On Friendship Alexander Nehamas

  on friendship alexander nehamas: On Friendship Alexander Nehamas, 2016-05-03 An eminent philosopher reflects on the nature of friendship, past and present Friends are a constant feature of our lives, yet friendship itself is difficult to define. Even Michel de Montaigne, author of the seminal essay Of Friendship, found it nearly impossible to account for the great friendship of his life. Why is something so commonplace and universal so hard to grasp? What is it about the nature of friendship that proves so elusive? In On Friendship, the acclaimed philosopher Alexander Nehamas launches an original and far-ranging investigation of friendship. Exploring the long history of philosophical thinking on the subject, from Aristotle to Emerson and beyond, and drawing on examples from literature, art, drama, and his own life, Nehamas shows that for centuries, friendship was as much a public relationship as it was a private one-inseparable from politics and commerce, favors and perks. Now that it is more firmly in the private realm, Nehamas holds, close friendship is central to the good life. Profound and affecting, On Friendship sheds light on why we love our friends-and how they determine who we are, and who we might become.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: On Friendship Alexander Nehamas, 2016-05-03 An eminent philosopher reflects on the nature of friendship, past and present Friends are a constant feature of our lives, yet friendship itself is difficult to define. Even Michel de Montaigne, author of the seminal essay Of Friendship, found it nearly impossible to account for the great friendship of his life. Why is something so commonplace and universal so hard to grasp? What is it about the nature of friendship that proves so elusive? In On Friendship, the acclaimed philosopher Alexander Nehamas launches an original and far-ranging investigation of friendship. Exploring the long history of philosophical thinking on the subject, from Aristotle to Emerson and beyond, and drawing on examples from literature, art, drama, and his own life, Nehamas shows that for centuries, friendship was as much a public relationship as it was a private one-inseparable from politics and commerce, favors and perks. Now that it is more firmly in the private realm, Nehamas holds, close friendship is central to the good life. Profound and affecting, On Friendship sheds light on why we love our friends-and how they determine who we are, and who we might become.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Only a Promise of Happiness Alexander Nehamas, 2007 Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty to the margins, replacing them with the anemic and rarefied alternative, aesthetic pleasure. In Only a Promise of Happiness, Alexander Nehamas reclaims beauty from its critics. He seeks to restore its place in art, to reestablish the connections among art, beauty, and desire, and to show that the values of art, independently of their moral worth, are equally crucial to the rest of life. Nehamas makes his case with characteristic grace, sensitivity, and philosophical depth, supporting his arguments with searching studies of art and literature, high and low, from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Manet's Olympia to television. Throughout, the discussion of artworks is generously illustrated. Beauty, Nehamas concludes, may depend on appearance, but this does not make it superficial. The perception of beauty manifests a hope that life would be better if the object of beauty were part of it. This hope can shape and direct our lives for better or worse. We may discover misery in pursuit of beauty, or find that beauty offers no more than a tantalizing promise of happiness. But if beauty is always dangerous, it is also a pressing human concern that we must seek to understand, and not suppress.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Nietzsche, Life as Literature Alexander Nehamas, 1985 More than eighty years after his death, Nietzsche's writings and his career remain disquieting, disturbing, obscure. His most famous views-the will to power, the eternal recurrence, the Übermensch, the master morality-often seem incomprehensible or, worse, repugnant. Yet he remains a thinker of singular importance, a great opponent of Hegel and Kant, and the source of much that is powerful in figures as diverse as Wittgenstein, Derrida, Heidegger, and many recent American philosophers. Alexander Nehamas provides the best possible guide for the perplexed. He reveals the single thread running through Nietzsche's views: his thinking of the world on the model of a literary text, of people as if they were literary characters, and of knowledge and science as if they were literary interpretation. Beyond this, he advances the clarity of the concept of textuality, making explicit some of the forces that hold texts together and so hold us together. Nehamas finally allows us to see that Nietzsche is creating a literary character out of himself, that he is, in effect, playing the role of Plato to his own Socrates. Nehamas discusses a number of opposing views, both American and European, of Nietzsche's texts and general project, and reaches a climactic solving of the main problems of Nietzsche interpretation in a step-by-step argument. In the process he takes up a set of very interesting questions in contemporary philosophy, such as moral relativism and scientific realism. This is a book of considerable breadth and elegance that will appeal to all curious readers of philosophy and literature.