the
first
ne
in
a
taxonomy
but
because
it
is the
first
ind
of
acquaintance
that
"appears"
to
us
in
our
dealings
with
others:
we
ordinarily
deal
with
and
are
"friendly"
with
others
because
it
is convenient and useful todo so. It is theordinaryway we encounter others.
In
The
Ethics,
Aristotle
says
that
once we move
past
the
phenomena
of
utility
and
pleasure friendship,
we come
to
understand
true
friendship.32
verything
here
hinges
on
what itwould be
to
"move
past"
convenient
or
pleasurable
friendship
to
arrive
at
proper
friendship,
and
it
is
the
critical
place
where
Aristotle differswith Plato: how
to
capture
what
something
most
properly
is.
Rather
than
see
friendship
as
resting
in
the idea
of
it,
Aristotle
notes
that it
always
must
be what it
primarily
is
in
itself?its
"substance"
or
"essence"
here denote simply its identity, rwhat isproper to friendship in itself.For
friendship
to
be
"proper" friendship,
the
ousia
of
friendship
is
what
"belongs"
to
friendship
as
friendship,
is its
necessary
"property."
This is
why
we
also
translate
ousia
as
"property."
The
ousia
of
friendship
is the
"property"
of
it that is
most
clear
to
those
who look
upon
it. Its ousia iswhat
"belongs"
to
friendship
as
friendship.
Something
is
"proper
to"
it
only
in
the
sense
that
what renders
it
as
it is
belongs
to
it
as
what it is. So
we
can
say
that the
essence
of
friendship
is
proper
or
true
friendship.
(But
it
remains
a
question
as towhat is actualzzed infriendship?to which we will return.)
Because
we
come
to
friendship
(it
is
not
innate)
it
makes
sense
to
think
of
it
as a
kind
of excellence
(arete)
to
which the human
being
is
both
called
yet
may
fail
to
actualize
even
though
we
occasionally
do
speak
of
friendship
as
though
we
already
"have"
it.
The
acorn
is defined
by
its
telos
to
be
an
oak,
though
it
may
fail
to
actualize
it.
For the
Greeks,
we
remain
a
long
way
from
blaming
the
acorn
for its
failure,
just
as we are
a
long
way
from
blaming
someone
for
failing
to
be
all
she
or
he
can
be.
Consider the
analogous
arete
of courage. Courage iswhat one gains from theperformance of courageous
acts.
The
difficulty
for those
young
and faint
at
heart
is
that
gaining
courage
must
somehow
occur
out
of its
absence?and
so
Aristotle
counsels
mimesis.
It
is clear
that
imitating
courageous
acts
does
not
make these
acts
coura
geous,
but it does
dispose
the soul of
one
in
a
certain
manner,
such
that
subsequent
courageous
acts
are
easier
to
imitate,
until
they
are
easier
to
per
form.
Standing
tall and
shaky
atop
the
high-diving
board,
the
child trembles
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Bryan
765
during
her
first ive. But after
a
few
attempts,
her
confidence
increases
and
she
no
longer
fears what she
once
did.
She
has
gained
some
courage.
For
Aristotle,
such
"training"
involves
the
actual formation
of
a
habit
(hexis)
that
disposes
one's
soul.33
In
"disposing"
of
oneself,
one
puts
a
disposition
that
belongs
to
one's character
into action?which iswhat
a
habit
is:
a
disposition
of character.
But
the
actuality
of
a
habit lies
not
in
the
appearance
of the
act
or our
performance
of the
habit,
but rather
in
the
way
the
habit,
as a
disposi
tion
of
our
character,
exists
in
a
kind
of
quiet
reserve
that
actually
diminishes
our
ability
to
see
itwhen it is
brought
into
actuality
in
a
particular
deed;
for
when
we
do
something habitually
it
belongs
to
a
habit
that
we
do
not
notice
the habit but
merely
the
act
the habit allows.
Because
we
"have"
habits
lying
within
us,
as
it
were,
we
must
take
steps
to
encourage
the
good
ones
or
to
root
out
the bad
ones.
And
as
Aristotle
shows
at
length,
the
journey
between
care
fully
established habits
and
the
excellences
they
endow
is
not
far,
since virtue
is
nothing
other than
a
habit
of
the
heart
for
the
good.
So
too
with
friendship?occurring
neither
in
a
day
nor
easily
among
those
we
may
take
as
convenient
to
our
ends
or
pleasurable
in
our
company.
The
ease
with
which
we
make
acquaintances
belies
the
difficulty
of
partici
pating
in
or
witnessing
true
friendship.
Even if
we
gain
the "habit"
of
"being
friendly"
and
of
"having
friends,"
our
friendships
sufferfor it.
While
a
habit
harbors
possibilities,
it
also
accrues
its
own
constancy.34
The
disposition
of
character
that
fosters
friendship
is
not
as
easily
characterized
as
an
arete
like
courage.
Proper
friendship
is
beyond
the kinds of ends
that
we
have for
our
selves,
and
involves
sharing
in
the
sight
of
something
that
is
not
necessary
to
our own
discrete ends?as with
contemplation
of the
good.
Friendship
is
then
not
just
the
state
of
having
friends but of
a
situation
where the
friend
can come
to
presence?it
is the
possibility
of
having
a
friend that
is housed
in
our
every
friendliness.
Put this
way,
friendship
may
well
seem
impossible
to
attain
by
virtue of
its
infrequency,
for
we
may
well
wonder
whether such
an
aim is
possible
any
longer,
let alone
those with
whom
to
share
it.
Indeed,
even
in
the
thics
Aristotle
himself
notes
the
rarity
of
friendship
in
such
a
way
as
to
beg
the
question
of
its
existence
at
all.35
It
is
helpful
to
distinguish
friendship
from
brotherhood,
to
show the
language
of
kin
and
bond that
sits
in
Aristotle's
work,
but
we
must
also ask
about
how
this
bond
binds.
To
see
the
way
friendship
exists
requires
a
grasp
of
how friend
ship
emerges
from its
possibility
into
actuality,
and
what stands
revealed
in
actuality.
Friendship's actuality
is
itself
possibility.
Let
us
briefly
remind
our
selves
how
a
possibility
can
be
an
actuality.
Aristotle refutes
Zeno's
paradox
(i.e.,
that
motion is
impossible
because it
is
not
a
being
that
can
be
represented
to
the
intellect)
by explaining
that
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766
Political
Theory 37(6)
motion exists
as
a
mode
of
being?and
that all
beings
are
continually
in
motion. While
we
might imagine
that
the
being
before
our
eyes
exists
in
actuality,
Aristotle
notes
that
beings continually
come
into
being
and
pass
away
in
time.At
any
given
moment,
a
being
is
no
longer
what it
once was
and
is
also about
to
perish
and
become
something
else.
