Friendship is natural to most animals, especially human beings, and that’s why we praise the philanthropist. You will see, if you travel, that all of us are family and even friends.

Something like that is what Aristotle says, in this first of eight readings on friendship. I have trouble imagining where the Philosopher is going to go with his subject; or perhaps I am troubled to imagine what may be in store.

A work on aesthetics (such as Kant’s Critique of Judgment) need not be beautiful; a work on comedy (such as the lost part of Aristotle’s Poetics) need not be funny. Still, maybe a work on friendship should be “friendly,” in the sense of coming from somebody who is a friend – a friend to somebody, at least.

At the beginning of Walden, Thoreau puts a strict condition on what he reads; I quoted it at greater length in “Return to Narnia”:

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives …

In the interest of friendship, with my fellow readers at least, I am willing not to impose Thoreau’s condition on Aristotle. Perhaps, if one reads carefully, the condition is met anyway, except for the “simple” part.

Plato has at least Socrates talk about himself. For all we know, Aristotle did the same when he was actually lecturing.

Strictly, what Aristotle is talking about now is not friendship, but φιλία. We can translate this also as love. However we translate it, we can hardly talk about it abstractly – at least Martha Nussbaum says so, appealing in turn to the author of À la recherche du temps perdu:

If Proust is right, we will not understand ourselves well enough to talk good sense in ethics unless we do subject ourselves to the painful self-examination a text such as his can produce.

Furthermore, if emotions are as Proust describes them, they have a complicated cognitive structure that is in part narrative in form, involving a story of our relation to cherished objects that extends over time. Ultimately, we cannot understand the Baron’s love, for example, without knowing a great deal about the history of patterns of attachment that extend back into his childhood. Past loves shadow present attachments, and take up residence within them. This, in turn, suggests that in order to talk well about them we will need to turn to texts that contain a narrative dimension, thus deepening and refining our grasp of ourselves as beings with a complicated temporal history. It is for this reason that Proust’s narrator comes to believe that certain truths about the human being can be told only in literary form.

I shall turn presently to a “text that contains a narrative dimension”: in short, a novel, though it is by Somerset Maugham (born 1874), not Proust (born 1871). Meanwhile, I’m not sure why Nussbaum qualifies

• the “complicated … structure” of our emotions as “cognitive,” and
• “a story” as something “that extends over time,” and
• our “complicated … history” as “temporal.”

Nussbaum may just have the academic habit of complicating things generally.

Her words are from the Introduction to Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge University, 2001), and I was led to them by Maria Popova in “The Intelligence of Emotions: Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on How Storytelling Rewires Us and Why Befriending Our Neediness Is Essential for Happiness.” That long title sounds like a response to the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole; however, Nussbaum seems to mention the Ethics only three times in her book. There are many more references to Aristotle himself, more than I can take the time to review now, given my commitment to a shared schedule of reading the Philosopher himself.

While blog posts by Popova may have a greater proportion of quotation than mine do, hers usually stick with a single author or book. In the example that I am looking at now, the following quotation from Nussbaum’s Introduction also seems important:

In the very nature of our early object relations, I argue in Chapter 4, there lurks a morally subversive combination of love and resentment, which springs directly from the thought that we need others to survive and flourish, but do not at all control their movements. If love is in this way always, or even commonly, mixed up with hatred, then, once again, this might offer us some reasons not to trust to the emotions at all in the moral life, but rather to the more impersonal guidance of rules of duty.

Perhaps this tends to corroborate Collingwood’s pronouncements in Chapter X, “Passion,” of The New Leviathan. However, Nussbaum lacks the precision that Collingwood recommends:

10. 1. Love turns into fear when a man [sic] starts thinking of the not-self no longer as existing for the satisfaction of his own appetites but as having an independent character of its own: as being, so to speak, alive.

---

10. 14. Here as elsewhere, the Law of Primitive Survivals (9. 6) holds good. All fear contains in itself a trace of the love out of which it has developed.

10. 15. Popular psychology recognizes something called hatred which it regards as the opposite of love; it regards this combination of love and fear as a combination of love and hatred.

10. 16. The word ‘hatred’, however, is also used as a name for anger; or for loathing or aversion (11. 22); or for the impulse to torment or persecute what we love in order to satisfy ourselves of our power over it, which is a common, perhaps an essential element in love; or for any confusion or combination of these.

10. 17. There is nothing of which ‘hatred’ is the right name; and psychologists might be well advised to drop the word and use various different ones for the various different things they now mean by it; except when they mean by it a confused state of mind.

Nussbaum doesn’t mention Collingwood at all:

• he does not turn up in an automated search of a djvu file of her book;
• the Name Index passes directly from “Coetzee, J. M.” to “Cone, E.”

Thus Collingwood doesn’t seem to be part of the “history of philosophy” that Nussbaum recognizes, here in the second paragraph of her Introduction (the bolding is mine):

A lot is at stake in the decision to view emotions in this way, as intelligent responses to the perception of value. If emotions are suffused with intelligence and discernment, and if they contain in themselves an awareness of value or importance, they cannot, for example, easily be sidelined in accounts of ethical judgment, as so often they have been in the history of philosophy. Instead of viewing morality as a system of principles to be grasped by the detached intellect, and emotions as motivations that either support or subvert our choice to act according to principle, we will have to consider emotions as part and parcel of the system of ethical reasoning. We cannot plausibly omit them, once we acknowledge that emotions include in their content judgments that can be true or false, and good or bad guides to ethical choice. We will have to grapple with the messy material of grief and love, anger and fear, and the role these tumultuous experiences play in thought about the good and the just.