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Virtues of Authenticity Alexander Nehamas, 1999 The eminent philosopher and classical scholar Alexander Nehamas presents here a collection of his most important essays on Plato and Socrates. The papers are unified in theme by the idea that Plato's central philosophical concern in metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics was to distinguish the authentic from the fake, the original from its imitations. In approach, the collection displays Nehamas's characteristic combination of analytical rigor and sensitivity to the literary form and dramatic effect of Plato's work. Together, the papers represent Nehamas's distinct and original contributions to scholarship on Plato and Socrates and serve as a comprehensive introduction to the thought of these two philosophers. In the book's opening section, Nehamas discusses Plato's representation of Socrates as a model of authentic human goodness, showing that Plato's Socrates is a more skeptical, troubling, and individualistic thinker than is usually supposed. The papers in the second section form a sustained defense of a new and important understanding of Plato's theory of the forms and the evolution of that theory in Plato's later writings. The third section examines Plato's contention that popular entertainment--by which he meant Greek epic and tragic poetry--misleads its audience into a debased life, an argument Nehamas relates to modern anxieties about television and other forms of popular culture. The collection also includes a discussion of Plato's use of the dialogue form in his representation of Socrates and carefully examines the combination of literary and philosophical elements in his work. Nehamas argues in the book that Plato's specific judgments of what is authentic are often flawed, but that his idea of authenticity as the mark of truth, beauty, and goodness is stronger than many modern scholars have assumed. In drawing together Nehamas's many influential ideas about Plato and Socrates, Virtues of Authenticity is a major contribution to the study of ancient Greek philosophy.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: How to Be a Friend Marcus Tullius Cicero, 2018-10-09 A splendid new translation of one of the greatest books on friendship ever written In a world where social media, online relationships, and relentless self-absorption threaten the very idea of deep and lasting friendships, the search for true friends is more important than ever. In this short book, which is one of the greatest ever written on the subject, the famous Roman politician and philosopher Cicero offers a compelling guide to finding, keeping, and appreciating friends. With wit and wisdom, Cicero shows us not only how to build friendships but also why they must be a key part of our lives. For, as Cicero says, life without friends is not worth living. Filled with timeless advice and insights, Cicero’s heartfelt and moving classic—written in 44 BC and originally titled De Amicitia—has inspired readers for more than two thousand years, from St. Augustine and Dante to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Presented here in a lively new translation with the original Latin on facing pages and an inviting introduction, How to Be a Friend explores how to choose the right friends, how to avoid the pitfalls of friendship, and how to live with friends in good times and bad. Cicero also praises what he sees as the deepest kind of friendship—one in which two people find in each other “another self” or a kindred soul. An honest and eloquent guide to finding and treasuring true friends, How to Be a Friend speaks as powerfully today as when it was first written.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Other Selves Michael Pakaluk, 1991-01-01 .
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Norton Book of Friendship Eudora Welty, Ronald A. Sharp, 1991 Famous literary friendships such as those between H.L. Mencken and James Joyce, Gustave Flaubert and Ivan Turgenev, and Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore are examined in this magnificent collection of stories, legends, poems, essays, letters, and memoirs that illuminate the breadth and depth of friendship in all its human complexity.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Philosophy of Friendship M. Vernon, 2005-09-08 In this new accessible philosophy of friendship, Mark Vernon links the resources of the philosophical tradition with numerous illustrations from modern culture to ask what friendship is, how it relates to sex, work, politics and spirituality. Unusually, he argues that Plato and Nietzsche, as much as Aristotle and Aelred, should be put centre stage. Their penetrating and occasionally tough insights are invaluable if friendship is to be a full, not merely sentimental, way of life for today.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Emerson and Self-Culture John T. Lysaker, 2008-03-10 How do I live a good life, one that is deeply personal and sensitive to others? John T. Lysaker suggests that those who take this question seriously need to reexamine the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. In philosophical reflections on topics such as genius, divinity, friendship, and reform, Lysaker explores self-culture or the attempt to remain true to one's deepest commitments. He argues that being true to ourselves requires recognition of our thoroughly dependent and relational nature. Lysaker guides readers from simple self-absorption toward a more fulfilling and responsive engagement with the world.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Rediscovering Political Friendship Paul W. Ludwig, 2020-01-09 Applies Aristotle's argument - that citizenship is like friendship - to the liberal and democratic societies of the present day.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Friendship Hugh Black, 1898