Aristotle
expressed
this transience
by
way
of the distinction
between dunamis
(potency, potenti
ality, possibility)
and
energeia
(the
being-at-work
of
a
being,
actuality).36
A
being's
potential
is
always
working
itself
toward its
actuality
or
the
moment
of its
activity?or,
to
avoid
the
Latin,
its existence
in
the
ergon,
or
work,
that
has become.
The
ousia
or
"essence"
of
a
being
is therefore
not
found
in
its
being
actual
or
"at
work" in
front f
us,
but
in
the
potential
it
holds
for
trans
forming
itself:
beings
are
in
continual
movement
"toward" who
or
what
they
really
are.37
Because
the
unseen
potency
of
a
being
supervenes
on
its existence
at
every
given
moment,
the
potentiality
of
a
being
is
most
properly
what the
being
is,
if
only
because
it
bears the
being
towardwhat it
will
become.
It
is
because of the relation between
potentiality
and
actuality
that
ne
"becomes"
over
time: the dunamis
(potency, potentiality)
of
a
being
has
"more
being"
than its
energeia
(being-at-work,
actuality) precisely
because
the
"being-at
work" of
a
being
is
always already
in
motion,
and thus is
not
just
the
"being-at-work"
but the
power
of
transforming
intowhat
it
is destined
to
become.38
For
the
human
being,
it
is
possible
to
take
a
stance
of
"cultiva
tion"
with
respect
to
oneself,
to
"care"
for
oneself,
and
to
engage
in
practices
that allow
the
unfolding
of one's
proper
self
in
the
way
that ismost "true"
to
who
one
is.39
This
possibility
is
itself
possible
only
if the
potentiality
of
a
human
being
has
priority
over
its
actuality?we
not
only
can
change
but
do,
and
we
play
a
role
in
such
a
change.
Thus for
Aristotle
the
good
human,
a
human
being
of
action,
is
excellent
because
she
is
"well-turned
out,"
and
is
excellent for
"reaching"
this
stage?for
becoming
excellent.
But
excellence
is
not
simply
the actualization
of
excellence,
not
the
being-at-work
of
excellence
as
it
appears
to
us
who
see
it,
but because
the
human
being
is
the
ousia
of
excellence?what
it
properly
is,
as
a
kind
of
fitness
that
has
come
to
expres
sion
in
action.
This
"state" of
being
is
not
simply "flourishing"
or
"being
happy"
but
is
a
particular
form
of
shining
before
others
in
the
light
that is
provided by
the
gods
as
the
word
says:
eudaimonia.40
The blessedness
of
one
in the
sight
of the
daimones,
those
spirit-beings
that call
us
forth
to
act,
is the
highest
way
anyone
can
express
how
perfected
a
human
being
has become.
One
shines
forth.41
o
become excellent
is
to
become
who
one
is
by shining
forth
in
the
light
of the
gods
before
others,
and in
a
vital
sense
to
become
fully
human
before others
in
the
open
(which
iswhat theword eudaimonia
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Bryan
767
says),
which is the
space
the
polls
provides.42
This iswhat
proper
friendship
gives
to
the
human,
since
no
human
would
ever
wish
to
be human
without
such
a
space.43
Thus the
two
other
kinds of
friendship
do
not
belong
to
friendship
as
friendship,
as
what
belongs
to
a
friendship
that ennobles
the
human,
and
as
such
are
m/s-leading.
They
are
not,
on
their
own,
a
friendship
and
we
are
not
freed
or
made
virtuous
through
our
associations
with
others
in
this
way.
(They
do
not
lead
to
proper
friendship necessarily
because
they
are
not,
strictly speaking,
friendship.)
Indeed,
forAristotle these unfinished friend
shipsmay
somehow
forestall
friendship proper.44Friendship's
excellence
does
not
lie
in
what
it
does for
us or
how
it
makes
us
into
something
other
than
we
have
been,
but
rather
as an
end
in
itself
consonant
with
both
our
proper
identity
and the
arete
(excellence)
that
belongs
to
us
in
the actual
ization of
our
eudaimonia
or
shining
forth.
This is theAristotelian
heritage
of
politics
today:
it is
a
specific
and
particular
place,
among others,
where
we
become
truly
human. And
for
Aristotle
it
goes
much further
than
we
today
may
be comfortable
with: he
says
we
may
somehow fail
to
exist
as
properly
human
without
becoming
a
friend.
(Could
we
imagine saying
that
someone
is "not human"
because
of
being
friendless?)
Whether
we
find
Aristotle's view
compelling
remains
important
for
us,
but better
to
think it
through
than
to
sanitize Aristotelian
notions of
friendship
and
humanity
so as
to
bolster
our own
experiments
in
political living.
Indeed,
and
again,
recog
nizing
this
question
(of
whether
Aristotle's view is
compelling
for
us)
is
part
of the exercise of
thinking throughwhy
and how
we
approach
something
like
"Aristotle
on
friendship."
Discussing
arete
(excellence)
this
way
makes
it
sound
as
though
the indi
vidual
is
not
a
"finished"
being,
and is
only
ever
emerging
into his
or
her
possibilities
through
various
activities,
as
though
these
"possibilities"
are
simply
akin
to
"things"
that
we
somehow "have."
A
life of
eating
ice
cream
does
not
bring
excellence
or
fitness,
ut
a
lifeof devotion
to
excellence
might.
One
can
become
excellent,
which
presumptively
says
that
one
exists
initially
in
its absence. Just
as
courage
is
gained through
the
performance
of
coura
geous
deeds,
so
toowith
excellence.
That
is,
one
begins by being
called forth
to
arete,
to
become it.
To
understand how
one
becomes
excellent,
we
need
to
recall
that for
Aristotle the
individual "becomes"
other thanwho he
or
she
initially
is. This is the
question
of
identity:
how
we
become excellent
as
who
we
most
truly
re.45
But
this
is the
life of
politics:
the
polis
is the
pole
of
existence,
we
revolve
(pelein)
around it nd take
our
bearing
and
being
from
it.
To
say
we
exist
in
a
profound
otherness
forAristotle is
simply
to
say
that
we come
to
be who
we are
precisely
because of
being
granted
the
space
in
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768
Political
Theory
37(6)
which
to
shine
forth efore
others,
our
peers
and friends.
Political
friendship,
in the
Aristotelian
polis,
is
always already
the
possibility
that
friendship
is.
V.
