Aristotle on Friendship ft. Producer Jake

Welcome back to the New Thinkery. My name is David Barr. With me as always is Alex Perdue. How are you Alex?

I'm doing well and with me as always is Greg McBrayer. I don't know how you guys are so contained and cool and like just like, hey, how's it going? I'm David Barr and I'm out there. There's our hundreds episode folks.

This is very exciting. I'm very excited. This is a very special episode of the New Thinkery, not just as always David Barr and actually we also have another friend with us this evening, a very special friend, calling in from in the closet. Now be careful guys when Greg McBrayer historically calls people special friend.

It usually has to do with some kind of outlaw midnight activity with a but in this episode we have Jake, the Canon Gannon, our producer, longtime producer. He produces the show for free. He's very kind. How are you Jake?

Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I mean, usually you guys give me a chain up to a desk editing. So I'm glad that I was able to be put into a closet to record today.

Yeah. Yeah. We are acoustics will sound much better. Greg sometimes takes a lot of editing.

I mean, you guys probably noticed David's pretty silent. That's what he got out of his own. He got comments. And then Greg will sometimes record from this from this outhouse.

He had he tricked all of these well-meaning Christians in his community to build him. It's right an exterior shed from which he can record. But his wireless, he just won't pay for the goose. He goes jerks.

They didn't they just didn't do a good job on the Wi-Fi. That's all I mean, I got to get him back out there. That's right. They did a great job on the framing and the insulation.

But no, 100 episodes, did you guys think we would let Lianna Siserys watch? Did you guys think we would make it to 100? No, really? No.

I didn't think I lived that long. He's been living for thousands of years. Fair enough. I guess when the show started, I didn't have any preconceived notions about how far we would get.

I just figured we'd continue on after the first episode. I knew we would continue. Well, I felt obligated to keep with it. Just the way there's anything later than having a podcast is having a field podcast.

I feel like that's pretty awful. But we've seen incremental growth. It's sort of kept going up and up and I've threatened to commit suicide if you guys quit. So we have you guys have to keep going with us.

Sure. Podcasts. Yeah. Let me ask you a question.

What have you noticed? Have you noticed anything since episode one versus episode 100? Have we improved? Have we degenerated?

I mean, most of my interaction with you guys is on the editing side. So the biggest improvement for you guys has been your mics are now better than they used to be. All right. Good.

Good. Good. I mean, like the actual quality of what's been said has been pretty much constant because you guys started strong. So I'll give you all thanks.

Who's your favorite guests? Jake. Favorite guests? That's a tough one.

My preferences would be almost entirely based on having edited them. So Oh, he was either. I see always famous for him. Who's the easiest at it?

Who's the easiest at it? It's like Hayward must be easy, right? Yeah. Actually, I'd say Hayward was probably the easiest one that I say.

Hey, kid. It's already your first. Even Hayward, easy to add it. Easy as guest.

Yeah. No. Now, one thing I'm interested in because we should know people will know it will say on the episode, but we're doing an episode on friendship, which is interesting. It was the first time David introduced the episode without calling me or Greg is a good friend.

It's a true story. Yeah. Which is a little bit telling. I said good friend Alex.

No, but Jake, you can insert here the audio of how David started the show. And we'll just sort of we'll just all right. All right. All right.

Let's do it. Okay. So you guys heard it, right? You guys heard it.

David did not say good friend. Anyways, I thought it would be interesting to ask Jake whether he thought our friendship has deteriorated by chaining it to this weekly obligation and all the trappings and dealings. Do you think we're friends? It's still I think you guys have had a tumultuous friendship on the start.

So I think a hundred episodes of recording with each other has probably helped more than it hurt. I just want to apologize for having to edit out all of my Christian Bale like tirades on a weekly basis. I'm very sorry for yelling at David and Alex about their professionalism, lack thereof and the guests and all that. It's just it's just hard.

I was walking around eating. Like in the back. Yeah, that's right. It's just just.

It's just. It's going to be bad. I forgot. It's not easy.

So we're talking about friendship. Can I quick? I think this is help. I mean, I feel like right before the show started, we were being a little more intentional about texting each other on a regular basis.

But I mean, I look forward to talking to you guys weekend week out, leading up to it, doing it, leading out afterwards. I mean, I realize it's been a source of a little more friction, but that's just that we've had more contact. But we've done other dozens of times a day. Yeah.