  on friendship alexander nehamas: A Philosophy of Tragedy Christopher Hamilton, 2016-04-15 A Philosophy of Tragedy explores the tragic condition of man in modernity. Nietzsche knew it, but so have countless characters in literature: that the modern age places us squarely before the reflection of our own tragic condition, our existence characterized by utmost contingency, homelessness, instability, unredeemed suffering, and broken morality. Christopher Hamilton examines the works of philosophers, writers, and playwrights to offer a stirring account of our tragic condition, one that explores the nature of philosophy and the ways it has understood itself and its role to mankind. Ranging from the debate over the death of the tragedy to a critique of modern virtue ethics, from a new interpretation of the evil of Auschwitz to a look at those who have seen our tragic state as inherently inconsolable, he shows that tragedy has been a crucial part of the modern human experience, one from which we shouldn’t avert our eyes.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Anti-Nietzsche Malcolm Bull, 2014-04-08 Nietzsche, the philosopher seemingly opposed to everyone, has met with remarkably little opposition himself. He remains what he wanted to be— the limit-philosopher of a modernity that never ends. In this provocative, sometimes disturbing book, Bull argues that merely to reject Nietzsche is not to escape his lure. He seduces by appealing to our desire for victory, our creativity, our humanity. Only by ‘reading like a loser’ and failing to live up to his ideals can we move beyond Nietzsche to a still more radical revaluation of all values—a subhumanism that expands the boundaries of society until we are left with less than nothing in common. Anti-Nietzsche is a subtle and subversive engagement with Nietzsche and his twentieth-century interpreters—Heidegger, Vattimo, Nancy, and Agamben. Written with economy and clarity, it shows how a politics of failure might change what it means to be human.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals Christa Davis Acampora, 2006 This astonishingly rich volume collects the work of an international group of scholars, including some of the best known in academia. Experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship what is arguably Friedrich Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. Sections are devoted to the topic of genealogy generally, numerous essays on specific passages, applications of genealogy in later thinkers, and the import of Nietzsche's Genealogy in contemporary politics, ethics, and aesthetics. A lengthy introduction, annotated bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Philosophy Bites David Edmonds, Nigel Warburton, 2012 'Philosophy Bites' is a selection of interviews from the hugely successful podcast of the same name. Leading philosophers discuss a wide range of philosophical issues, from ethics to aesthetics to metaphysics, in a lively, informal, personal way.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love Christopher Grau, Aaron Smuts, 2024 The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays from leading philosophers on the nature and value of love.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy Robert B. Pippin, 2010-06-15 Expanded from a series of lectures Pippin delivered at the College de France, Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy offers a brilliant, novel, and accessible reading of this seminal thinker. --Book Jacket.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Love's Vision Troy Jollimore, 2011-07-05 Love often seems uncontrollable and irrational, but we just as frequently appear to have reasons for loving the people we do. In Love's Vision, Troy Jollimore offers a new way of understanding love that accommodates both of these facts, arguing that love is guided by reason even as it resists and sometimes eludes rationality. At the same time, he reconsiders love's moral status, acknowledging its moral dangers while arguing that it is, at heart, a moral phenomenon--an emotion that demands empathy and calls us away from excessive self-concern. Love is revealed as neither wholly moral nor deeply immoral, neither purely rational nor profoundly irrational. Rather, as Diotima says in Plato's Symposium, love is something in between. Jollimore makes his case by proposing a vision view of love, according to which loving is a way of seeing that involves bestowing charitable attention on a loved one. This view recognizes the truth in the cliché love is blind, but holds that love's blindness does not undermine the idea that love is guided by reason. Reasons play an important role in love even if they rest on facts that are not themselves rationally justifiable. Filled with illuminating examples from literature, Love's Vision is an original examination of a subject of vital philosophical and human concern.