Friendship, Good, Polis : On the Meaning of Friendship in the Whole of Aristotle''s Political Philosophy
Abstract
Aristotle''s subtle distinction between the forms of friendship and his concept of loving friend as one''s other self propose a solution to the fundamental objection to any eudaimonian theory of friendship, namely that friendship - as basically non-moral phenomenon - is but an egoistic device of one''s happy life. Aristotelian theorems are based in his concept of analogy and in philosophically specific notion of "self".
Since both of these root in Platonism, Aristotle has to evolve them dialectically in a critical distance to Plato. Still, his dialectical theory of friendship needs to be rooted not in metaphysics but in political theory after all.
Political friendship as a utopian perspective taken by each of the citizens in their pursuit of a close relationship with any other indicates a notion of "infinity as perfection" which presents the decisive step beyond Plato and toward the later course of the history of philosophy.