Becoming
Excellent and
Human
Among
OthersrThe
Polity
and
Friendship
The
excellence
that
belongs
to
being
human,
the
ousia
of
being
human,
is
at
once
also
the
telos:
eudaimonia.
What
is
it
to
stand
before
others,
and how
is
it
related
to
who
we
properly
are? Aristotle breaks
with
the
traditional
Greek
understanding:
the
perfection
of the human
is
not
articulated
over
against
the
divine,
but rather
occurs
as
a
differentiation
of
human
from
animal
only
among
and with
other
human
beings
in the
light
of
day.46
And
it
is
not
sociability
but
political
existence
that
matters
because
mere
associa
tion
with others
is
not
sufficient
for the
kind
of bond
one
must
share
with
a
fellow of
one's
polity.
Hence
Aristotle
is
clear
that
a
proper
polity
must not
be
too
large,
nor
simply
an
enlarged
oikos.
To
flourish
only
makes
sense
among
others
who
in
some sense
know
you
and
know
who
you
are,
which
is
why
no one can
be human outside
of the
polity
Aristotle's
proof
of this
lies
in the
peculiar
way
we are
with
our
friends
in
the
polity,
in
our own
moments
of
excellence
that
lead
us
to
flourish.
We
are
struck
by
the
phenomena
of
this
world,
and
even
though
we
are
conscious
of
our
own
perceiving
of the
world and
our
own
contemplation
of
it,
we are
not
aware
of ourselves
in
a
complete
fashion,
for
we
lack
nous
with
respect
to
ourselves.
We
are,
in
some
peculiar
way,
unable
to
see
ourselves
in
the
way
that others
do:
we
do
not
properly
see
ourselves
as
others
can
and
do
47
That
is
to
say,
it is
not
possible
to
perceive
one's
own
"shining,"
since
one's
shining
is
not
for
oneself but
for others.
The
sense one has
of
one's own
shining
is
restricted
precisely
because,
in
shining (being
eudaimon),
one
is
not
absorbed
in
shining
but
is
instead bound
up
in
the
activity
that
llows
one
to
become
who
one
is.
If
I
perceive
myself
flourishing,
I
am
suddenly
no
long
flourishing,
but
merely
a
spectator
to
myself.
Friends
see
us
in
ways
we
cannot
see
ourselves.48
This
is
important
not
only
because
it
specifies
some
thing
of
human
fmitude,
but
also of
the
way
an
other
can
be
there
for
us
in
a
way
that
we
cannot
be for
ourselves:
friends
are
"other selves"
precisely
because
they
see
something
important
about
us.
Only
because
they
do
can
they
be there
for
us
or
stand
as
a
witness
to
the
particular
excellence
we
embody,
which
is
another
way
of
being
there
for
us.
Aristotelian
finitude
is
the
ground
of
friendship,
that
we can
be
other.49
egel
saw
this
as
the
partial
ity
of
consciousness,
and the
necessarily
one-sided
essence
of
dialogue.
But
Aristotle
hangs
human
one-sidedness
on
our
finitude
as
integral
to
friendship
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Bryan
769
and
flourishing,
such
that
not
perceiving
or
grasping
our
own
excellence is
what authorizes the
polls by making
it
the site
of
greatness.50
Just
as
we
cannot
perceive
how
funny
or
humorous
we
are,
we
cannot
perceive
our
sor
rows
or
longings
in
quite
the
same
way
that the
friend
can
and does: this is
the latent
possibility
of
being
a
friend 51
Our
sorrow
is
of
course
always
our
own,
and
the solitude
of
sorrow
turns
us
both
away
and
toward
others.
They
can
be
there
for
us
precisely
because
they
are
not in
the
same
place.
Like
courage,
which
appears
only
when
a
courageous
act
becomes
necessary,
friendship
appears
when
we are
called
forth
to
be therewith
and for
others.
To
become excellent with
and for
others,
Aristotle
grounds friendship's
possibility
in
dialogue
because
friendship
both
makes
proper
dialogue
and
contemplation
possible
while also
requiring dialogue
as
its
own
possibility.
The human
is
the
political
animal
because
of
logos,
and
it is the
logos
that
allows
us
to
properly
come
to
presence
before each other.This
is
why
friend
ship
is
both
arete
on
its
own
and
yet
required
for
flourishing.
It
is
a
fitness
required
for
the
fullness of
shining
forth.
Finitude
is
the
key
to
friendship
for
Aristotle
not
simply
because
we see
others
in
a
light
other
than
they
see
themselves (and for that reason can "be there"with and for others), but
because
in
being
there
we
can
say
something
to
them that
they
cannot
say
to
themselves,
something
that
they
cannot
help
but
have
missed.
Friends
are
"other
selves"
in
other
bodies,
but
they
have the benefit
of
"seeing"
us
in
much
the
same
way
as we are seen
by
the
daimon
that
calls
us
to
be who
we
are.
In
eudaimonia
we
shine
forth
in
our
excellence
among
others,
and
others
see
us as
blessed
in
the
light
of
the
daimon
or
god.
As
a
form of
excellence,
we
can
understand
friendship
both
in
itself and
what it is excellent for. In someways it is easy to say thatfriendshipmust be
excellent
in
itself
because
it
is
what
the
good
human
being
does,
and
is thus
pursued
for its
own
sake. But it is
not
possible
to
pursue
"friendship"
in
the
abstract,
since
we
can
only
ever
be
before others
as
friends,
and hence
it
is
not
clear how
friendship
is
"pursued"
for its
own
sake
at
all.We
do
not
stand
in
a
relation
to
friendship
such that
we
can
pursue
it;
the
best
we can
do
is
pursue
a
friendship
with
someone
in
particular,
which
we
do
by being
there
with
and
for
him
or
her.
To
say
it
is
pursued
for its
own
sake
and
forwhat it
produces will only mystify theexperience of friendship throughabstraction.
Friendship
produces
and
is
produced
by dialogue.
Through
dialogue
we
come
to
thoughts,
and
to
a
moment
of
wordless,
even
breathless,
contempla
tion.
During contemplation,
our
thoughts,
as
the
motion
of the soul toward
the
wordless
state
of
nous,
move
from
occurring
with
others
to
a
moment in
which
we
each
stand
before
the
kosmos. Just
as our
participation
in
the
good
is
not
a
"taking"
or
"portioning"
of
the
good,
but
our
embodiment of
it,
so
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770
PoliticalTheory
7(6)
too
does
friendship bring
forth
our
participation
in
the
good: friendship
delimits
a
space
between themultitude
and
the
singular
in
which
we
stand
not
only
before others
but
before
the
kosmos
in
a
moment
of
pure
isolation.
