GRICE E VERONELLI

 This article examines Aristotle’s use of the term philia. As a basis for the analysis, the author employs the communicative component of this notion. This allows us to consider friendship as a process, distinguishing it from everything else that cannot be identified as such. This “residue” is something that comes from nature (original), common to all living creatures, and is at the root of all types of positive communication. The goal of this article is to show that the content identified as such can be understood as a separate concept.  Keywords:  philiakoinoniahomiliafriendshipfriendlinessfriendabilitycommunicationpositive communication Notes 1. In his Index Aristotelicus, Hermann Bonitz also identifies only two meanings for this term in Aristotle’s ethical works: comitas, which corresponds to “friendliness” (a virtue), and amicitia, which corresponds to “friendship.” See the entry on “φιλία” in Index Aristotelicus, ed. H. Bontiz (Berlin, 1870).  2. All terminology and citations from the Ancient Greek are in conformity with the following publications: Aristotelis [Aristotle]. Ethica Nicomachea, ed. I. Bywater (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962) (henceforth EN, with indications for chapter, paragraph, and pagination); Aristotel’, Evdemovo etika, trans. T.V. Vasil’eva, T.A. Miller, and M.A. Solopova (Moscow: Kanon+, 2011) (henceforth EE, with indications for chapter, paragraph, and pagination); and Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1959) (henceforth Pol., with indications for chapter, paragraph, and pagination).  3. EN II.7, 1108a25–30.  4. In some English editions, φιλία is sometimes translated as excellence.—Ed.  5. All terminology and citations from the English are in conformity with Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, vol. 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), and unless otherwise noted, Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1959).  6. EN VIII.3, 1156a5–10.  7. David Ross, Harris Rackham, and Roger Crisp equally adhere to these two terms when translating φιλία, as well as Franz Dirlmeier and Olof Gigon in German.  8. EN VII.2, 1155b15–20.  9. For example, Lorraine Smith Pangle replaces “friendship” for “love” when it sounds better: “Parents love children … this love of one’s own is so deep.” See L.S. Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 87. However, we see the same mismatched approach in the translations.  10. R. Nickel, “Erläuterungen,” in Aristoteles, Die Nikomachische Ethik, ed. Rainer Nickel and trans. Olof Gigon (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), p. 512. See also the description of φιλία in N.V. Braginskaia, “Primechaniia,” in Aristotel’, Soch. v 4 t-kh, vol. 4 (Moscow: Mysl’, 1984), pp. 736–37; L. Brown, “Explanatory Notes” in Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross (Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 252.  11. EN VIII.1 1155a15–20 in Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham, in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, vol. 19 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1934).  12. In the first Russian translation, Eduard Radlov followed the English and German in using the term “friendship”: see Aristotel’ [Aristotle]. Etika Aristotelia, trans. E. Radlov (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1908).  13. EN VIII.1, 1155a5.  14. The English term “friendability” is used (and immediately noted in the list of key words) as a possible rendering of the Russian term “druzhestvennost_’ ”since English translations have not yet adopted a word that could consolidate the substantive meaning that this article refers to. Most of all, the second part of this word seems felicitous, since it indicates a capacity or something that makes friendship possible.  15. Also including one point where Harris Rackham uses “affection.”  16. EE VII.9, 1241b10–15.  17. EN I.2, 1094b5.  18. Pol. I.1, 1253a15–20.  19. Pol. I.1, 1252a25–30, 1253a30.  20. More precisely: positive communication.  21. EN II.7, 1108a25–30.  22. EN IV.6, 1126b10–25.  23. EN IV.6, 1126b10–30.  24. According to Maria Silvia Vaccarezza, friendliness (which she terms “amiability”) and “homonoia are two possible (even if not the only) expressions of the same disposition, namely politike philia.” See M.S. Vaccarezza, “Aristotle’s account of philia/amiability,” Philosophy Study, vol. 2, no. 3 (2012), p. 198.  25. EN IV.6, 1126b25–30.  26. EN IV.6, 1127a1–5.  27. See J. Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 249.  28. EN VIII.3, 1156a10.  29. EN VIII.2, 1156a1–5.  30. “All friendship for the sake of good or of pleasure” (EN VIII.3, 1156b20).  31. EN VIII.2, 1155b30–35.  32. EE VII.2, 1237a5.  33. EE VII.2, 1235b15–20.  34. EN VIII.2, 1155b25.  35. EE VII.2, 1236b20–25.  36. EE VII.2, 1236а15–25.  37. EN VIII.4, 1157а30. Marco Zingano shows that the definition “by similarity” preserves a hierarchy in kinds of friendship. See M. Zingano, “The Conceptual Unity of Friendship in the Eudemian and the Nicomachean Ethics,” Apeiron, 2015, no. 48(2), pp. 195–219. This is important because the defined semantic core is preserved.  