Does Aristotle sideline the emotions in this sense? Three readings ago, in what I called “Necessity,” he did argue that incontinent anger was less shameful than incontinent desire, because at least anger had some reason, like a hasty servant who hears part of the master’s command, though he may not wait till the end. And yet, in the last reading, which I called “Sweetness,” Aristotle argued against the people who sideline the emotions.

Again, the emotion, if that’s what it is, that Aristotle is talking about now is φιλία, which derives from the adjective φίλος. This has the original meaning of “own, accompanying,” but “The etymology is unknown,” according to Beekes’s etymological dictionary. From the adjective comes also the verb φιλέω, which we may translate as “to love”; but perhaps it is a friendly or affectionate kind of love, the kind that Maugham has his own character distinguish from love proper in The Razor’s Edge:

I think it’s all stuff and nonsense to say that there can be love without passion; when people say love can endure after passion is dead they’re talking of something else, affection, kindliness, community of taste and interest, and habit. Especially habit.

Maugham’s remarks on habit may be interesting, given the controversy over whether habit is what Aristotle’s ἕξις is. The Greek word does not appear in the present reading, of chapters i–iv of Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics; but we are going to see it in chapter v. We saw it in the last reading, where the Philosopher said pleasure was

ἐνέργειαν τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἕξεως … ἀνεμπόδιστον.

an activity, according to nature, of habit … unimpeded.

Some people translate ἕξις as characteristic, and Nussbaum is one of them, or she follows them, when she alludes to that passage thus:

On some philosophical accounts, pleasure is not a feeling at all, but a characteristic way of doing something, for example, unimpededly (to use Aristotle’s definition). In that way of thinking, to think with pleasure about one’s child’s preciousness will not be to have some extra element, the pleasure, over and above the thinking; it will be to do the thinking in a certain way, viz., unimpededly. I am inclined to think that this is the right direction to go with the analysis of pleasure …

Meanwhile, Maugham continues his own account.

Two people can go on having sexual intercourse from habit in just the same way as they grow hungry at the hour they’re accustomed to have their meals.

The hunger may be involuntary, but it may well go away if the people do not choose to feed it. One has to eat something, some time, but perhaps not as frequently or as much as one is wont.

Maugham returns to the main subject.

Of course there can be desire without love. Desire isn’t passion. Desire is the natural consequence of the sexual instinct and it isn’t of any more importance than any other function of the human animal.

I’m not sure that what Maugham calls natural isn’t what Aristotle calls necessary. In any case, Maugham presently confirms his distinction:

Unless love is passion, it’s not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment.

More precisely, if I understand, passion thrives on trying to overcome impediment; if it gives up, it’s not passion. Maugham is telling Isabel he doesn’t think her old boyfriend Larry was really in love with her:

Your love for Larry and his for you were as simple and natural as the love of Paolo and Francesca and Romeo and Juliet. Fortunately for you it didn’t come to a bad end. You made a rich marriage and Larry roamed the world to seek out what song the Sirens sang. Passion didn’t enter into it.

Aristotle is perhaps not talking about passion now. And yet he does take up relationships that are “erotic,” that is, ἐρωτικός. Beekes derives the adjective, along with the noun ἔρως, from the verb ἔραμαι, which is apparently not just the middle-passive form of ἐράω. In any case, Beekes says there is “No etymology” of these words. There is presumably a past of the words, an origin, an original sense: an ἔτυμον; but nobody has been able to give an account of it, a λόγος.

Aristotle uses also two other verbs for love, bringing the total number to four:

1. φιλέω;
2. ἐράω (in § i.6, where according to Euripides, mother earth loves the rain, and the rain loves falling on her);
3. ἀγαπάω (whence ἀγάπη, agape; the etymology is obscure), in § iii.1;
4. στέργω (whence στοργή, storge; IE root *sterg- “love, tend”), in § iii.2 and § iv.4.

The last two seem to be used synonymously with φιλέω, or at least as special forms of it. Aristotle does not call attention to any distinctions.

---

I began this post with a loose translation of § i.3:

φύσει τ᾽ ἐνυπάρχειν ἔοικε … μάλιστα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ὅθεν τοὺς φιλανθρώπους ἐπαινοῦμεν. ἴδοι δ᾽ ἄν τις καὶ ἐν ταῖς πλάναις ὡς οἰκεῖον ἅπας ἄνθρωπος ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ φίλον.

Also, friendship seems to be naturally present … most of all among human beings (which is why we praise lovers of mankind). Even on our travels, we can see how every human being is kin and friend to every other human being.

That translation is Reeve’s from 2014; from 2002, Sachs has,

And friendship seems to be present by nature … especially among human beings, which is why we praise those who are friends of humanity. And one might see among those who travel that every human being is akin and a friend to a human being.

Thus there is disagreement on who is doing the travelling.

---

In my summaries, as below, I may omit Aristotle’s indications that what he says is tentative or just common opinion. We may then ask whether he is leading us indirectly, or from behind. Has he a sense of what is described in a book review as follows?

In one particularly fascinating chapter, McRaney spends time with “deep canvassers” – people who knock door to door, inviting strangers to have scripted conversations that aim to change their political views. The technique evolved in the US on the journey towards acceptance of gay marriage – “the fastest flip of a long-held, nationwide public opinion in recorded history”. Like psychotherapy or coaching, it involves asking people questions about their deeply held beliefs and listening to their replies. It seems devastatingly efficient: quick, permanent and, according to one expert, “102 times more effective than traditional canvassing, television, radio, direct mail, and phone banking combined”.

That’s from “Winds of Change,” by Katy Guest (Guardian Weekly, vol. 206, No 25, 17 June 2022, p. 58), a review of How Minds Change, by David McRaney. In her next sentence, Guest may corroborate Nussbaum:

And it is most effective of all when canvassers share their own stories.