For
Aristotle
(as
for
Plato),
the friend is
integral
to
the
revelation
that
truth,
as
aletheia,
is.52
That
revelation,
however,
can
only
ever
be one's
own,
and
its
possibility
is
something
that
belongs
to
who
we are
at
any
given
moment,
just
as our
allegiance
to
ourselves and
others
is
always already
a
possibility,
the
possibility,
for
us.
The
way
friendship
stands
as a
possibility
tells of the
faithful
striving
of the human
to
flourishwith
others,
to
stand
in
the
space
of
the
polis
that
is constituted
by
such
standing.
But if
no one
stands
forth,
this
possibility
fails
to
properly
actualize,
and
yet
without
ever
becoming
an
impossibility.
Or could
the
possibility
of
friendship
itselfbe another
possibil
ity
that
surges
and recedes?
Conclusion:"...ThereAre
No
Friends"
It
is
curious,
then,
that ristotle would
say
something
like
Diogenes
has him
saying, that "there are no Friends." For it seems like a statement about the
actuality
of
affairs,
while the
analysis
of
friendship
suggests
that
friendship
exists
in
its
possibility
not
in
its
actuality.
It
remains
a
far
cry
from
saying
that
friendship
is
not
possible.
In this
essay
I
have
tried
to
articulate the
ground
of
Aristotelian
friendship
in the
possibility
of
becoming
a
friend.
This
possibility
is
grounded
in
the
shared
appreciation
of
the
good,
and
Aristotle
recognized
its
rarity.
He
understood this
rarity
as
showing
some
thing
precious
about
friendship,
and
insofar
as
friendship
was
possible
at
all,
it llowed for thegood
to
gather and share inthe sightofwhat isgood beneath
the firmament.
On
the
basis of
what
has
been said
here,
friendship
need
not
be
thought
of
as
amenable
to
a
typology,
or as
something
we
have
that
pro
vides
a
basis for
a
politics
as
governing.
Friendship
is
something
that lies
ahead
of
us,
as
a
possibility
for
us.
And
even
when
friendship
is
"actual"
it
remains
still
only
ever
a
possibility
for
shining
before others.
Beyond
this
one
worries
that
we
want to
ground
our
politics
this
way.
Based
on
the
foregoing,
then,
if
we
think
friendship
is said
to
be
a
foun
dation for today's democratic politics, it is clear thatwe must no longer be
talking
about Aristotle?for
the
possibility
of
friendship
as
the
possibility
of
politics
is
no
longer
as
it
was.
Why
turn to
Aristotle
in the
service of
today?
Our
nostalgia
can
edify
us
without
being
vengeful.
If
we are
to
follow
Aristotle
(and
perhaps
we
should
not),
we are
not
friends
when
we
help
others
that
way.
This is
not to
say
that
such
actions
are
not
necessary
or
desirable
(what
self-respecting
society
cannot
afford
to
provide
for those
in
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Bryan
77I
need?),
but
that
we
cannot think that
a
moment
of
"friendship"
has
existed.
Nor can we honestly imagine that a Senate debate shows anything like
friendship.
It
is
ordinary,
modern
policy
debate.
If
we were
to
take
Aristotle
seriously
at
all,
it
would be
to
avoid
looking
for
friendship
in
these
places,
just
as we
would
not
be
looking
for
politics
(in
today's
sense)
there either.
Today
we
ordinarily
think
of
our
friends
and
friendships
as
chosen,
not
won,
like
most
other
things.
The friend in
today's
world
may
not
be the
long-standing acquaintance,
and
may
be,
in
some
sense,
the
stranger.
The
one
we are
unacquainted
with,
the
one
we
are
not
familiar with.
The friend
isnot a familymember, but someone else, "a friend inneed." The person
who
sees us as we
are
not,
and
can
respond
with
what
is
called
for
is the
nurse,
the
teacher,
the
physician,
and
the
bureaucrat.
The
stranger
who
comes
to
us
in
an
hour of need-this
"generalized
other"53?who
stands
in
a
relation of
anonymity
to
us
(are
we
not
all
more
and
more
anonymous?),
is
identified
only by
roles:
paramedic,
mother,
police
officer, librarian,
waiter,
entertainer.
But
they
all
come
to
us
with
gestures
of
some
form,
inviting
us
to
dialogue,
and
perhaps
even
there
lingers
a
possibility
for
contemplating
the kind of existence we seem to share. To say "my friends, there are no
friends"
may
have
nothing
to
do with
contradiction,
and
everything
to
do
with
dismissing
from
our
minds
an
antiquated
understanding
of
friendship,
of
one
who
comes
along
and
sees us as
no
others
see
us,
of
those
who
are
there for
us.
Where Nietzsche invertsAristotle's
understanding
by
claiming
that
the
enemy
makes
us our
best,
and
Derrida
conceives of
friendship's
promise
(and
any
other relation
with others for that
matter)
as
something
"at
hand" that
we can
examine rather than
fleeting
and
ahead
of
us,54
we
have
to
look furtherafield to think through friendship's possibility in relation to
Diogenes's
invocation.
Friendship's possibility
may
reside
in
kind
of
hope
fulness,
longing,
prayer,
or
promise:
but
if
we
house
friendship's
possibility
there,
are we
not at
once
chastened
by
the
wherewithal of
promises?
"To
breed
an
animal
with the
right
to
make
promises,
isn
i
this the
question
that
nature
has
posed
with
man?"55
And with that
we see
that
we
do
not
escape
moral
ground
with architectures of what
friendshipmight
hold
for
politics
for
us
today.
Aristotle requires that
we
find such possibilities inexistent beings
or
situ
ations.
But
what solace
can
the
thought
of
Aristotle be
to
anyone
who
sees
the
politics
of
an
age
as
friendless,
as
the
polity
as
something
other
than the
place
of
shining
and
belonging.
Does it
make
sense
to
speak
of
friendship
and
politics
any
longer?
I
turn to
the
poet
Rilke
because he
gestures
to
the
moments
that render
friendship's possibility today:
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772
Political
Theory
37(6)
. . .
there is
only
one
solitude,
and
it
is
vast,
heavy,
difficult
to
bear,
and
almost
everyone
has hourswhen
he
would
gladly exchange
itfor
any
kind
of
sociability,
however
trivial
or
cheap,
for the
tiniest utward
agreement
with
thefirst
erson
who
comes
along,
the
most
unworthy
..