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Plato's Symposium Plato, 2013-01-07 Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is the most erotic of philosophers, and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating commentaries on it: Benardete's On Plato's Symposium and Allan Bloom's provocative essay, The Ladder of Love. In the Symposium, Plato recounts a drinking party following an evening meal, where the guests include the poet Aristophanes, the drunken Alcibiades, and, of course, the wise Socrates. The revelers give their views on the timeless topics of love and desire, all the while addressing many of the major themes of Platonic philosophy: the relationship of philosophy and poetry, the good, and the beautiful.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Family Papers Sarah Abrevaya Stein, 2019-11-19 Named one of the best books of 2019 by The Economist and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. A National Jewish Book Award finalist. A superb and touching book about the frailty of ties that hold together places and people. --The New York Times Book Review An award-winning historian shares the true story of a frayed and diasporic Sephardic Jewish family preserved in thousands of letters For centuries, the bustling port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family. As leading publishers and editors, they helped chronicle modernity as it was experienced by Sephardic Jews across the Ottoman Empire. The wars of the twentieth century, however, redrew the borders around them, in the process transforming the Levys from Ottomans to Greeks. Family members soon moved across boundaries and hemispheres, stretching the familial diaspora from Greece to Western Europe, Israel, Brazil, and India. In time, the Holocaust nearly eviscerated the clan, eradicating whole branches of the family tree. In Family Papers, the prizewinning Sephardic historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein uses the family’s correspondence to tell the story of their journey across the arc of a century and the breadth of the globe. They wrote to share grief and to reveal secrets, to propose marriage and to plan for divorce, to maintain connection. They wrote because they were family. And years after they frayed, Stein discovers, what remains solid is the fragile tissue that once held them together: neither blood nor belief, but papers. With meticulous research and care, Stein uses the Levys' letters to tell not only their history, but the history of Sephardic Jews in the twentieth century.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Socrates' Daimonic Art Elizabeth S. Belfiore, 2012-03-08 Despite increasing interest in the figure of Socrates and in love in ancient Greece, no recent monograph studies these topics in all four of Plato's dialogues on love and friendship. This book provides important new insights into these subjects by examining Plato's characterization of Socrates in Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis and the often neglected Alcibiades I. It focuses on the specific ways in which the philosopher searches for wisdom together with his young interlocutors, using an art that is 'erotic', not in a narrowly sexual sense, but because it shares characteristics attributed to the daimon Eros in Symposium. In all four dialogues, Socrates' art enables him, like Eros, to search for the beauty and wisdom he recognizes that he lacks and to help others seek these same objects of erôs. Belfiore examines the dialogues as both philosophical and dramatic works, and considers many connections with Greek culture, including poetry and theater.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Friendship Isn't a Big Thing, It's a Million Little Things Becca Anderson, 2019-09-15 A Tribute to Female Friendships Celebrate the bonds you’ve built with the wonderful women in your life. The bond shared among girlfriends is like no other. Whether the friendship is decades old or just beginning, we share a unique relationship with these women, a connection wholly different even from what we share with husbands or boyfriends. Share in the wit and wisdom of fellow women. Strong female friendships are inspiring because they foster the practice of women supporting and enabling other women. Author and blogger Becca Anderson has long been moved by the inspirational quotes and stories of groundbreaking women (as seen in her bestselling title, The Book of Awesome Women), and she shares some of that female empowerment with us in this book. Fill your heart with gratitude for your soul sisters. We know how much we love our girlfriends, but do they know? This book reminds us just how valuable our bonds with our gal pals are. These are the women who answer the phone at 4 a.m. and drop everything to help a sister out, the ones who are there for both the tearful wine nights and the champagne-worthy celebrations. As author Becca Anderson says, “Our friends are some of the great loves of our lives. Mine have seem me through tough times and we have so much shared joy. My life advice is simple: make friends and treasure them.” By reading Friendship Isn’t a Big Thing, It’s a Million Little Things, you will find... • Renewed value in the friendships you share with women • Inspiration for growing in those relationships and further supporting your friends • Reasons to celebrate the unique love you find in female friendship • A perfect inspirational gift for the women in you life If you’ve enjoyed books such as Beautifully Said, Badass Affirmations, That’s What She Said, and Cleo Wade’s Heart Talk, you will love Friendship Isn’t a Big Thing, It’s a Million Little Things: The Art of Female Friendship by bestselling author Becca Anderson.