The role of storytelling in changing minds is touched on but brushed past frustratingly here. Authors such as Will Storr …, in The Science of Storytelling, have examined the ways our brains are wired to respond to narratives. In this study researchers find that “when they employed deep canvassing without sharing their personal narratives, it no longer had any impact”.

Perhaps some of Aristotle’s examples got elaborated into stories in his lectures.

---

In “Dicaeology,” on the first reading in Book V, I included a quotation about a teacher of mine:

While Descartes has argued that the world as it appears to us is illusory, and Kant that we know only the world of appearance (rather than things in themselves), Aristotle was right, in Bolotin’s view, to think that the world as it is given to us is the true world, or reality in the truest sense.

It makes little sense to say the whole world, or the whole “apparent” world, is illusory. An illusion is an illusion of something, as a mirage is an illusion of water. Does the appearance of a mirage give the illusion of the appearance of water? It makes no difference, as Aristotle says in the present reading (§ ii.2), here in Reeve’s translation:

Is it, then, what is good that people love? Or what is good for themselves? For sometimes these clash. Similarly, where what is pleasant is concerned. It seems indeed that what each person loves is what is good for himself and that while what is good is unconditionally lovable, what is good for each person is lovable to himself. (In fact, each person loves not what is really good for him but what appears good to him. But that will make no difference, since “what is lovable” will then be “what appears lovable.”)

The review by Katy Guest exhibits the Cartesian foolishness, which may belong to herself or to David McRaney; for, his book supposedly

reveals the psychological and evolutionary reasons why all humans are certain we are right, and why “certainty” is nothing but an illusion.

What would certainty be an illusion of?

In mathematics we sometimes have the illusion of truth, because certain truth is possible. I think Mark Ronan points this out in an essay called “The man behind the Monster,” which I brought up in “Anarchy”:

care and precision often get swept aside in the interests of propaganda favouring a particular cause. Precision is essential. Without it mathematicians can produce false results. Every researcher has found “proofs” of plausible claims that are simply wrong. The fault often lies in some hidden assumption, sometimes occluded by the word “clearly”. The ancient Greek mathematicians were very good at making all assumptions explicit.

On the other hand, there is disagreement with that last assertion by scholars such as Morris Kline in Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times (Oxford, 1972; page 87):

Though mathematicians generally did regard Euclid’s work as a model of rigor until well into the nineteenth century, there are serious defects that a few mathematicians recognized and struggled with. The first is the use of superposition. The second is the vagueness of some of his definitions and the pointlessness of others …

A critical study of Euclid, with, of course, the advantage of present insights, shows that he uses dozens of assumptions that he never states and undoubtedly did not recognize … What Euclid and hundreds of the best mathematicians of later generations did was to use facts either evident from the figures or intuitively so evident that they did not realize they were using them …

Among the assumptions made unconsciously are those concerning the continuity of lines and circles …

I have Kline’s book because I asked for it in high school, so I am particularly disappointed to recognize now his anachronistic notion of “defects” in Euclid. Moreover, just making unconscious assumptions is not a defect; it is inevitable. It may be a defect if it causes a problem, but I think Euclid enunciates all of the assumptions that he needs to. According to Ronan,

In his Elements, Euclid defined the terms he was using, stated his theorems carefully, and delineated his proofs in a way that left no gaps and ensured that all steps were precisely explained.

I don’t think Ronan is quite right either. I say this, having been working through Euclid with a group since the winter of last year, so that we are now in Book V of the thirteen. And yet, as with Aristotle, we can only guess how Euclid expected his written work to be supplemented in lectures. In any case, what counts as certainty, even “absolute” certainty, is going to depend on our setting. In one of the passages quoted earlier, we may change Martha Nussbaum’s referent thus:

we cannot understand [Euclid’s geometry], for example, without knowing a great deal about the history of patterns of [thought] that extend back into [humanity’s] childhood.

Well, maybe that’s extreme!

Contents and Summary

• Chapter I

• Chapter 1

  • Everybody needs friends,
    • especially the wealthy,
      who need them as
      • recipients,
      • protectors (§ i.1);
    • but also those who are
      • poor,
      • young,
      • old,
      • in their prime (§ i.2).
  • Friendship seems natural,
    • between parents and offspring, among
      • birds and
      • most animals,
    • for one another, among
      • races (ὁμοεθνεις) and
      • humans especially,
        wherefore we praise philanthropy.
  • One sees even in travelling that
    every man (ἄνθρωπος) is kin and friend
    to [every other] man (§ i.3).
  • Friends don’t need justice,
    but the just still need friends (§ i.4).
  • Friendship is
    • not only necessary,
    • but beautiful;

    the same men (ἀνδροί) are

    • good and
    • friend (§ i.5).

• Chapter 2

  • Some say e.g.
    • like as like (τὸν ὅμοιόν … ὡς τὸν ὅμοιον),
    • jackdaw to jackdaw (κολοιὸν ποτὶ κολοιόν);

    others, such are to one another contentious, as e.g. potters
    (κεραμεῖς πάντας τοὺς τοιούτους ἀλλήλοις).

  • On a level
    • higher and
    • more natural,

    say e.g.

    • Euripides,
      • parched earth loves rain,
      • rain loves falling to earth;
    • Heraclitus,
      • opposition unites;
      • from differences, the most beautiful harmony;
      • all comes out by strife;
    • Empedocles and others,
      • like aims at like (§ i.6).
  • We’re not doing natural science;
    we’re asking e.g.
    • can everybody (even the depraved) be a friend?
    • is there only one form of friendship,
      since it admits of degrees? (§ i.7)

• Chapter II

  • Loved is
    • not everything,
    • but the lovable (τὸ φιλητόν),
      namely one of the following:
      1. Good.
      2. Pleasant.
      3. Useful for one of those two (§ ii.1).
  • One loves what
    • is, or
    • seems to be,

    for oneself,

    • good or
    • pleasant (§ ii.2).
  • You can
    • love inanimate objects –
      that’s not friendship;
    • wish good for another –
      that’s goodwill (εὔνους);
    • have reciprocated good will –
      that’s friendship (§ ii.3).
  • Almost. Friendship is
    • mutual good will, i.e.
    • wishing the good,
    • openly,
    • because of something
      [good, pleasant, or useful] (§ ii.4).

