This is my relatively short talk given during the 2025 Plato's Academy multidisciplinary conference: The Philosophy of Love And Relationships. I was invited to approach the topic of the difficulties involved in the highest, fullest, and most paradigmatic form of friendship that Aristotle
In the course of my presentation, I discuss the importance and influence of the distinction between three different kinds of friendship based on utility, pleasure, and the good or noble. I note that this distinction does not capture every sort of relationship or friendship Aristotle discusses. Then we briefly look at each of these three sorts of friendship, and discuss some of the difficulties involved in developing and sustaining the highest form of friendship.
We then discuss the question of how virtuous Aristotle would require us to be in order to be a partner in the highest type of friendship, the answer to which is that we don't need to have all of the virtues, and we could be on our way to developing them. After that, we turn briefly to three later thinkers who engage with Aristotle's ideas and take them a bit further on the matter of friendship, looking for useful resources for understanding how we can best approach this matter of a true or genuine friendship
The thinkers and works I reference and discuss in this presentation include:
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics
Cicero, On Friendship
Seneca, Letters 3, 9, 109
Plutarch, On Having Many Friends, How To Tell A Flatterer From A Friend
