At age 17, Aristotle enrolled in the Platonic Academy.
He would stay there for 20 years.
Founded by the father of Western philosophy, the Greek philosopher Plato, Aristotle was
the most promising student around.
He asked many questions and answered even more.
The exact time of his departure from The Academy is disputed, but it’s said that he left
soon after Plato died due to his dislike of the direction that it subsequently took.
In the years following, he would even go on to argue against many of his late teacher’s
core ideas.
It’s impossible to say how much Aristotle wrote, but even from the fraction of his work
that we have left today, there is a stunning amount of breadth in the subjects he covered.
Every field from astronomy and physics to ethics and economics has been influenced by
the work of Aristotle.
For more than 2,000 years after his death, he has remained one of the most widely read
and quoted thinkers in the history of our species.
While his impact can still be felt in the many different subjects today, maybe the most
accurate of his observations relate to friendship.
He saw it as one of the true joys of life, and he felt that a life well-lived needed
to be built around such companionship.
In his own words: “In poverty as well as in other misfortunes,
people suppose that friends are their only refuge.
And friendship is a help to the young, in saving them from error, just as it is also
to the old, with a view to the care they require and their diminished capacity for action stemming
from their weakness; it is a help also to those in their prime in performing noble actions,
for ‘two going together’ are better able to think and to act.”
The Accidental Friendships Aristotle outlined two kinds of common friendships
that are more accidental than intentional.
The first is a friendship of utility.
In this kind of relationship, the two parties are not in it for the affection of one another,
but more so because each party receives a benefit in exchange.
It’s not permanent in nature, and whenever the benefit ends, so does the relationship
that brought the parties together.
Aristotle observed this to be more common in older folks.
An example of this would be a business or a work relationship.
You may enjoy the time you spend together, but once the situation changes, so does the
nature of your connection.
Similarly, the second kind of accidental friendship is one based on pleasure.
This one, however, is more common in people that are younger.
It’s the kind of relationship frequently seen among college friends or people who participate
on the same sports team.
The source of such a friendship is more emotional, and it’s often the most short-lived of the
relationships.
It’s fine for as long as the two parties gain enjoyment through a mutual interest in
something external, but it ends as soon as either tastes or preferences change.
Many young people go through different phases in their views on enjoyment, and quite often,
the people in their lives tend to change as the phase they’re in recalibrates over time.
Most of the friendships that many of us have fall into these two categories, and while
Aristotle didn’t necessarily see them as bad, he did feel that their depth limited
their quality.
It’s fine, and even necessary, to have accidental friendships, but there is far more out there.
The Friendship of the Good The final form of friendship that Aristotle
outlined is also the most preferable out of the three.
Rather than utility or pleasure, this kind of relationship is based on a mutual appreciation
of the virtues that the other party holds dear.
It’s the people themselves and the qualities that they represent that provides the incentive
for the two parties to be in each other’s lives.
Rather than being short-lived, such a relationship often lasts until the end, and there is quite
generally a base level of goodness required in each person for it to exist in the first
place.
People that lack empathy or care for others seldom develop these kinds of relationships
because, more often than not, their preference is to look for pleasure or utility.
On top of that, friendships of virtue take time and trust to build.
They depend on mutual growth occurring.
You’re a lot more likely to connect at this level with someone when you’ve seen them
at their worst and watched them grow from that or if you’ve both endured mutual hardship
together.
Beyond the depth and intimacy, the beauty of such relationships is that they automatically
include the rewards of the other two kinds of friendship.
They’re pleasurable and beneficial.
When you respect a person and care for them, you gain joy from being with them.
If they’re a good enough person to warrant such a relationship to begin with, then there
is utility, too.
These relationships require time and intention, but when they do blossom, they do so with
trust, admiration, and awe.
They bring with them some of the sweeter joys that life has to offer.
All You Need to Know If you’re someone who has been read for
over 2,000 years, there is usually a good reason.
Not everything Aristotle wrote is considered relevant today, and many of his assumptions
have since been argued against, but given the originality of his ideas for the time
that he lived in, it’s hard not to be impressed by his mind.
Few names in history are as influential.
He taught us to examine the world empirically, and he inspired generations of thinkers and
philosophers to consider the role and value of ethics in the everyday conduct of our lives.
For the average person, however, the most relevant of his ideas relate to the importance
of good relationships.
He was particularly curious about the intention of friendship.
While he saw the value in accidental friendships based on pleasure and utility, he felt that
their impermanence diminished their potential.
They lacked depth and a solid foundation.
Instead, he argued for the cultivation of virtuous friendships built with intention
and based on a mutual appreciation of character and goodness rather than on some transactional
value.
He knew that such a friendship could only be strengthened over time and that if it did
thrive, it would last for life.
To Aristotle, few things came close to the value of such a relationship.
It makes sense.
At the end of the day, the bonds we forge with those close to us directly shape the
quality of our lives.
We are, and we live through, the people we spend time with.
For most things, life is long enough.
It is, however, too short for the wrong kinds of friendship.