• Chapter III

• Chapter 3

  • So there are three forms of
    • loving (φίλησις) and
    • friendship (φιλία);

    however, not for

    • the person

    do you love, if for

    • usefulness or
    • pleasure (§ iii.1).
  • Such friendships are accidental
    (κατὰ συμβεβηκός, § iii.2).
  • They dissolve with the
    • pleasure or
    • utility (§ iii.3).
  • Friendship for [utility] is found
    • in the old, especially, who pursue
      • not the pleasant,
      • but the beneficial; also
    • in the middle-aged and
    • in the young.
  • Such friends
    • rarely live together;
    • are pleasant
      only insofar as they benefit;
    • include guest-friends (§ iii.4).
  • Friendship for pleasure is what the young pursue.
    • As what pleases changes with age,
      so do one’s friends, even in a day.
    • Erotic friendshis is a particular example.
    • Friends for pleasure want to live together,
      this supplying what makes them friends (§ iii.5).

• Chapter 4

  • Complete (τελεία) friendship belongs to those who are
    • good [individually] and
    • similar [to one another] in virtue.

    For:

    • They
      • wish the good for one another quâ good, and
      • are good in themselves.
    • Those who wish the good
      • for their friends,
      • for their own sake,

      are friends most of all, namely

      • on account of one another (δι᾽ αὑτοὺς), and
      • not accidentally (οὐ κατὰ συμβεβηκός).
    • Such friendships last
      • as long as the principals are good – but
      • virtue is lasting.
    • The good are
      • simply good and
      • beneficial to one another.
    • The pleasant, likewise.
      What pleases the good is actions of
      • themselves,
      • similar people – namely the good (§ iii.6).
  • That such friendship is lasting is reasonable (εὐλόγως):
    • Every friendship is
      • through
        • good or
        • pleasure,
      • according to a similarity.
    • Friendships of [the good] are
      according to themselves (§ iii.7).
  • Such friendships are rare. The principals
    • are few,
    • need
      • time and
      • intimacy,

      in order to

      • appear lovable,
      • gain trust (§ iii.8).
  • Coming quickly are
    • the wish to be friends,
    • the actions of friendship,
    • not the thing itself, which needs
      • being lovable and
      • knowing it (§ iii.9).

• Chapter IV

• Chapter 5

  • This [kind of friendship] is complete in
    • time and
    • everything else,

    because everybody gets similar things out of it.

  • Similar are friendships based on
    • pleasure and
    • utility,

    since good people do supply these things.

  • Friendships are most lasting when the principals
    • not only get the same thing (e.g. pleasure),
    • but get it from the same thing, e.g.
      • as witty people do, but
      • not as lover and beloved.
        A lasting friendship-with-benefits based on
        • pleasure is possible (§ iv.1);
        • utility, less likely.
  • Friendships are possible based on
    • pleasure or utility,
      between different kinds of people;
    • themselves,
      only between good people (§ iv.2).
  • Slander is impossible,
    only in a friendship of the good (§ iv.3).
  • Though people call it friendship when based on
    • utility (as e.g. between polities),
    • pleasure (as e.g. between children),

    this is only by similarity with the friendship
    of the good quâ good (§ iv.4).

  • Unlikely is friendship based on two accidents, namely
    • pleasure and
    • utility (§ iv.5).

• Chapter 6

  • Friendship of the base
    can be based only on pleasure and utility,
    the only way the principals can be similar (§ iv.6).

Text

[1155^a]

Chapter I

Chapter 1

§ i.1

μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα περὶ φιλίας ἕποιτ᾽ ἂν διελθεῖν·

ἔστι γὰρ

• ἀρετή τις ἢ
• μετ᾽ ἀρετῆς,

ἔτι δ᾽ ἀναγκαιότατον εἰς τὸν βίον.

ἄνευ γὰρ φίλων οὐδεὶς ἕλοιτ᾽ ἂν ζῆν,
ἔχων τὰ λοιπὰ ἀγαθὰ πάντα·

• καὶ γὰρ πλουτοῦσι
• καὶ
  • ἀρχὰς καὶ
  • δυναστείας

  κεκτημένοις

δοκεῖ φίλων μάλιστ᾽ εἶναι χρεία·

τί γὰρ ὄφελος τῆς τοιαύτης εὐετηρίας
ἀφαιρεθείσης εὐεργεσίας,
ἣ γίγνεται

• μάλιστα καὶ
• ἐπαινετωτάτη

πρὸς φίλους;

ἢ πῶς ἂν τηρηθείη καὶ σῴζοιτ᾽ ἄνευ φίλων;

• ὅσῳ γὰρ πλείων,
• τοσούτῳ ἐπισφαλεστέρα.

§ i.2

ἐν

• πενίᾳ τε καὶ
• ταῖς λοιπαῖς δυστυχίαις

μόνην οἴονται καταφυγὴν εἶναι τοὺς φίλους.

