On Friendship

Name: DaiWei Xiao

Class: GTX2301.01

Date: April. 30th

On friendship

Augustine, Aristotle, and Cicero write about friendship in their books. From the perspective of Augustine’s confessions and connecting them with the ideal of Aristotle and Cicero, I conclude four main points of friendship. Firstly, the true friendship is based on two virtuous people who seek goodness for each other. Secondly, loyalty is an essential condition to true friendship. Thirdly, meet friendship with friendship is a vital condition. Lastly, friendship may need equality.

Firstly, true friendship is based on goodness. For me, Augustine and his very dear friend were true friends although Augustine states that, ‘Neither in those earlier days nor indeed in the later time of which I now speak was he a friend in the truest meaning of friendship.’ (Conf.4.4.7, 96) To me, he did not think it was truest friendship between them because he thought about the friendship from a religious perspective. From the theory of Aristotle, I think there was true friendship between them. Aristotle said there are three kinds of friendship, utility, pleasure, and goodness. He thinks that when friendship is based on utility and pleasure, it will not last for a long time because the partners do not remain unchanged. When they change, the partner is no longer pleasant or useful to the other so that these two kinds of friendship are not true friendship. Augustine describes that his dear friend is friend of pleasure when they are young, ‘to the very flowering-time of young manhood. He had indeed grown up with me as a child and we had gone to school together and played together.’ (Conf.4.4.7.96) However, it is understandable that two flowering-time young men did not have any idea what true friendship is at that time. After they grew up, I believe that their friendship turned to ‘goodness’. Augustine described the friendship that ‘Yet it had become a friendship very dear to us, made the warmer by the ardour of studies...