,56
While
we
might
initially
spot
contradiction,
moments
of solitude
among
oth
ers
can
let
wonder
ring
at
the conditions
under
which
the
self
can
be
a
friend
of itself and
another,
can
be there for itself
and
for
others,
can
be
at
home in
the
world,
can
imagine
the
pain
of others
but
not
feel
it,
r can
in
some
sense
avail itself of others. The condition of the
possibility
of
friendship,
with
oneself
or
with
another,
is
a
profound
otherness
or
distance between the
two
who would
be friends.
The
man
.
. .
who
is
in
love
with
goodness
can
never
afford
to
lead
a
solitary
life,
and
yet
his
living
with
others and
for
others
must
remain
essentially
without
testimony
and lacks firstof
all
the
company
of
him
self.He is
not
solitary,
but
lonely
.
.
,57
Today's
friend
is
a
refuge
and bulwark
against
massification and
anonymity,
witnessed
in
Thoreau's sorrowful observation
that
our
lives
are
lead with
a
quiet
desperation.
Diogenes's
invocation of Aristotle
can
thus be
more
despairing
and
somehow
worse
than
simply
being
about
the
absence
of
friendship.
If
some
how
linked
to
politics,
as
escape,
refuge,
or
the
(only) possibility
of
shining,
then
it
becomes
an,
or
the,
uncanny
moment
of
politics precisely
because
it
underwrites
the
fragility
of
our
place
with others
as a
vulnerable
possibility
that
fades. For with
this
onemust
wonder
not
just
at
the
conditions
of
cross
cultural
communication,
but
at
the
very
possibility
of
being
understood
by
another.
In
theorizing friendship
perhaps
we
(merely) struggle
to
keep
poli
tics
alive,
as
something
we
imagine existing
in
a
particular
way,
so
as
to
grasp
the loss of
a
certain kind
of closeness
beyond
intimacy.
It
may
be said
that
such
a
notion of
friendship's
possibility
as
fragile
is
bleak
or
misplaced,
that
we
should
maintain
hope
for
politics
as a
place
for
levelheadedness,
such
that
Diogenes's provocation
could
only
ever
be
the
beginning
of
a
solil
oquy
on a
friendship
that
is
never
public,
or
where friends
are
named and
provoked
as
friendless
only
to
gather
near.
The
possibility
of
these
medita
tions
(i.e.,
a
possibility
that
belongs
to
them) suggests
something
entirely
differentfor
friendship
and
politics.
Recall
that
lato,
in the
"Seventh
Letter,"
discloses
a
certain kind
of
nostalgia
or
experience
of loss?that
something
ended
with the
death
of Socrates and
was no
longer possible,
and
that
a
very
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Bryan
773
different
form
of
activity
and
being
with
others
came
in
its
place;
that
is,
the
Academy.
So
in the anecdote
of
Aristotle,
we
might recognize
that
something
was
perhaps
lurking
not in
its
diminished
possibility
but
in the
sense
that
friendship
as
possibility
does
not
require
that
there
actually
be
a
friend
or
friends.
Or
might
we
go
even
further?
Might
we
wonder
at
the
very
possibil
ity
of
friendship's
possibility?
This doubled
sense
of
possibility
may
be
the
sorrowful
legacy
of
Aristotelian
political thought,
but
I
would
argue
only
if
we
turn
to
political
theory
without
recognition
of
our own
nostalgia
in
doing
so.
We
do
not "use"
political theory,
or
turn to
it
to
solve
our
problems,
but
to
think
through
who
we
have
become
and
are
becoming,
to
think
through
what
we are
doing
when
we
speak thusly.
nd
thus
perhaps
the
only thing
we
stand
to
learn is
our
own
nostalgia,
or own
placelessness,
and
that,
when
we
learn
it,
it
is
something
very
important
to
have
learned.
In
learning
what
we
no
longer
have,
we
also
learnwhat
will
count
for
us
as
some
kind
of
possibil
ity
of and for
politics
in
our
time.
"My
friends,
there
are no
friends."
Have
we
not
felt
this?The world
"turn
ing"
and
"moving"
as
though
relations
are
lost
in
history?58
The
thought
placed
in
the
mouth ofAristotle invites
us
to
think that
he
saw
the
decay
of
the
politics
of
his
time
in the
very
way
it
was
becoming
harder
and harder
to
be
there
for
others.
Diogenes's
invocation
of
friendship
invites
nostalgia. By
thinking
through
the
place
of
friendship
in
Aristotle,
we
necessarily
also
ask
how
our
vision
of
politics
is
informed
by
possibility,
for
possibility
is
some
thing
other
than the
courses
of
action
that I
may
choose.
It
iswho
I
stand
to
become
with
and
before
others. And
I
wonder
if this
kind of
friendship,
the
kind
that is
fleetingly
recognized
in
my
discussion of
Aristotle,
may
be
a
pos
sibility
that
slowly
sets,
like
the
sun,
casting longer
shadows with
beautiful
purloined
rays
of
remembrance?all
the timewhile
night
approaches.
Acknowledgements
The
author
would
like
to
sincerely
thank Mark
Antaki,
Wendy
Brown,
Sagi
Cohen,
Marianne
Constable,
Mary
Dietz,
Jill
Frank,
Warren
Magnusson,
James
Tully,
Robert
Nichols,
Philippe
Nonet,
Shalini
Satkunanandan,
and three
anonymous
readers for
thoughtful
discussions and/or
commentary.
Notes
1.
Diogenes
Laertius,
Lives,
vol.
I,
trans.
R. D. Hicks
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1980),
5:21.
Important
discussions of
Diogenes's
account
occur
notably
in
Nietzsche,
Human,
All-Too-Human,
trans.
R.
J.
Hollingdale
(Cambridge,
K:
CambridgeUniversity
ress,
1986),
ss.
376,
531;
and
especially
and
at
length
in
Jacques
Derrida,
The
Politics
of
Friendship,
trans.
G.
Collins
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774_PoliticalTheory
37(6)
(London:
Verso,
1997).
It
is also
notable
that
Aristotle's
statement
is
spelled
out
rather
fully
by
Aristotle himself in his
Nicomachean
Ethics,
trans.
H.
Rackham,
Loeb edition
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1934),
Bk.
IX,
X,
6,
1171al5-17
(hereinafter
cited
as
NE);
in
the Eudemian
Ethics,
trans.
H.
Rackman,
Loeb edition
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1981),
7:12,
1245b20;
and
to
a
lesser
extent
in The "Art"
of
Rhetoric,
trans.
J. H.
Freese,
Loeb
edition
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1959),
2:4.
2.
Cf.
Marshall
MacGregor,
"Greek
in
its
Anecdotage,"
Studies and Diversions in
Greek
Literature
London:
Kennikat
Press,
1937),
235.