Yeah. Usually picks, but you know, sometimes some sex too. Yeah. So it's really that hasn't changed.

You're right. Greg is just trying to bond. Yeah. So why are we doing friendship?

I think it's obvious. We're friends and the great text on friendship is the April 8th and nine of their songs. Right. Yeah.

The best book on friendship. I would say. So why don't you take us into it, Greg? Why is it the best book on friendship?

And then also, there's one of the difficult things here's a big, Greek word for friendship. Felija is not easy to translate because you use it in context where you wouldn't use the word front. So it's a bit wider in range, maybe. Yeah.

I mean, I would be inclined to say love instead, but I think in English, we would sort of associate that so much more with romantic love. But I think, you know, when you have conversations with people in everyday language in English and America, they realize that this word love is sort of quite varied in its meanings. People, I love you man versus I love my wife versus I love, you know, Frito-Lays, potato chips, a sponsor of a show, not a sponsor of a social work, but that sort of stuff. Right.

So like love, whereas friendship, I think in English has a sort of almost singular meaning, is that fair? Love has this sort of multifaceted meaning, which I think is closer with ourselves up to the Greek word Felija is what he's trying to understand. It sort of encompasses a broad range of types of human relationships that are loosely speaking affectionately, friendly, loving, something like that. So Felija for Aristotle encompasses philosophic friendship and encompasses the friendship that animals have toward their offspring that you would have with the guy you play pool with, that the four of us have, right?

So it encompasses a wide range of types of things. And so our English word friendship doesn't quite get to the complexity of the term, but I still think it's probably the best term nevertheless. And why this text? Well, I think that we've done several episodes now in Aristotle's Ethics, which we all agree is one of the best texts ever in the history of global philosophy, and it's probably the best text to devote to the question of friendship, which is the happiness.

And two of the books on this book about human happiness are devoted to friendship. And so that's the reason. It's sort of, there are other treatments. There are other famous essays on friendship and there are other portrayals of friendship, but this seems to be the most sustained treatment of it as a theme, as a question, as a topic.

Is that seeing right? Yeah, philosophic analysis. I mean, Plato has a short dialogue on friendship, but it's very peculiar. One thing I'll add to the term, Philea, and just feel lost to the adjective, Philea being the abstract noun, friendship.

I like to also think of it as deerness or whatever is dear. So you could say, it gets a little more difficult when you talk about those who love wine or something like that, or love would be better. But your dog might be dirty, your child would be dear to you. Your cow in Georgia.

Your cow in Georgia. One more more more. Pork steak, but fine. Georgia?

Yeah. It's not for eating. The cow. Oh, Greg, come on.

I'll get your mind out of there. But yeah, I think anything that's dear for you might be also out of the way to think of the term. But those are interesting examples because so can one, I think in every day English we speak about having affection, like I love the sopranos, or I love bacon. But Aristotle talks about the love relationship, so friendship is having to have some mutuality, right?

Having to have some reciprocity. And with inanimate objects, that's not possible. And with animate objects, it's some questions. So can you love your dog?

Okay, fine. But can you have love with your dog? Can you have friendship with your dog? That seems to be a more problematic question from aerosol 20.

Right? I mean, it requires especially the higher form, because we expect a friendship to be somewhat selfless and only the highest form of friendship seems at least on its face to have a selfless aspect to it. And it's hard to think of a relationship between owner and dog as being based on something like moral virtue, right? But it's clear though that people have a deep abiding affection for their pets.

What's less clear than you, what's a little heartbreaking is that it's not clear that the pets reciprocate that. I had a girlfriend once who I told her, she was like, you should take dogs, man. Oh, sorry. What's inside there?

She was a dog in a different sense. We got into a big fight once because I planned your dog doesn't really love you. I'm like, you don't really love your dog either. And she goes, no, no, no, she's adamant.

And I just walked her through how the character of the friendship is necessarily limited to scope by virtue of the dog's limited faculties. And she eventually had to concede it. You see why I didn't work out. I'm not, it's not that easy.

Prove that word, girls. Can I start with a line from chapter one that I think is really memorable? Is this book eight, chapter one? Okay, chapter one.

Sure. And then yeah, go ahead. I have something I want to comment on that very first line too. So you go first.

So yeah, it's not the very first line, but it's a memorable line that I think is often quoted. Aristotle says, without friends, no one would choose to live. The really profound statement about, it seems like it's a part of the statement about the goodness of friendship. But it seems to be also a maybe more subtly a statement about how much we, how much stock we put in friendship, how much we expect to friendship, and our expectations and what we're hoping to get out of friendship.