• καὶ νέοις δὲ πρὸς τὸ ἀναμάρτητον

• καὶ πρεσβυτέροις πρὸς

  • θεραπείαν καὶ
  • τὸ ἐλλεῖπον τῆς πράξεως δι᾽ ἀσθένειαν βοηθείας,

• τοῖς τ᾽ ἐν ἀκμῇ πρὸς τὰς καλὰς πράξεις·

  σύν τε δύ᾽ ἐρχομένω· [Hom. Il. 10.224]

  καὶ γὰρ

  • νοῆσαι καὶ
  • πρᾶξαι

  δυνατώτεροι.

§ i.3

φύσει τ᾽ ἐνυπάρχειν ἔοικε

• πρὸς τὸ γεγεννημένον τῷ γεννήσαντι καὶ
• πρὸς τὸ γεννῆσαν τῷ γεννηθέντι,

• οὐ μόνον ἐν ἀνθρώποις
• ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν
  • ὄρνισι καὶ
  • τοῖς πλείστοις τῶν ζῴων, καὶ

τοῖς ὁμοεθνέσι
πρὸς ἄλληλα, καὶ
μάλιστα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις,
ὅθεν τοὺς φιλανθρώπους ἐπαινοῦμεν.

ἴδοι δ᾽ ἄν τις καὶ ἐν ταῖς πλάναις ὡς

• οἰκεῖον ἅπας ἄνθρωπος ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ
• φίλον.

§ i.4

ἔοικε δὲ καὶ τὰς πόλεις συνέχειν ἡ φιλία,
καὶ οἱ νομοθέται

• μᾶλλον περὶ αὐτὴν σπουδάζειν
• ἢ τὴν δικαιοσύνην·

ἡ γὰρ ὁμόνοια ὅμοιόν τι τῇ φιλίᾳ ἔοικεν εἶναι,

• ταύτης δὲ μάλιστ᾽ ἐφίενται καὶ
• τὴν στάσιν ἔχθραν οὖσαν μάλιστα ἐξελαύνουσιν·

καὶ

§ i.5

τοὺς γὰρ φιλοφίλους ἐπαινοῦμεν,
ἥ τε πολυφιλία δοκεῖ τῶν καλῶν ἕν τι εἶναι·

καὶ ἔτι τοὺς αὐτοὺς οἴονται ἄνδρας

• ἀγαθοὺς εἶναι καὶ
• φίλους.

Chapter 2

§ i.6

διαμφισβητεῖται δὲ περὶ αὐτῆς οὐκ ὀλίγα.

• οἳ μὲν γὰρ
  • ὁμοιότητά τινα τιθέασιν αὐτὴν καὶ
  • τοὺς ὁμοίους φίλους,
  ὅθεν

  • τὸν ὅμοιόν φασιν ὡς τὸν ὅμοιον, καὶ
  • κολοιὸν ποτὶ κολοιόν, καὶ
  • τὰ τοιαῦτα·
• οἳ δ᾽ ἐξ ἐναντίας
  κεραμεῖς πάντας τοὺς τοιούτους ἀλλήλοις φασὶν εἶναι. [1155^b]

καὶ περὶ αὐτῶν τούτων

§ i.7

• τὰ μὲν οὖν φυσικὰ τῶν ἀπορημάτων ἀφείσθω
  (οὐ γὰρ οἰκεῖα τῆς παρούσης σκέψεως)·
• ὅσα δ᾽
  • ἐστὶν ἀνθρωπικὰ καὶ
  • ἀνήκει εἰς
    • τὰ ἤθη καὶ
    • τὰ πάθη,

  ταῦτ᾽ ἐπισκεψώμεθα,
  οἷον

  • πότερον
    • ἐν πᾶσι γίνεται φιλία ἢ
    • οὐχ οἷόν τε μοχθηροὺς ὄντας φίλους εἶναι, καὶ
  • πότερον
    • ἓν εἶδος τῆς φιλίας ἐστὶν ἢ
    • πλείω.
       
    • οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἓν οἰόμενοι,
      ὅτι ἐπιδέχεται
      • τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ
      • τὸ ἧττον,

      οὐχ ἱκανῷ πεπιστεύκασι σημείῳ·
      δέχεται γὰρ

      • τὸ μᾶλλον καὶ
      • τὸ ἧττον καὶ

      τὰ ἕτερα τῷ εἴδει.

    • εἴρηται δ᾽ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἔμπροσθεν.

Chapter II

§ ii.1

τάχα δ᾽ ἂν γένοιτο περὶ αὐτῶν φανερὸν
γνωρισθέντος τοῦ φιλητοῦ.

δοκεῖ γὰρ

δόξειε δ᾽ ἂν χρήσιμον εἶναι
δι᾽ οὗ γίνεται

• ἀγαθόν τι ἢ
• ἡδονή,

ὥστε φιλητὰ ἂν εἴη

• τἀγαθόν τε καὶ
• τὸ ἡδὺ

ὡς τέλη.

§ ii.2

πότερον οὖν

• τἀγαθὸν φιλοῦσιν ἢ
• τὸ αὑτοῖς ἀγαθόν;

διαφωνεῖ γὰρ ἐνίοτε ταῦτα.

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τὸ ἡδύ.

δοκεῖ δὲ

• τὸ αὑτῷ ἀγαθὸν φιλεῖν ἕκαστος, καὶ
• εἶναι
  • ἁπλῶς μὲν τἀγαθὸν φιλητόν,
  • ἑκάστῳ δὲ τὸ ἑκάστῳ·

φιλεῖ δ᾽ ἕκαστος

• οὐ τὸ ὂν αὑτῷ ἀγαθὸν
• ἀλλὰ τὸ φαινόμενον.

διοίσει δ᾽ οὐδέν·

ἔσται γὰρ τὸ φιλητὸν φαινόμενον.