3.
I
have
worked
across a
number of translations of The
Nicomachean
Ethics,
and
specify
which
translations
I
use
or am
guided
by
for
specific quotations.
I
have
been
aided
tremendouslyy
H. G.
Liddell
and
R.
Scott,
A
Greek-English
exicon,
with
Supplement,
ed. E.
A.
Barber,
9th ed.
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1940).
4. These
interpretations
are
indeed
legion,
added
to
yearly.
But
for
eloquent
and
careful
elaborations,
see
John
M.
Cooper,
"Aristotle
on
Friendship,"
in
Essays
on
Aristotle
Ethics,
ed. Amelie
Oksenberg
Rorty
(Berkeley:University
of
Califor
nia
Press,
1980)
301-40;
Jill
rank,
A
Democracy
of
istinction: Aristotle nd the
Work
of
Politics
(Chicago: University
of
Chicago Press, 2005) chap. 5;
Hannah
Arendt,
The Human Condition
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1958),
chap. 1?specifically
p.
13.
5. On
this
distinction,
see
Walter
Otto,
The Homeric
Gods,
trans. M.
Hadas
(London:
Thames
&
Hudson,
1955),
43-60.
6. This
view
of
the
impossibility
f
proper
friendship
n
the
grounds
that
t
must
still
be convenient
or
useful
is found
in
Lorraine
Pangle's
discussion
in
Aristotle and the
Philosophy of
Friendship
(Cambridge,
UK:
CambridgeUniversity
Press,
2003),
chap.
2. It
should become
clear
why
I
most
respectfully disagree?friendship
is
not
something
one
"has."
If
friendship
is
"advantageous,"
then
it is
something
achieved
on
the
way
to
another
end,
and
thus
something
that
we
can
"have"
in
a
sense.
If
it is
this,
hen t
s
not
an
end
unto
itself,
ut
rather
something
hat
e can
gain
and
then
get
beyond
or
simply eep,
as
though
t
were
just
another
art
of
our
activities nd
daily dealings.
hilia
must
be
not
just
more
than
his,
ut
beyond
it
entirely.
7.
Philia,
not
eros.
See
Cooper,
"Aristotle
on
Friendship,"
334n.
8. Cf.
Maclntyre,
After
Virtue
(Notre
Dame,
IN:
University
of Notre Dame
Press,
1981)
148ff; rendt,
TheHuman
Condition,
chap.
2,
section
6.
9. See
Maclntyre,
After
Virtue,
155.
10.
Frank,
Democracy of
Distinction,
24.
11.
Ibid,
162.
12.
Arendt,
Human
Condition,
157.
13.
Ibid.,
243.
It
is
interesting
hat
rendt claims
that
friendship
s
without
intimacy
even
though
ristotle
claims that such
friendships
equire
intimacy
o
bloom:
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Bryan
775
"Perfected
[or
"finished"
or
"proper"-te/e/<z]
friendship
is that
between
the
good,
who resemble
each other
in
excellence
[arete]
. . .
Such
friendships
are
rare
because
the
good
are
few.
And
they require
time and
intimacy.
. .
."
NE,
VIII,
iii,
6;
VIII,
iii,
8.
(Guidance
taken rom . Rackam's
translation
n
the
1934
Loeb
edition.)
I
am
not
convinced
that Arendt understood
a
stark
differentiation
between
perfected
and
political
friendship,
as
she
seems
to
eschew both
use
and
pleasurable
friendships
as
somehow
not
proper.
See Human
Condition,
192-207.
14. There
is
nostalgia
in
looking
to
our
words
as
well,
but is
not to
be
strategically
avoided. One
can
heed words
for
their
provenance
without
seeking
their
origin.
The word
itself,
what it
says,
is lost
to
us
if
we
think
it
the
referent of
an
elemental
thought
or
experience,
for the word remains
somehow,
and
mysteriously,
apo
phantic.
I
admit
there
is
more
to
this
matter
than
can
be addressed
in
this
essay.
See Martin
Heidegger, Being
and
Time,
trans.
J.
Macquarrie
and E.
Robinson
(New
York:
Harper
&
Row,
1962),
s.
7.
15.
If
anything,
Aristotle
was
keen
to
clarify
the
sense
of
the words he
used.
And
while
I
take
my
bearings
for
such
thinking
rom
variety
of scholars
of
theGreek
world,
I
have been
most
influenced
by
the
reading
of the
Greeks
in
general,
and Plato
and
Aristotle
in
particular, given byHans-Georg Gadamer,
Martin
Heidegger,
and
Jacques
Derrida.
16.
Aristotle,
De
Interpretatione,
chap.
5,
6.
17.
See
"Doxa" in Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
366. See also
Plato,
Gorgias,
527B,
and
contrast
the
doxasophia
of the
sophist
in
Plato,
Sophist,
233B.
These
accounts
tell
us
that the doxa of
a
view
or an
opinion
is
housed in that
it
seems
to
be
true,
though
is
not
necessarily.
Liddell and Scott
note
that
dok
eow
(and
dokein)
is
a
root
of
doxa,
as
the
opinion,
belief,
fancy,
or
expectation
is
grounded (rooted?)
in the semblance
that
belongs
to
visions.
18.
NE, VIII,
ii,
1.
Greek from
Aristotle,
Ethica
Nicomachea,
ed. J.
Bywater
(Clarendon,
UK: Oxford
University
Press,
1894);
guidance
in
the translation
from editions
by
J.
L.
Akrill
and H. Rackham.
19.
While this
is
a
basic
point
of
interpretation
for
Heidegger,
it
is
hardly
con
troversial:
see
Thomas
A.
Szlezak,
"For
Whom
is Plato
Writing,"
in
Reading
Plato,
trans.
G. Zanker
(London:
Routledge,
1999).
See
also
Martin
Heidegger,
Plato
s
"Sophist,
"
trans.
R.
Rojcewicz
and
A.
Schuwer
(Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press,
1997),
7-8,
105,
421.
See
also
Hans-Georg
Gadamer,
"The
Question
at
Issue,"
in
The Idea
of
the
Good
in
Platonic-Aristotelian Philoso
phy,
trans.
P.
Christopher
Smith
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press,
1986),
7-32.
20.
Aristotle
explainswhy
we
begin
with what
is
before
our
senses
in
orderof
time,
even
though
he
intelligible
ealmhas
more
truth,
nd hence
the
primacy
of theo
retical
over
practical
activity:
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776
PoliticalTheory 7(6)
In
itself then the
prior
is better
intelligible
than
the
posterior,
e.g.
the
point
better than the
line,
the line than
the
surface,
the surface than the
body,
and
in
the
same
way
also
unity
better
than
number.