That this is somehow a core part of individual happiness, right? Part of your happiness is involved in these close relationships to whatever is dear to you, to whoever, whomever is dear to you, your family, your friends, and the wider sense. And one way I like to read these books is thinking about how important this is for a conception of happiness. And then thinking through the question as Aristotle, I think is doing in these chapters of whether friendship ultimately is this sort of selfless moral giving of yourself to another or if there is happiness to be had with friendship, what does it look like?

Right? What is the aspect in which it can actually be good? A quick simple question. What translation of the ethics are we all using tonight?

Oh, is the chance to plug your teachers? That's right. Of Arlen Sukkot, Collins University of Chicago Press very good. But the second point, the steps in the point is related to actually what I'd hope to begin with tonight.

So you mentioned this very famous line that no one would choose to live without friends, even if you possess all the other goods, air, cell sense. What's interesting to me is that friendship, as we mentioned as I mentioned at the start, the Nick and McKee and ethics is a book about how to live a happy life. And here in book eight, you get the impression right off the bat that friends are necessary to live a happy life. No one would choose to live without friends.

But if you go back to book one, the way that Aristotle originally frames this problem of happiness, this question of happiness, he sets it out as though it were something self-sufficient. It's sort of, he's looking for the one thing that you would need to make you happy. And so the impression in book one is, what is that one thing that I can grab that will alone and sufficiently account for all of my happiness? And he says, this is in book one, chapter seven, as for the self-sufficient deposit as that which by itself makes life choice worthy and in need of nothing and such is what we suppose happiness to be.

So Aristotle in book one presents happiness as though it's this self-sufficient, it's this thing that it's all you need is this thing. And it's entirely, he gives you the impression in book one that it's just up to you, like it's entirely internal and you don't need anything and it's this thing that can ensure that you will always be happy. Just above where I read by the way, he actually mentioned the connection here that you might need other people and he says, this must be examined further later on. This is in book one, chapter seven.

This is always puzzled me the very beginning of book eight. He says, it would follow the interest to talk about friendship now. And I just remember moving from book seven to book eight being like, there's no, I don't see any necessity for that transition from book seven to book eight. He's done talking about the intellectual virtues and he's like, oh, well, now we got to talk about friendship.

And as I was preparing for tonight, I thought, what is it that sort of makes it that this is the thing we turn to now? And I don't have a good answer except that if you go all the way back to book one, it now seems that for the next seven books, Aristotle is treating happiness as though it's possible on your own. And here in the beginning of book eight, he seems to concede, actually, no, sorry, you need other people. And no one would choose to live without other people that are dear to them, they're friends, they're loved.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, there's the first time friendship comes up in the ethics is when he criticizes Plato. And there, he says, look, Plato's my friend, but the truth is my real friend. And there's a tension between his love of wisdom and his love of his friends, Plato and the playness.

Now, one of the interesting things there is that our first model of friendship involves a kind of split commitment, right? But also a kind of friendly engagement with one's friends who you need worthy of talking to, right, or talking, engaging their ideas. And the peak of book eight, or I'm sorry, book nine of the discussion of friendship is this description of dialogue with one another's conversation with others and sort of philosophic friendship. And there's this the culmination is also this notion that the difficulty is that even if you are being excellent in the fullest sense, you can't really witness your own virtue.

And it's easier to see excellence. I think this would include thinking, right, or sort of conversing and working through an argument reasoning, you can see better when somebody else's reasoning before you were able to perceive it. And in fact, that's why it's so easy to be critical of somebody else, right? Because they're speaking, they're not reflecting on what they're saying as they're saying it, they're trying to say the thing.

And so there's a kind of give and take there. That might be one reason why he thinks it's necessary to bring up friendship, that the intellectual virtues have a kind of built in deficiency or difficulty that makes friendship if it attains to this level, makes friendship a kind of positive addition or positive good, even for the highest form of virtue. But it's a positive good. The assumption is that the the mirror that our friends are holding up is pure and clear.

So we might be confused if we think that we're modeling peak virtues, but then our friend is as degenerate as we, and we don't get a clear picture. Does that make sense? I mean, one of the things that's dispirited, I remember when I first read the ethics, or rather this section on friendship and reflected on it, it's dispiriting because you go through your catalog of friends, and you really wonder, first of all, you start categorizing people in the types of this friendship with utility, et cetera. And then you really start to wonder if you have a peak philosophic friendship with anybody on Earth.