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Plato on Love Plato, 2006-06-15 This collection features Plato's writings on sex and love in the preeminent translations of Stanley Lombardo, Paul Woodruff and Alexander Nehamas, D. S. Hutchinson, and C. D. C. Reeve. Reeve's Introduction provides a wealth of historical information about Plato and Socrates, and the sexual norms of classical Athens. His introductory essay looks closely at the dialogues themselves and includes the following sections: Socrates and the Art of Love; Socrates and Athenian Paiderastia; Loving Socrates; Love and the Ascent to the Beautiful; The Art and Psychology of Love Explained; and Writing about Love.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Philosophy Bites Back David Edmonds, Nigel Warburton, 2012-11-22 An original tour through 2,500 years of Western thought, 27 of today's leading philosophers each introduce and explore ideas from history's greatest minds.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: A Short Life of Kierkegaard Walter Lowrie, 2013-05-05 A small, insignificant-looking intellectual with absurdly long legs, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a veritable Hans Christian Andersen caricature of a man. A strange combination of witty cosmopolite and melancholy introvert, he spent years writing under a series of fantastical pseudonyms, lavishing all the splendor of his magnificent mind on a seldom-appreciative world. He had a tragic love affair with a young girl, was dominated by an unforgettable Old Testament father, fought a sensational literary duel with a popular satiric magazine, and died in the midst of a violent quarrel with the state church for which he had once studied theology. Yet this iconoclast produced a number of brilliant books that have profoundly influenced modern thought. In this classic biography, the celebrated Kierkegaard translator Walter Lowrie presents a charming and warmly appreciative introduction to the life and work of the great Danish writer. Lowrie tells the story of Kierkegaard's emotionally turbulent life with a keen sense of drama and an acute understanding of how his life shaped his thought. The result is a wonderfully informative and entertaining portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the past two centuries. This edition also includes Lowrie's wry essay How Kierkegaard Got into English, which tells the improbable story of how Lowrie became one of Kierkegaard's principal English translators despite not learning Danish until he was in his 60s, as well as a new introduction by Kierkegaard scholar Alastair Hannay.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Plato's Dialogue on Friendship Plato, David Bolotin, 1989 Originally published in 1979, Plato's Dialogue on Friendship is the first book-length interpretation of the Lysis in English, offering both a full analysis and a literal translation of this frequently neglected Platonic dialogue. David Bolotin interprets the Lysis as an important work in its own right and places it in the context of Plato's other writings. He attempts to show that despite Socrates' apparent failure to discover what a friend is, a coherent understanding of friendship emerges in the Lysis. His commentary follows the dialogue closely, and his interpretation unfolds gradually, as he is providing a detailed summary of the Lysis itself. Mr. Bolotin's translation captures the playfulness and rich ambiguities of the Lysis and its effectiveness as conversational drama. His book, written with precision and clarity, should be useful to students of political philosophy and ancient philosophy.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Toss of a Lemon Padma Viswanathan, 2010-03-12 In south India in 1896, ten-year old Sivakami is about to embark on a new life. Hanumarathnam, a village healer with some renown as an astrologer, has approached her parents with a marriage proposal. In keeping with custom, he provides his prospective in-laws with his horoscope. The problem is that his includes a prediction, albeit a weak one, that he will die in his tenth year of marriage. Despite the ominous horoscope, Sivakami’s parents hesitate only briefly, won over by the young man and his family’s reputation as good, upstanding Brahmins. Once married, Sivikami and Hanumarathnam grow to love one another and the bride, now in her teens, settles into a happy life. But the predictions of Hanumarathnam’s horoscope are never far from her new husband’s mind. When their first child is born, as a strategy for accurately determining his child’s astrological charts, Hanumarathnam insists the midwife toss a lemon from the window of the birthing room the moment his child appears. All is well with their first child, a daughter, Thangam, whose birth has a positive influence on her father’s astrological future. But this influence is fleeting: when a son, Vairum, is born, his horoscope confirms that his father will die within three years. Resigned to his fate, Hanumarathnam sets himself to the unpleasant task of readying his household for his imminent death. Knowing the hardships and social restrictions Sivakami will face as a Brahmin widow, he hires and trains a servant boy called Muchami to help Sivakami manage the household and properties until Vairum is of age. When Sivakami is eighteen, Hanumarathnam dies as predicted. Relentless in her adherence to the traditions that define her Brahmin caste, she shaves her head and dons the white sari of the widow. With some reluctance, she moves to her family home to raise her children under the protection of her brothers, but then realizes that they are not acting in the best interests of her children. With her daughter already married to an unreliable husband of her brothers’ choosing, and Vairum’s future also at risk, Sivakami leaves her brothers and returns to her marital home to raise her family. With the freedom to make decisions for her son’s future, Sivakami defies tradition and chooses to give him a secular education. While her choice ensures that Vairum fulfills his promise, it also sets Sivakami on a collision course with him. Vairum, fatherless in childhood, childless as an adult, rejects the caste identity that is his mother’s mainstay, twisting their fates in fascinating and unbearable ways.