Similarly
also the
letter better
than
the
syllable.
To
us,
however,
at
times
it
comes
along
the
opposite
way;
for
the
body
falls
most
under
the
senses,
and
the
surface
more
than
the
line,
and
the
line
more
than the
point.
Men
as
theymostly
are
know the
likes
of
these
(the
posterior)
before;
for
they
the
posterior)
are
to
be
learned
y
any
intellect
(dianoia)
that as hit
upon
them,
hereas theother
the
prior)
only
by
a
pen
etrating
(akribes)
and
superior
intellect.
Aristotle,
Topics,
VI,
iv,
141b6-14. Translated
from E.
S. Forster's
Greek
text
in
the oeb
edition;
guidance
in the
translation rom
Philippe
Nonet.
21.
I
pose
these
two
possibilities
as
differing interpretations
of eudaimonia. "Flour
ishing"
is
decidedly
secular
and
seems
to
leave
us
only
with the
characteristics
of the
individual,
whereas
a
proper
translation
of
eudaimonia
requires
that
we
hear the "blessedness" of
eu-,
and
the
presence
of the
divine
in
daimon. Thus
a
better
translation,
though
difficult
to
grasp
for
the
ear
of
today,
would be
"bless
edness
in
the
sight
of the
gods."
See
Arendt,
The Human
Condition, 192-93ff,
193n;
Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
596.
22. Cf. "Doxa" and "dokeow"
in
Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
366;
NE,
VIII, ii,
1.
23.
NE, VIII,
ii,
2.
24.
Cf.
Gadamer,
"The
Question
at
Issue,"
in
The Idea
of
the Good.
25.
NE, VIII,
ii,
4,
1156a3-5,
trans. H.
Rackham.
I
prefer
Rackham's translation
to
others
as
it
tracks three elements
present
in
the
Greek,
which,
oddly,
most
others
synthesize
into two?the first
two
expressed
as
"mutually
recognized
as
bearing
goodwill"?which hardly
captures
it.
26. As
he
notes at
NE,
VIII,
iii,
6,
the
perfected
form of
friendship
estin,
or
"is,"
among
the
good.
27.
NE, VIII,
iii, 6,
1156b6-l
1.
Greek
text
from
ed.
J.
Bywater,
translation
guided
by
H. Rackham's
(Loeb edition).
28. See Liddell
and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
1221.
29. See Martha
Nussbaum,
The
Fragility
of
Goodness
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1986),
386. And
also,
see
the
helpful Jacques
Derrida,
"Ousia
and Gramme:
Note
on a
Note
from
Being
and
Time,"
in
Margins of Philosophy,
trans.
Alan
Bass
(Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press,
1982),
29-68,
at
51-52.
The translation
s also defensible
by
the
lights
f Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
1069. Allan Silverman also
suggests
an
ambiguity
to
"essences"
that is
found
already
in
Plato,
as
ambiguity
that is
not
quite
"essences" and
not
quite
"par
ticularities." See
Allan
Silverman,
The
Dialectic
of
Essences:
A
Study of
Plato
s
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Bryan
777
Metaphysics
(Princeton,
J:
Princeton
University
Press,
2002),
specifically
the
"Introduction."
Many
translations of Aristotle often
take the
question
of the
ousia
of
a
citizen
to
be his "nature" rather than "substance"
when
in
fact the
question
of
citizenship
revolves around who the citizen is
as
what he
is
(it
was
only
ever
"he"
for the
Greeks).
But
phusis
is
not
ousia.
On
this,
see
Frank,
Democracy
of
Distinc
tion,
2
In;
Heidegger,
"On the
Essence
and
Concept
of
Phusis
in
Aristotle's
Phys
ics
B,
I"
Pathmarks,
trans. T.
Sheehan
(Cambridge,
UK:
Cambridge University
Press,
1998)
183-230.
30. As
W. K.
C. Guthrie
notes,
Aristotle's
pursuit
of the
"identity"
of
beings
as some
how
corequisite
with
their
essence
and/or their
substance
was
not
his
alone,
and
was
his
way
of
being
true
to
the Plato's
question
regarding
the immanence of
form:
see
Guthrie,
The Greeks and their
Gods
(Boston:
Beacon,
1955),
355-73.
Werner
Marx
echoes the notion that the
question
of
the
proper
translation
(and
interpretation)
of
ousia
was
not
only
a concern
for
Heidegger,
but
consistent
with
a
variety
of
interpretations
of Aristotle.
Werner
Marx,
Heidegger
and
the Tra
dition,
trans.
T.
Kisiel and
M. Greene
(Evanston,
IL:
Northwestern
University
Press,
1971),
4-5.
31. This
is
why,
for
Aristotle,
ousia
ranks
higher
or more
essential than
idea,
and
thus
constitutes the fundamental
differentiation of Aristotelian
and
Platonic
thought.
See
Metaphysics,
V, 8;
Categories,
5;
Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
1069.
32.
NE,
VIII,
iv,4-5.
33.
"Hexis"?Liddell and
Scott,
Greek-English
Lexicon,
479.
Derrida also
notes
the
sense
and
place
of hexis
for Aristotle:
Derrida,
Politics
of
Friendship,
16.
34.
A
hexis is
opposed
to
both dunamis and
energeia
because it is
actual
in
its
poten
tiality
and
yet
is
by
definition
potential
only
because
it
is
actualized
potential.
Cf.
Liddell
and
Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 373, 458,
and
479.
35. "Such
friendships
are
of
course
rare,
because such
men are
few. Moreover
they
require
time and
intimacy
..."
Aristotle,
NE,
I,
iii.
It
is
a
short distance
from these
words
to
"My
friends,
there
are no
friends."
36.
Aristotle clarifies
these
in
both the
Physics
and
Metaphysics.
See
Metaphysics,
Books
I-IX,
trans.
H.
Tredennick,
Loeb edition
(Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
Uni
versity
Press,
1933);
Physics
I-IV,
trans.
P.
H.
Wicksteed and F. M.
Cornford,
Loeb
edition
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1929);
Physics
V-VIII,
trans.
P. H.
Wicksteed and F. M.
Cornfor,
Loeb
edition
(Cambridge,
MA:
Harvard
University
Press,
1934).
I
am
assisted
in
this
by
Heidegger,
Aristotle's
"Meta
physics"
1-3,
trans.
W
Brogan
and P.
Warnek
(Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press,
1995).
37.
Giorgio
Agamben,
"On
Potentiality"
Potentialities:
Collected
Essays
in
Philoso
phy,
trans.
D.