I think you should go through those types for us real quick, David. Can you do that? I came up on my head. There's friendship with you, and then pleasure in the good.

Right. Right. So I mean, I'll write it off. And then your point is very good, because I had the same experience for I started trying to go through my friends and sort of categorize them.

So Aristotle has all his natural slaves. Naturally. But there's, so the one on the one hand, he has this, this tribal distinction, but then there are also other kinds of friendship. We're talking about friendship between husband and wife, between parents and children, between animals, but the three main types of these types of three kinds of friendship are friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure, and then this highest friendship, friendship of the good.

And the first two, it's sort of easy to, I think it's easy to define simply enough, right? Like, you know, your friends speak with it with this person, because it's useful to you in some way. So I'm friends of my boss. I'm sorry.

Carpool. Yeah, sure. I'm friends of you because we can cut my commute down. I don't, you know, cut my gas bill down by a quarter or a third of all carpool together, right?

Especially since tax, you know, gas. So it's not so now pleasure. Like somebody who's just fun to be around. They shoot pool well, or they get sense of humor, or they tell fart jokes in a funny way, or they make disgusting displays of sexual and you end up while you're trying to record a podcast.

Shake. Shake. So, and those are the two most common types of, by the way, friendship simply is rare for air stall. That's something important to talk about.

The young make friends easily, the old don't make friends so well. But then most friendships are friendships of utility and pleasure. So we have to be rare, Greg, I apologize. No, go ahead.

No, the peak, the highest form of friendship would have necessity be rare, given that so many. So what is it first? Can you attain the virtues that air stall? You'd have to have two virtuous people interacting and you know how rare that is.

So yeah, so the good type, the highest type of friendship, and the others are all sort of weird images of friendship, is friendship between the virtuous. And so yeah, since as far as virtuous, people are themselves rare, they're coming together of a couple of virtuous people would also be seen rare. But the other two types strike me as fairly common, right? That sort of loosely speaking someone who's dear to you because they're useful, or someone who's dear to you because they're just sort of a fun time to be around.

What's interesting to me is that I think when I first teach this, students always think that useful friendships are sort of two way things. I'm useful, you're useful to me. But in fact, what he ourselves says is that most friendships are weird or sort of mixed. Like I hang out with David because he's funny and it's pleasant for me to hang out with him.

He hangs out with me because it's useful to him for his career. So there are these people aren't necessarily friends even for the same reason, which is also why this third type of good is the highest type because you're both there for the same reason. Yeah, good. To add to that, I was always confused that it seems that during the life of a friendship, even a snapshot of interaction between two friends during the day, if you were to record or observe the way that I interact with Alex throughout the day, there are hours where we probably exhibit some of the lowest forms of friendship.

And so far as it's an active battle to degrade the other person and to make them to really harm their souls. But then at other times of the day, we're talking about philosophy and it's great to, it can shift over time even throughout the day. Why does an Aristotle talk about, why does he put it in these categories as if they're static? I'm not sure that he does put them in categories as other static.

I don't know what room he makes for the kind of thing you're talking about, although I willingly granted it exists and I also think Aristotle is fully aware of it. In other words, let me try very clear what you're talking about. So on the one hand, you talk with Alex about philosophy, a lot of Hume, obviously, in Kant. And then on the other hand, you talk about, I don't even know what some of the words you guys use for some of these things are, but really just to crave sorts of things.

But that's mostly in good fun, just humor, sex, drugs, rock and roll, kind of stuff. So it's not very serious. And so your friendship is this mixture behind the low. I just expect it's not part of the exalted account of friendship that he's trying to give here.

Because I assume, lay one card on the table here, Aristotle at the very beginning of the ethics makes what is clear to me as a penis joke. And so I'm pretty confident in saying that Aristotle would have been fully aware that philosophical friendship might sometimes sort of go to the lows. Is that his description of giraffes with along next? It's the long next example.

I don't remember giraffes. My mind was right there too. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's the long next example. That's exactly right. And so he used to use the next comment.

Yeah, you got it. You'll get there. See next or life. I'm following the joke.

Yeah. The next, see the next, an example or so guess he says the gourmand wishes he had a longer next that he can enjoy for a longer period, the pleasure of eating. But I don't think he's talking about eating. What do you do with your neck?