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Mind and Its Depths Richard Wollheim, 1994-01-01 This book brings together Wollheim’s broad and abiding concerns to illuminate human thought at its furthest reaches of introspection and expression. Interweaving philosophy, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, these essays reveal the critical connections between ideas and disciplines too often regarded as separate and distinct.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Four Seasons of Loneliness J. W. Freiberg, 2016-07-28 A prominent lawyer looks back on his career to explore the moving true stories of four individuals whose lives and law cases were deeply affected by their chronic loneliness.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Social Sex Marilyn Yalom, Theresa Donovan Brown, 2015-09-22 “Fascinating . . . The Social Sex is a paean to companionship. Share it with a bosom friend.” —NPR From historian and acclaimed feminist author of How the French Invented Love and A History of the Wife comes this rich, multifaceted history of the evolution of female friendship In today’s culture, the bonds of female friendship are taken as a given. But only a few centuries ago, the idea of female friendship was completely unacknowledged, even pooh-poohed. Only men, the reasoning went, had the emotional and intellectual depth to develop and sustain these meaningful relationships. Surveying history, literature, philosophy, religion, and pop culture, acclaimed author and historian Marilyn Yalom and co-author Theresa Donovan Brown demonstrate how women were able to co-opt the public face of friendship throughout the years. Chronicling shifting attitudes toward friendship—both female and male—from the Bible and the Romans to the Enlightenment to the women’s rights movements of the ‘60s up to Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, they reveal how the concept of female friendship has been inextricably linked to the larger social and cultural movements that have defined human history. Armed with Yalom and Brown as our guides, we delve into the fascinating historical episodes and trends that illuminate the story of friendship between women: the literary salon as the original book club, the emergence of female professions and the working girl, the phenomenon of gossip, the advent of women’s sports, and more. Lively, informative, and richly detailed, The Social Sex is a revelatory cultural history.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: On Aquinas Herbert McCabe, 2008-03-24 Published posthumously, this study is thoroughly rewarding and will increase McCabe's reputation as one of Britain's finest theologians of recent years. The revival of interest in Aquinas has run simultaneously with the rise of interest in Aristotle, on whose philosophy Aquinas based his own. On Aquinas is a masterly work of exposition written with breathtaking clarity. By the use of simple modern analogy Mccabe brings Aquinas's thought to life and underlines the crucial influence of Aquinas on our own contemporary thought. It is rare to find a work of philosophical exposition which is exciting to read. Even those who are unfamiliar with Aquinas will find this book gripping.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Pursuits of Wisdom John Madison Cooper, 2012 This is a major reinterpretation of ancient philosophy that recovers the long Greek and Roman tradition of philosophy as a complete way of life--and not simply an intellectual discipline. Distinguished philosopher John Cooper traces how, for many ancient thinkers, philosophy was not just to be studied or even used to solve particular practical problems. Rather, philosophy--not just ethics but even logic and physical theory--was literally to be lived. Yet there was great disagreement about how to live philosophically: philosophy was not one but many, mutually opposed, ways of life. Examining this tradition from its establishment by Socrates in the fifth century BCE through Plotinus in the third century CE and the eclipse of pagan philosophy by Christianity, Pursuits of Wisdom examines six central philosophies of living--Socratic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and the Platonist life of late antiquity. The book describes the shared assumptions that allowed these thinkers to conceive of their philosophies as ways of life, as well as the distinctive ideas that led them to widely different conclusions about the best human life. Clearing up many common misperceptions and simplifications, Cooper explains in detail the Socratic devotion to philosophical discussion about human nature, human life, and human good; the Aristotelian focus on the true place of humans within the total system of the natural world; the Stoic commitment to dutifully accepting Zeus's plans; the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure through tranquil activities that exercise perception, thought, and feeling; the Skeptical eschewal of all critical reasoning in forming their beliefs; and, finally, the late Platonist emphasis on spiritual concerns and the eternal realm of Being.Pursuits of Wisdom is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding what the great philosophers of antiquity thought was the true purpose of philosophy--and of life.