§ ii.3

τριῶν δ᾽ ὄντων δι᾽ ἃ φιλοῦσιν,

• ἐπὶ μὲν τῇ τῶν ἀψύχων φιλήσει
  οὐ λέγεται φιλία·
  • οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀντιφίλησις,
  • οὐδὲ βούλησις ἐκείνῳ ἀγαθοῦ
    (γελοῖον γὰρ ἴσως τῷ οἴνῳ βούλεσθαι τἀγαθά,
    ἀλλ᾽ εἴπερ,
    σῴζεσθαι βούλεται αὐτόν,
    ἵνα αὐτὸς ἔχῃ)·
• τῷ δὲ φίλῳ φασὶ δεῖν βούλεσθαι τἀγαθὰ ἐκείνου ἕνεκα.
• τοὺς δὲ βουλομένους οὕτω τἀγαθὰ εὔνους λέγουσιν,
  ἂν μὴ ταὐτὸ καὶ παρ᾽ ἐκείνου γίνηται·
  εὔνοιαν γὰρ ἐν ἀντιπεπονθόσι
  φιλίαν εἶναι.

§ ii.4

ἢ προσθετέον μὴ λανθάνουσαν;

• πολλοὶ γάρ εἰσιν εὖνοι οἷς
  • οὐχ ἑωράκασιν,
  • ὑπολαμβάνουσι δὲ
    • ἐπιεικεῖς εἶναι ἢ
    • χρησίμους· [1156^a]
• τοῦτο δὲ τὸ αὐτὸ κἂν ἐκείνων τις πάθοι πρὸς τοῦτον.

• εὖνοι μὲν οὖν οὗτοι φαίνονται ἀλλήλοις·
• φίλους δὲ πῶς ἄν τις εἴποι λανθάνοντας ὡς ἔχουσιν ἑαυτοῖς;

Chapter III

Chapter 3

§ iii.1

διαφέρει δὲ ταῦτα ἀλλήλων εἴδει·

• καὶ αἱ φιλήσεις ἄρα
• καὶ αἱ φιλίαι.

• τρία δὴ τὰ τῆς φιλίας εἴδη,
• ἰσάριθμα τοῖς φιλητοῖς·

καθ᾽ ἕκαστον γάρ ἐστιν

• ἀντιφίλησις
• οὐ λανθάνουσα,

οἱ δὲ φιλοῦντες ἀλλήλους
βούλονται τἀγαθὰ ἀλλήλοις
ταύτῃ ᾗ φιλοῦσιν.

• οἱ μὲν οὖν διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον φιλοῦντες ἀλλήλους
  • οὐ καθ᾽ αὑτοὺς φιλοῦσιν,
  • ἀλλ᾽ ᾗ γίνεταί τι αὐτοῖς παρ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἀγαθόν.
• ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ οἱ δι᾽ ἡδονήν·
  • οὐ γὰρ τῷ ποιούς τινας εἶναι ἀγαπῶσι τοὺς εὐτραπέλους,
  • ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι ἡδεῖς αὑτοῖς.

§ iii.2

• οἵ τε δὴ
  • διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον φιλοῦντες
  • διὰ τὸ αὑτοῖς ἀγαθὸν στέργουσι,

  καὶ

• οἱ
  • δι᾽ ἡδονὴν
  • διὰ τὸ αὑτοῖς ἡδύ,

καὶ

• οὐχ ᾗ ὁ φιλούμενός ἐστιν,
• ἀλλ᾽ ᾗ
  • χρήσιμος ἢ
  • ἡδύς.

κατὰ συμβεβηκός τε δὴ αἱ φιλίαι αὗταί εἰσιν·

• οὐ γὰρ ᾗ ἐστὶν ὅσπερ ἐστὶν ὁ φιλούμενος,
  ταύτῃ φιλεῖται,
• ἀλλ᾽ ᾗ πορίζουσιν
  • οἳ μὲν ἀγαθόν τι
  • οἳ δ᾽ ἡδονήν.

§ iii.3

εὐδιάλυτοι δὴ αἱ τοιαῦταί εἰσι,
μὴ διαμενόντων αὐτῶν ὁμοίων·

ἐὰν γὰρ μηκέτι

• ἡδεῖς ἢ
• χρήσιμοι

ὦσι,
παύονται φιλοῦντες.

τὸ δὲ χρήσιμον

• οὐ διαμένει,
• ἀλλ᾽ ἄλλοτε ἄλλο γίνεται.

ἀπολυθέντος οὖν δι᾽ ὃ φίλοι ἦσαν,
διαλύεται καὶ ἡ φιλία,
ὡς οὔσης τῆς φιλίας πρὸς ἐκεῖνα.

§ iii.4

• μάλιστα δ᾽ ἐν τοῖς πρεσβύταις
  ἡ τοιαύτη δοκεῖ φιλία γίνεσθαι
  • (οὐ γὰρ τὸ ἡδὺ οἱ τηλικοῦτοι διώκουσιν
  • ἀλλὰ τὸ ὠφέλιμον),
• καὶ τῶν
  • ἐν ἀκμῇ καὶ
  • νέων

  ὅσοι τὸ συμφέρον διώκουσιν.

οὐ πάνυ δ᾽ οἱ τοιοῦτοι
οὐδὲ συζῶσι μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων·

ἐνίοτε γὰρ οὐδ᾽ εἰσὶν ἡδεῖς·

οὐδὲ δὴ προσδέονται τῆς τοιαύτης ὁμιλίας,
ἐὰν μὴ ὠφέλιμοι ὦσιν·

• ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον γάρ εἰσιν ἡδεῖς
• ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἐλπίδας ἔχουσιν ἀγαθοῦ.

εἰς ταύτας δὲ καὶ τὴν ξενικὴν τιθέασιν.