I hug my friends, actually, getting weird little neck hug. I don't know either. So I mean, I don't know except to say that this book seems to me, I would say step back and say, who is this book aimed at? And I think it's aimed at the morally serious person, the kind of person who might not actually find pleasure in the kinds of things that you and Alex find, not me, but that you and Alex might find pleasure.

I mean, you're finding pleasure in this neck penis that I've still don't get it. You claim you don't get it, but I mean, you move somehow from Nick to penis. I don't know. Well, one, I think one of the beginning of your mikers, one of the reasons he gives the stark distinction into three times is because he readily admits that friendship of utility and pleasure is basically selfish.

And in chapter two, he's already introducing. So that's in chapter three that he gives that distinction of three times. And therefore also will end very easily, because it's selfish. And when the pleasure or when you tell the answer is the friendship, I don't think I'll lie.

Or David gets his license back because he's served this time. But in chapter two, he makes it clear that one of his main issues is whether friendship in the good or whether the good as it is supposed to manifest in friendship is the good in some sort of abstract sense and maybe a kind of abstract moral sense, or if it's good for oneself. And it's difficult because obviously there's an element of sacrifice if we're talking about dying in battle, right, or abstaining from something. And there might be selfish motives for honor or whatever, but there's obviously, but in friendship and devotion to another, it seems like there's always going to be a kind of pleasure and some kind of usefulness there.

And he admits that in the highest form of friendship, which he calls complete friendship, it contains all the lower goods. It is supposed to be useful. It is supposed to be pleasant. And so the idea of self sacrifice and giving of oneself to another, which would seem to make it a kind of peak of moral virtue seems a little difficult in the case of friendship.

And he struggles with this all the way through the end of book nine, when he returns to the issue of, wait, if you're happy, why do you even need friends, right? Or when you love another person, how does that go? What does that have to do with self love, right? There's a difficulty of teasing out the sort of moral aspect of friendship, which we want to be there.

And you think that it's part of it to give yourself to another part of the reason you like friends. He says is because if you're in a hard spot, they'll be there to protect you and help you, right? And so you expect them to sacrifice for you. Yet at bottom, friendship seems to be something that's also intrinsically of individual, personal value, right?

Or is there some good for you in it? Otherwise, it doesn't really make as much sense, right? But in the highest case, doesn't he say, I could find the line here, but I guess it's on page 194. The friend is another self.

And so there's this weird way in which the self and other, the other, this is in book nine, chapter four, or friend is another self. And so the way in a way, this sort of seems to collapse the distinction between yourself and the other. Yeah, you have to, and this is when he gets to the highest form of friendship where you're seeing, because you cannot witness your own virtue, you want to see a very sort of like when we did Zulu, remember, and at the end, the the warriors were going, the warriors appear after this hard medified, and they think that they're going to get attacked. But instead, they salute them as fellow Braves, right?

They admired the courage of the British, even though they don't speak the language, even though there's this big cultural block, they admire each other's virtue, they see a bit of themselves now their walk, right? Because whatever principle was guiding the British was not a sort of, it was a kind of strangely kind of modern self-interested, right? They had to or else they'll all die, right? So they all had to be different from the sort of open sacrifice of the natives.

And so I think one of the difficulties that comes out of aerosols on the one hand, I can't see my virtue, and therefore I want to see it in someone just like me, another self, right? And so I admire the person who possesses my virtues, and I look at them, perform their virtues, and I just say, wow, on the other hand, how do I know that person is like, how do I know they're my other self? If I, if precisely the reason I'm interested in them is because I can't witness my own virtue, right? And this is one of the difficulties, if you have good friends, friends whom you admire, and who you share a kind of kinship or a similar activity, right?

You enjoy reading books. It's very easy to look at some of the information, guys. Well, yeah, well, that guy smart, like, wisey friends with me, or like, you know, I'm like, you can ask that question all the time. I know you do.

I ask that question about you also. Yeah. I ask why does it, why doesn't he ask that question more often? Right, right.

Yeah, I follow, I follow. But you know, the, the, wait a minute, but you know, there's this difficulty, and there's a, it's easy to have a kind of self doubt, and it's easy to have a kind of confirmation bias, kind of vanity slip it, because the very need that makes you want to look at this person's virtue is the grounds for not being certain about your own virtue. So this, so you just two phrases for another self uses it twice. Once on page 200, that's chapter nine of book nine, the other was you said page 194.

