Friendship and the Good in Aristotle

Cooper, John M.

doi:10.2307/2183784

Cited by 105 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…John Cooper argues that the self-knowledge we gain from virtue friends (those friends whom we care for because of their characters and for their own sakes) is a necessary constituent of the good life since human flourishing requires both leading the best life (that of activity in accordance with the virtues) and choosing it for its own sake. 53 Given the "double tendency to deny the presence in oneself of what one recognizes in others as faults, and to claim for oneself virtues that one does not really have at all," 54 gaining knowledge of the character of our "second self" through sharing in a community of conversation and thought (EN, 1170b10-12) with our friends is a potential means to nonbiased information about our own self. Although Cooper acknowledges that our assessment of our friends is also liable to bias, he insists that we must balance this fact against the very difficulty of attaining such self-knowledge.…”

Section: Cultivating Wittinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike the gods, whose self-knowledge is perfect, human self-knowledge is inherently imperfect, and is dependent on our relationships with others for its illumination. 55 Virtue friends are necessary to the flourishing life, then, insofar as selfknowledge is necessary, and self-knowledge is best acquired by using our friends as mirrors of our selves (MM 1213a10-26). Yet, this is not the only way in which friends help us to acquire such self-knowledge.…”

Section: Cultivating Wittinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Civic Laughter

Lombardini

2013

Political Theory

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While the loss of the second book of the Poetics has deprived us of Aristotle's most extensive account of laughter and comedy, his discussion of eutrapelia (wittiness) as a virtue in his ethical works and in the Rhetoric points toward the importance of humor for his ethical and political thought. This article offers a reconstruction of Aristotle's account of wittiness and attempts to explain how the virtue of wittiness would animate the everyday interactions of ordinary citizens. Placing Aristotle's account of wittiness in dialogue with recent work within the ethical turn in contemporary political theory can help articulate what a late-modern ethos of democratic laughter might look like.Recent work in political theory has increasingly attended to the place of humor in democratic theorizing and practice. Among contemporary theorists troubled by the exclusions enacted by various forms of foundationalism, irony 1 and parody 2 have been championed as salutary in unsettling such foundational claims while avoiding their recapitulation; others have argued for the place of humor within the public spheres of deliberative at UMKC Libraries on March 31, 2015

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Section: Cultivating Wittinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cultivating Wittinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civic Laughter

Lombardini

2013

Political Theory

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“…Significantly, this civic friendship would exist where citizens like each other, wish well to each other and are willing to confer benefits on others, recognising that they in turn also benefit regularly from the actions of others (Cooper 1977b). …”

Section: Civic Friendship As Utility Friendshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civic Friendship

Healy

2011

Stud Philos Educ

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This paper seeks to examine the plausibility of the concept of 'Civic Friendship' as a philosophical model for a conceptualisation of 'belonging'. Such a concept, would hold enormous interest for educators in enabling the identification of particular virtues, attitudes and values that would need to be taught and nurtured to enable the civic relationship to be passed on from generation to generation. I consider both of the standard arguments for civic friendship: that it can be understood within the Aristotelian typology as either a form of utility friendship or as a form of virtue friendship. I argue that civic friendship may not be the most appropriate model and that attempts to resolve the problems through looking on it as a political metaphor leave it unable to fulfil the function for which it was originally designed in Ancient Greece. Finally, I emphasize the need to carefully consider which particular metaphors we choose for civic relationships and how we subsequently use them.

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“…In this reading, the character friend would seek to be 'useful' and would find the company of their friend pleasurable-because that is what friends do (Jeske, 1997). Such friends are drawn to each other, not because of any benefit each may incur (character friendship could never involve using another person as a means to one's own happiness) but because such complete friendship would be based on mutual recognition and association in virtue (Cooper, 1977b;Pakaluk, 1991;Blum, 1993). Character friends are seen as integral to each other's lives and thus the flourishing of one is intimately connected with the flourishing of the other.…”

Section: Character Friendshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Should we take the friendships of children seriously?

Healy

2011

Journal of Moral Education

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Friendship and the Good in Aristotle

Cited by 105 publications

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Civic Laughter

Civic Laughter

Civic Friendship

Should we take the friendships of children seriously?

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