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Schopenhauer and the Aesthetic Standpoint Sophia Vasalou, 2013-07-18 With its pessimistic vision and bleak message of world-denial, it has often been difficult to know how to engage with Schopenhauer's philosophy. Schopenhauer's arguments have seemed flawed and his doctrines marred by inconsistencies; his very pessimism almost too flamboyant to be believable. Yet a way of redrawing this engagement stands open, Sophia Vasalou argues, if we attend more closely to the visionary power of Schopenhauer's work. The aim of this book is to place the aesthetic character of Schopenhauer's standpoint at the heart of the way we read his philosophy and the way we answer the question: why read Schopenhauer - and how? Approaching his philosophy as an enactment of the sublime with a longer history in the ancient philosophical tradition, Vasalou provides a fresh way of assessing Schopenhauer's relevance in critical terms. This book will be valuable for students and scholars with an interest in post-Kantian philosophy and ancient ethics.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Big Friendship Aminatou Sow, Ann Friedman, 2021-07-06 A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls. Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again. An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Nietzsche Ronald Hayman, 1982-01 Reappraises the life and works of the German philosopher, finding continuity in his apparently inconsistent opinions, and characterizing Nietzsche's state of mind during his final illness
  on friendship alexander nehamas: Friendship Reconsidered P. E. Digeser, 2016-09-06 In the history of Western thought, friendship's relationship to politics is checkered. Friendship was seen as key to understanding political life in the ancient world, but it was then ignored for centuries. Today, friendship has again become a desirable framework for political interaction. In Friendship Reconsidered, P. E. Digeser contends that our rich and varied practices of friendship multiply and moderate connections to politics. Along the way, she sets forth a series of ideals that appreciates friendship's many forms and its dynamic relationship to individuality, citizenship, political and legal institutions, and international relations. Digeser argues that, as a set of practices bearing a family resemblance to one another, friendship calls our attention to the importance of norms of friendly action and the mutual recognition of motive. Focusing on these attributes clarifies the place of self-interest and duty in friendship and points to its compatibility with the pursuit of individuality. She shows how friendship can provide islands of stability in a sea of citizen-strangers and, in a delegitimized political environment, a bridge between differences. She also explores how political and legal institutions can both undermine and promote friendship. Digeser then looks to the positive potential of international friendships, in which states mutually strive to protect the just character of one another's institutions and policies. Friendship's repertoire of motives and manifestations complicates its relationship to politics, Digeser concludes, but it can help us realize the limits and possibilities for generating new opportunities for cooperation.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Idea of the University. Karl 1883-1969 Jaspers, 2021-09-10 This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
  on friendship alexander nehamas: The Ever After of Ashwin Rao Padma Viswanathan, 2014-03-25 SHORTLISTED 2014 – Scotiabank Giller Prize From internationally acclaimed New Face of Fiction author Padma Viswanathan, a stunning new work set among families of those who lost loved ones in the 1985 Air India bombing, registering the unexpected reverberations of this tragedy in the lives of its survivors. A book of post-9/11 Canada, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao demonstrates that violent politics are all-too-often homegrown in North America but ignored at our peril. In 2004, almost 20 years after the fatal bombing of an Air India flight from Vancouver, 2 suspects--finally--are on trial for the crime. Ashwin Rao, an Indian psychologist trained in Canada, comes back to do a study of comparative grief, interviewing people who lost loved one in the attack. What he neglects to mention is that he, too, had family members who died on the plane. Then, to his delight and fear, he becomes embroiled in the lives of one family caught in the undertow of the tragedy, and privy to their secrets. This surprising emotional connection sparks him to confront his own losses. The Ever After of Ashwin Rao imagines the lasting emotional and political consequences of a real-life act of terror, confronting what we might learn to live with and what we can live without.
Friendship - Wikipedia
Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. [1] It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, …

