Understanding Friendship through the Eyes of Aristotle
Friendship has four forms: it can be heroic, intimate, spiritual or playful.
Béla Hamvas • On Friendship
For example, social scientists see there are strong preferences for friends to be loyal, trustworthy and warm. Additionally, researchers find there are preferences for friends who help you solve specific kinds of problems and are generous and caring with you instead of others. These preferences help people navigate making friends, given limited res... See more
Jessica D. Ayers • Friendship research is getting an update – and that's key for dealing with the loneliness epidemic
a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we’re lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presen
... See moreStephen Batchelor • Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
Paradoxically, it is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love. That this sounds surprising is only a reflection of how underdeveloped our day-to-day vision of friendship has become. We associate it with a casual acquaintance we see only once in a while to exchange inconsequential and shal
... See moreAlain De Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education
Aristotle pointed out that friendship and contemplation are the two pillars of a happy life. We are social animals and we are rational animals—we need friends, and we need to learn. Aristotle was so convinced of this truth that he founded a school of philosophy at the Lyceum, a place where people could cultivate friendships and learn new things at
... See more