38. See the description of the first and second kinds: EN VIII.3, 1156a5–1156b5.  39. EN VIII.4, 1157а15–20.  40. EE VII.2, 1236b5–10.  41. EE VII.10, 1242b30–1243a.  42. EN VIII.11, 1161b1–5.  43. EN IX.1, 1164а.  44. EN IX.4, 1166а10.  45. “Aristotle highlights the importance of pleasure and utility in all friendships, including the very highest. See L.S. Pangle, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 52.  46. EE VII.6, 1240b15–20.  47. EN VIII.1, 1156b5–10.  48. As David Kostan says of this, “unequivocally and emphatically altruistic.” See D. Konstan, “Aristotle on Love and Friendship,” ΣΧΟΛΗ, 2008, vol. II, no. 2, p. 209.  49. Further consideration of this issue is beyond the scope of this article. It is merely important to show that, in our analysis, φιλαυτία does not procedurally extend beyond ethical friendship: you cannot love yourself (or be your own friend) alone. Conversely, in that sense, you are your own friend when you truly befriend others.  50. EN IX.9, 1169b5–10; “ἄλλος αὐτός” (EE VII.12, 1245a30).  51. “A man cannot think only of himself, because he possesses the good usually through another. In other words, the pure I is displayed in the individual through the contemplative activity of the human mind, while the empirical I, which is dependent, above all, on the other and on perceiving itself through the other, comes to know itself … in another empirical I.” See M.A. Garntsev, Problema samosoznaniia v zapadnoevropeiskoi filosofii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo MGU, 1987), p. 34.  52. EN IX.9 1169b5–10.  53. Which also encompasses all the sensory phenomena: “Aristotle is highlighting a consequence of his theory of pleasure, namely that pleasure is necessarily co-extensive with intellectual or perceptual activity of the highest form.” See C. Shields, “Perfecting Pleasures: The Metaphysics of Pleasure in Nicomachean Ethics,” in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. A Critical Guide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 209.  54. For example, a friend as such is “the greatest of external goods” (EN IX.9 1169b10).  55. David Konstan reaches a somewhat similar conclusion, saying that “philia has two uses,” one “refers to an altruistic wish,” and the other to a “corresponding wish,” that is, it requires reciprocity. See Konstan, p. 212.  56. Aspiring to its ultimate form.  57. EN II.1, 1103a25. In her examination of the nature of the virtues, Paula Gottleib’s conclusion, “If people had naturally bad tendencies that had to be overcome, the ethical virtues would be contrary to nature,” could be an additional argument in favor of the assumption of some positive, innate property. P. Gottlieb, The Virtue of Aristotle’s Ethics (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 57.  58. As Julia Annas has noted, it is this feature that does not enter into Aristotelian analysis of friendship, yet “this idea of extended self-concern suggests the later Stoic theory of oikeiōsis.” J. Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 255.  59. EN VIII.1, 1155a15–20.  60. EN VIII.1, 1155a15–1155b10.  61. EN II.5, 1105b20–25.  62. See: EN VIII.5, 1157b25–30.—Ed.  63. See: R.G. Apressyan, “Slova liubvi: eros, philia, agape,” Filosofiia i kul’tura, 2012, no. 8(56), pp. 27–40.  64. Braginskaia, p. 703.  65. Aristotle does not use φιλία at this point in the original text since he is giving examples of what he called φιλία above.  66. EE VII.2, 1236b10.  67. “Passions, faculties, states” (πάθη δυνάμει ἕξεις) (EN II.5, 1105b20). Matching φιλία with a capability is unnecessary, since there is no direct or indirect alignment as there is with passion or virtue.  68. EN VIII.3, 1156b30.  69. EE VII.7, 1241a5.  70. EN IX.5, 1166b30.  71. EN VIII.6, 1158а5–10.  72. EN IX.5, 1167а10.  73. EE VII.10, 1242а.  74. Pol. I.2, 1253b.  75. When “the association of a father with his sons bears the form of monarchy … of man and wife seems to be aristocratic … of brothers is like timocracy… . Democracy is found chiefly in masterless dwellings (EN VIII.10, 1160b20–1161a5).  76. For example, Aristotle views the relationships of “those with whom one has studied philosophy” (that is, teachers and students) as the kind of relationships “with the gods and with one’s parents” (EN IX.1, 1164b1–5).  77. EN VIII.10, 1155a20.  78. Pangle, p. 143.  79. Aristoteles, Nikomachische Ethik, ed. F. Dirlmeier, in Aristoteles: Werke in deutsche Übersetzung, vol. 6 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH., 1999), p. 510.  80. On this question, Julia Annas very precisely locates the “sociological reasons” that limit the activity of φιλία: Aristotle believes man is, to a significant extent, “the product of moral education in particular contexts–the family, the peer-group, the city.” Annas, p. 251. This is especially important in our case, when using the concept of communication.  81. EN I.7, 1097b10 (in the Rackham translation).  82. Σωφρονιστήριον is the prison in Plato’s “Laws,” designed to enlighten the ignorant. See fragment 908a–909b in Plato, “Laws,” in Platonis Opera, ed. J. Burnet, vol. 5(II) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903).  83. EN VI.13, 1144b1–15.