Friendship | Definition, Changes During Life, & Gender …
Friendship is a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span.

The Importance of Friendship - Psychology Today
Jul 26, 2021 · Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences. Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with …

What Is Friendship? - HowStuffWorks
Friendship is categorized into four types: acquaintance, friend, close friend and best friend. Over time, an increase in mutual respect and the degree of reciprocity builds up and strengthens …

6 Benefits of Friends: Why It's Important to Stay Close - Verywell …
Sep 27, 2024 · Good friends teach you about yourself and challenge you to be better. They encourage you to keep going when times get tough and celebrate your successes with you. …

FRIENDSHIP Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of FRIENDSHIP is the state of being friends. How to use friendship in a sentence.

What Is The Definition Of A Good Friend? - BetterHelp
Oct 23, 2024 · How would you define a good friend? Friendship can look different for many people, but overall, friendship is often about meaningful connections. In this article, we’ll …

Friendship - American Psychological Association (APA)
Friendship is a voluntary relationship between two or more people that is relatively long-lasting and in which those involved tend to be concerned with meeting the others’ needs and interests …

Friendship - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
May 17, 2005 · Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other’s …

The Power of Friendship: Understanding the Importance of
Oct 14, 2023 · Friendship is a fundamental aspect of human life that enriches our everyday experiences. Having close friends can help us prevent loneliness or isolation and provide us …

Friendship - Wikipedia
Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. [1] It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, …

Friendship | Definition, Changes During Life, & Gender Differences ...
Friendship is a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span.

The Importance of Friendship - Psychology Today
Jul 26, 2021 · Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences. Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with …

What Is Friendship? - HowStuffWorks
Friendship is categorized into four types: acquaintance, friend, close friend and best friend. Over time, an increase in mutual respect and the degree of reciprocity builds up and strengthens …

6 Benefits of Friends: Why It's Important to Stay Close - Verywell …
Sep 27, 2024 · Good friends teach you about yourself and challenge you to be better. They encourage you to keep going when times get tough and celebrate your successes with you. …

FRIENDSHIP Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of FRIENDSHIP is the state of being friends. How to use friendship in a sentence.

What Is The Definition Of A Good Friend? - BetterHelp
Oct 23, 2024 · How would you define a good friend? Friendship can look different for many people, but overall, friendship is often about meaningful connections. In this article, we’ll …

Friendship - American Psychological Association (APA)
Friendship is a voluntary relationship between two or more people that is relatively long-lasting and in which those involved tend to be concerned with meeting the others’ needs and interests …

Friendship - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
May 17, 2005 · Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other’s …

The Power of Friendship: Understanding the Importance of
Oct 14, 2023 · Friendship is a fundamental aspect of human life that enriches our everyday experiences. Having close friends can help us prevent loneliness or isolation and provide us …