§ iii.5

ἡ δὲ τῶν νέων φιλία
δι᾽ ἡδονὴν εἶναι δοκεῖ·

• κατὰ πάθος γὰρ οὗτοι ζῶσι, καὶ
• μάλιστα διώκουσι
  • τὸ ἡδὺ αὑτοῖς καὶ
  • τὸ παρόν·

• τῆς ἡλικίας δὲ μεταπιπτούσης
• καὶ τὰ ἡδέα γίνεται ἕτερα.

διὸ ταχέως

• γίνονται φίλοι καὶ
• παύονται·

• ἅμα γὰρ τῷ ἡδεῖ ἡ φιλία μεταπίπτει, [1156^b]
• τῆς δὲ τοιαύτης ἡδονῆς ταχεῖα ἡ μεταβολή.

καὶ ἐρωτικοὶ δ᾽ οἱ νέοι·

• κατὰ πάθος γὰρ καὶ
• δι᾽ ἡδονὴν

τὸ πολὺ τῆς ἐρωτικῆς·

διόπερ

• φιλοῦσι καὶ
• ταχέως παύονται,

πολλάκις τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρας μεταπίπτοντες.

• συνημερεύειν δὲ καὶ
• συζῆν

οὗτοι βούλονται·

γίνεται γὰρ αὐτοῖς τὸ κατὰ τὴν φιλίαν οὕτως.

Chapter 4

§ iii.6

τελεία δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἡ

• τῶν ἀγαθῶν φιλία καὶ
• κατ᾽ ἀρετὴν ὁμοίων·

---

οὗτοι γὰρ

• τἀγαθὰ ὁμοίως βούλονται ἀλλήλοις ᾗ ἀγαθοί,
• ἀγαθοὶ δ᾽ εἰσὶ καθ᾽ αὑτούς.

---

οἱ δὲ βουλόμενοι τἀγαθὰ

• τοῖς φίλοις
• ἐκείνων ἕνεκα

μάλιστα φίλοι·

• δι᾽ αὑτοὺς γὰρ οὕτως ἔχουσι, καὶ
• οὐ κατὰ συμβεβηκός·

---

διαμένει οὖν ἡ τούτων φιλία

• ἕως ἂν ἀγαθοὶ ὦσιν,
• ἡ δ᾽ ἀρετὴ μόνιμον.

---

καὶ ἔστιν ἑκάτερος

• ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸς καὶ
• τῷ φίλῳ·

οἱ γὰρ ἀγαθοὶ

• καὶ ἁπλῶς ἀγαθοὶ
• καὶ ἀλλήλοις ὠφέλιμοι.

---

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἡδεῖς·

• καὶ γὰρ ἁπλῶς οἱ ἀγαθοὶ ἡδεῖς
• καὶ ἀλλήλοις·

ἑκάστῳ γὰρ καθ᾽ ἡδονήν εἰσιν

• αἱ οἰκεῖαι πράξεις καὶ
• αἱ τοιαῦται,

τῶν ἀγαθῶν δὲ αἱ

• αὐταὶ ἢ
• ὅμοιαι.

§ iii.7

ἡ τοιαύτη δὲ φιλία μόνιμος εὐλόγως ἐστίν·

συνάπτει γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ
πάνθ᾽ ὅσα τοῖς φίλοις δεῖ ὑπάρχειν.

πᾶσα γὰρ φιλία

• δι᾽ ἀγαθόν ἐστιν ἢ
• δι᾽ ἡδονήν,
  • ἢ ἁπλῶς
  • ἢ τῷ φιλοῦντι, καὶ
• καθ᾽ ὁμοιότητά τινα·

ταύτῃ δὲ πάνθ᾽ ὑπάρχει τὰ εἰρημένα
καθ᾽ αὑτούς·

†ταύτῃ γὰρ ὅμοια† καὶ τὰ λοιπά,
τό τε ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν

• καὶ ἡδὺ ἁπλῶς ἐστίν,
• μάλιστα δὲ ταῦτα φιλητά·

• καὶ τὸ φιλεῖν δὴ
• καὶ ἡ φιλία

ἐν τούτοις

• μάλιστα καὶ
• ἀρίστη.

§ iii.8

σπανίας δ᾽ εἰκὸς τὰς τοιαύτας εἶναι·

ὀλίγοι γὰρ οἱ τοιοῦτοι.

ἔτι δὲ προσδεῖται

• χρόνου καὶ
• συνηθείας·

κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν γὰρ
οὐκ ἔστιν εἰδῆσαι ἀλλήλους
πρὶν τοὺς λεγομένους ἅλας συναναλῶσαι·

• οὐδ᾽ ἀποδέξασθαι δὴ πρότερον
• οὐδ᾽ εἶναι φίλους,

πρὶν ἂν ἑκάτερος ἑκατέρῳ

• φανῇ φιλητὸς καὶ
• πιστευθῇ.

§ iii.9

οἱ δὲ ταχέως τὰ φιλικὰ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ποιοῦντες

• βούλονται μὲν φίλοι εἶναι,
• οὐκ εἰσὶ δέ,

εἰ μὴ

• καὶ φιλητοί,
• καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἴσασιν·

• βούλησις μὲν γὰρ ταχεῖα φιλίας γίνεται,
• φιλία δ᾽ οὔ.

Chapter IV

Chapter 5

§ iv.1

• αὕτη μὲν οὖν
  • καὶ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον
  • καὶ κατὰ τὰ λοιπὰ

  τελεία ἐστί,
  καὶ κατὰ πάντα ταὐτὰ γίνεται
  καὶ ὅμοια ἑκατέρῳ παρ᾽ ἑκατέρου,
  ὅπερ δεῖ τοῖς φίλοις ὑπάρχειν. [1157^a]

• ἡ δὲ διὰ τὸ ἡδὺ ὁμοίωμα ταύτης ἔχει·
  καὶ γὰρ οἱ ἀγαθοὶ ἡδεῖς ἀλλήλοις.
• ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἡ διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον·
  καὶ γὰρ τοιοῦτοι ἀλλήλοις οἱ ἀγαθοί.