Heller-Roazen
(Stanford,
CA:
Stanford
University
Press,
1999)
179-80.
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778_PoliticalTheory
37(6)
38. Cf.
Physics,
III,
i;
Aristotle's refutationfZeno
hinges
upon
thedifferentiationf
potentiality
from
actuality,
and
on
establishing
the existence of the
former;
that
is,
that
a
dunamis exists
as a
being
and that
motion is
only
a
mode of
being.
39. Cf.
Michel
Foucault,
The
Hermeneutics
of
the
Subject:
Lectures
at
the
College
de
France,
1981-82,
trans.
G. Burchell
(New
York:
Palgrave
Macmillan,
2005)
17,26.
40.
NE, X,
vii,
1177b. See also
Guthrie,
Greeks and their
ods,
367ff;
tto,
Homeric
Gods,
236.
41.
Cf.
Liddell
and
Scott,
596. This
"shining"
is
capturedby
Heidegger
in
his lec
tures
on
Antigone:
Heidegger,
Holderlin
s
Hymn
"The
Ister,
"
trans.
W. McNeill
and
J.
Davis
(Bloomington,
IN: Indiana
University
Press,
1996),
91,
94-6.
One
must
recall that
the
presence
of the
gods
and
spirit-beings
in
the
everyday
was
not
a
sign
of
religiosity
n
the
sociological
sense
in
which
we
speak,
but
simply
the
way
beings
were
properly
manifest:
see
Walter
Otto,
The Homeric
Gods: The
Spiritual
Significance of
Greek
Religion,
trans.
Moses Hadas
(London:
Thames
&
Hudson,
1954),
chap.
4.
42. Arendt
characterizes the ristotelian
olls
this
way
(see
TheHuman
Condition,
26-37,
but
see
207-11),
but later characterizes the
political
space
not
as
a
separate
space
into which human action
comes
to
shine but rather
as
the
very space
consti
tuted
by
the
ction itself
see
On
Revolution,
chap.
6).
43.
NE,VIII,
i.
44.
Note
that Derrida conceives of "the friend"
this
way: Derrida,
The Politics
of
Friendship, chap.
1. The
fragility
of the friend is better
captured
in his medita
tions
on
the
gift
and what is owed:
see
Derrida,
Given Time:
I.
Counterfeit Money,
trans.
Peggy
Kamuf
(Chicago: University
of
Chicago
Press,
1992),
6-32.
45. See
Jacques
Derrida,
Ear
of
the Other:
Otobiography,
Transference,
Transla
tion:
Texts and Discussions with
Jacques
Derrida,
trans.
Avital Ronnel and
Peggy
Kamuf,
ed. Christie MacDonald
(Lincoln:
University
of Nebraska
Press,
1985),
19ff. nd in
thinking
his
through
t
seems
Butler's
caveat
will
always
keep
us
from
becoming
aware
of
ourselves
as
excellent. See Judith
Butler,
Giving
an
Account
ofOneself
(New
York: Fordham
University
Press,
2005),
38,
where she
writes: "There
are,
then,
several
ways
in
which the
account
I
may
give
of
myself
has the
potential
to
break
apart
and
to
become undermined.
My efforts
to
give
an
account
of
myselffounder
in
part
because
I
address
my
account,
and
in
address
ing
my
account
am
exposed
to
you" Emphasis
added.
46. The transformation of the
subject
with
Aristotle
is
profound,
and
can
be
wit
nessed,
if
nowhere
else,
in
the
way
pre-Platonic
thinkers
placed
the human
in
contrast
with
the
Divine,
while Aristotle
differentiated humans from "other
ani
mals."
Compare
the
portrayal
of the Greek
poets
in
Walter
Otto,
The Homeric
Gods,
trans.
M. Hadas
(London:
Thames &
Hudson,
1955),
231-3,
with Aristo
tle's
description
f the
point
of
inquiry
nto
ature
in
Metaphysics,
XII,
1072b4.
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Bryan
779
47.
NE, IX,
iv, 5-7; ix,
7-10;
Also
see
Guthrie,
Greeks and their
Gods,
364-70.
48. NE,IX, ix, 5-10; xi, 2-3.
49.
I
take this
to
be the
sense
and force
of Frank's
discussion of
friendship
s a
unity
grounded
in
multiplicity:
cf.
Frank,
Democracy
of
Distinction,
156-61.
50.
Ibid.,
24.
51.
Helpfully
discussed
andmeditated
upon
by
Peter
Euben,
"The Politics ofNostal
gia
and Theories
of
Loss,"
in
Platonic Noise
(Princeton,
NJ: Princeton
University
Press,
2003),
85-111.
52.
A
question
remains whether
one
can
exist
as a
friend
to
oneself
not
just solely
but at all. This question requires a critical stance of differentiating Aristotle and
Plato
methodologically,
since
we can
grasp
that
friendship
with
oneself
is
per
fect
justice
forPlato
{Republic,
Bk.
IV)
while also
recognizing
the
near
practical
impossibility
of
proper
friendship
with oneself
precisely
because
we
cannot
see
ourselves
completely
Aristotle,
E,
IX):
an
important
uestion
that
ies
beyond
the
purview
of the
thinking
ffered
ere.
53. G.
H.
Mead,
"Play,
the
Game,
and
the Generalized
Other,"
in
Mind,
Self,
and
Society
rom
the
Standpoint
of
the ocial
Behaviorist,
ed. C. W.
Morris
(Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1934), 152-64.
54.
Nietzsche,
Human,
All-Too-Human,
ss.
376, 531;
Jacques
Derrida,
The Politics
of
Friendship,
trans.
G. Collins
(London:
Verso,
2005)
chap.
1.
55.
Nietzsche,
Genealogy
of
Morals, II,
1.
56. R.
M.
Rilke,
"Eighth
Letter,"
Letters
to
a
Young
Poet,
trans.
S. Mitchell.
57.
Arendt,
The Human
Condition,
76.
58. The
sense
of "lost
in
history"
is
captured
beautifully
n
Philippe
Nonet,
"Time
and
Law,"
Theoretical
Inquiries
in Law
8
(January
2007).
Bio
Bradley
Bryan
is theDirector of the
Technology
and
Society
Program,
and
an
Adjunct
Professor
n
the
epartment
of
Political Science
at
the
University
of
Victoria,
Canada. He has also written "Reason's Homelessness:
Rationalization in
Bentham
and
Marx,"
Theory
& Event
(2003),
and
"Property
as
Ontology:
On
Aboriginal
and
English Understandings
of
Ownership,"
Canadian Journal
of
Law and
Jurisprudence
(2000).