μάλιστα δὲ καὶ ἐν τούτοις αἱ φιλίαι μένουσιν,
ὅταν

• τὸ αὐτὸ γίνηται παρ᾽ ἀλλήλων,
  οἷον ἡδονή,
• καὶ μὴ μόνον οὕτως
• ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ,
  οἷον
  • τοῖς εὐτραπέλοις, καὶ
  • μὴ ὡς
    • ἐραστῇ καὶ
    • ἐρωμένῳ.
       
    • οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἥδονται οὗτοι,
    • ἀλλ᾽
      • ὃ μὲν ὁρῶν ἐκεῖνον,
      • ὃ δὲ θεραπευόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐραστοῦ·

    ληγούσης δὲ τῆς ὥρας
    ἐνίοτε καὶ ἡ φιλία λήγει

    • (τῷ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδεῖα ἡ ὄψις,
    • τῷ δ᾽ οὐ γίνεται ἡ θεραπεία)·

    πολλοὶ δ᾽ αὖ διαμένουσιν,
    ἐὰν ἐκ τῆς συνηθείας τὰ ἤθη στέρξωσιν,
    ὁμοήθεις ὄντες.

§ iv.2

οἱ δὲ

• μὴ τὸ ἡδὺ ἀντικαταλλαττόμενοι
• ἀλλὰ τὸ χρήσιμον

ἐν τοῖς ἐρωτικοῖς

• καὶ εἰσὶν ἧττον φίλοι
• καὶ διαμένουσιν.

οἱ δὲ διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον ὄντες φίλοι
ἅμα τῷ συμφέροντι διαλύονται·

• οὐ γὰρ ἀλλήλων ἦσαν φίλοι
• ἀλλὰ τοῦ λυσιτελοῦς.

• δι᾽ ἡδονὴν μὲν οὖν καὶ
• διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον
  • καὶ φαύλους ἐνδέχεται φίλους ἀλλήλοις εἶναι
  • καὶ ἐπιεικεῖς φαύλοις
  • καὶ μηδέτερον ὁποιῳοῦν,
• δι᾽ αὑτοὺς δὲ δῆλον ὅτι μόνους τοὺς ἀγαθούς·
  οἱ γὰρ κακοὶ οὐ χαίρουσιν ἑαυτοῖς,
  εἰ μή τις ὠφέλεια γίνοιτο.

§ iv.3

καὶ μόνη δὲ ἡ τῶν ἀγαθῶν φιλία ἀδιάβλητός ἐστιν·

οὐ γὰρ ῥᾴδιον οὐδενὶ πιστεῦσαι
περὶ τοῦ ἐν πολλῷ χρόνῳ ὑφ᾽ αὑτοῦ δεδοκιμασμένου·

καὶ

• τὸ πιστεύειν ἐν τούτοις, καὶ
• τὸ μηδέποτ᾽ ἂν ἀδικῆσαι, καὶ
• ὅσα ἄλλα ἐν τῇ ὡς ἀληθῶς φιλίᾳ ἀξιοῦται.

ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἑτέραις
οὐδὲν κωλύει τὰ τοιαῦτα γίνεσθαι.

§ iv.4

ἐπεὶ γὰρ οἱ ἄνθρωποι λέγουσι φίλους

• καὶ τοὺς διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον,
  ὥσπερ αἱ πόλεις
  (δοκοῦσι γὰρ αἱ συμμαχίαι ταῖς πόλεσι
  γίνεσθαι ἕνεκα τοῦ συμφέροντος),
• καὶ τοὺς δι᾽ ἡδονὴν ἀλλήλους στέργοντας,
  ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες,

ἴσως

• λέγειν μὲν δεῖ καὶ ἡμᾶς φίλους τοὺς τοιούτους,
• εἴδη δὲ τῆς φιλίας πλείω,

καὶ

• πρώτως μὲν καὶ κυρίως
  τὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ᾗ ἀγαθοί,
• τὰς δὲ λοιπὰς καθ᾽ ὁμοιότητα·

ᾗ γὰρ

• ἀγαθόν τι καὶ
• ὅμοιόν τι,

ταύτῃ φίλοι·

καὶ γὰρ τὸ ἡδὺ ἀγαθὸν τοῖς φιληδέσιν.

§ iv.5

οὐ πάνυ δ᾽ αὗται συνάπτουσιν,
οὐδὲ γίνονται οἱ αὐτοὶ φίλοι

• διὰ τὸ χρήσιμον καὶ
• διὰ τὸ ἡδύ·

οὐ γὰρ πάνυ συνδυάζεται τὰ κατὰ συμβεβηκός. [1157^b]

Chapter 6

§ iv.6

εἰς ταῦτα δὲ τὰ εἴδη τῆς φιλίας νενεμημένης

• οἱ μὲν φαῦλοι ἔσονται φίλοι δι᾽
  • ἡδονὴν ἢ τὸ
  • χρήσιμον,

  ταύτῃ ὅμοιοι ὄντες,

• οἱ δ᾽ ἀγαθοὶ δι᾽ αὑτοὺς φίλοι·
  ᾗ γὰρ ἀγαθοί.

• οὗτοι μὲν οὖν ἁπλῶς φίλοι,
• ἐκεῖνοι δὲ
  • κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς καὶ
  • τῷ ὡμοιῶσθαι τούτοις.