At one point, the word other is heteros, which means as the comparative in it. And so it means the other of another, like we are a natural parent belong together. The other one is the word alos, which just means a different self. It doesn't imply the same kind of mutuality and kind of wholeness that takes, right?

So hot and cold or heteroid, there are other two one another, you know, temperature of 95, 73, 22, those are alloy, they're just different from one another, right? And if it's just a different self, I don't think you get that same sense of completeness of the friendship, right? That's what he's starting for. I'm not sure if that makes sense.

No, it definitely makes sense. I, since we seem to be transitioning here, I think this is related, I've been struck last time I taught this by the prevalence of Irish little treatments of mothers in books eight and nine. And it seems to me, I don't know if this controversial or obvious, but that motherly love for children is the is a model for friendship, or seems to be to exaggerate the model for friendship. I'm in book eight chapter eight, where he says, this is on page 175 in the Bartlett translation, Bartlett Collins, but friendship seems to consist more in loving than it being loved.

Okay, so that makes some sense. So then the lover is more involved in the love relationship than the beloved. The person doing the friend love, a sign of this is mothers who delight in loving their children. Some mothers give away their own children to be raised, and though they love them just because they know who they are, they do not seek to be loved in return if both are not possible.

So like, the mother wishes so much for the good of the child that she's even willing not to be there to receive it reciprocated. And then there are a couple of other passages here on page 181. Let's see if I can do this quickly. But that's Jacob, a quick question while you're sure please.

Jake, what did you enjoy from this reading? We asked you to join in and then we just like chatting back and forth. Well, so because this was the first time I've read this, I managed to get through an undergrad program that had a political science element and political philosophy and was never made to read this. So I spent the first time reading it and I immediately like David said, I started like, which one's my friends categorized who would wear?

But I sat there thinking about this the whole time and was like, I wonder how this stands up to like modern social science, like the psychology element of it. The part of it that I think stood out to me the most is that he says like the highest form of friendship is obviously for the good, but that it's, and it is fleetingly rare, but that you have to work at it the whole time. And like it's not quick to be there so you could have like three, four, five friendships coming, go for utility or for pleasure and they never quite get there. But there's got to be some like degree satisfaction in just getting that, like achieving the friendship for the good.

Almost like a helpful kind of way of reading as those. Yeah. It's rare. And so for me, you have to cherish those friendships.

And because you don't come across, Aristotle also makes the point that friendships aren't born in a day. So these deep profound friendships, bosom friends, if you will, it takes years to form that kind of serious attachment. So one wonders that if, if one is friendless in the early parts of his or her life, which the difficulties that can set in later, because you don't have these bonds with other people. And we're in our late 30s now, Greg is 75.

Imagine making new friends later on in life. In fact, that's why it's remarkable that three of us are friends, four of us, we've encountered each other much later in life. And just how few friends I have left that I grew up with. I mean, I've probably three or four, but not many.

It's nice of you to go from three to four and including that. That was sweet. I fell loved that for a second. But can I touch on the rarity thing?

Because we touched on this early and we'll go back to Greg's thing. But the rarity aspect, which is true of more virtue is you noted Greg David and it's also true of friendship, because you could be excellent to not have anybody who you admire. This is a general theme in aerosols, ethics and politics, but in his ethics, I mean, throughout, highly exclusive, right? Most of the people you call good, most of the people you call friends are not good and are not friends, right?

And that's a kind of hard pill to swallow, right? And especially if you live in a democracy and especially if you live in a modern liberal democracy, right? The way friends is to run around so casually, right? I mean, I mean, just this person's my friend is just, you might barely know somebody, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's really, I think as a count also has a really helpful challenge to us who live, you know, nowadays, because it really just we're not used to speaking in this way and thinking in such hierarchical ways about friendship. There is so the first, my first pass at this was the same as David and Jake sort of categorizing friends and realizing, oh my God, that's just a guy I like to hang out with or I'm only friends like that because it work. But then, but then AirSell does talk about and I probably couldn't find it quickly, but there's this other kind of friendship.

So I'm, as David mentioned, I'm significantly older than all of you. And there's also a kind of friendship that just forms having had the same experience, life experiences over time that he talks about. And so this, he talks about this in the context of ending friendships. But one of the things he says is that you just, I mean, like I have, I have several friends I've had since junior high and high school.

And part of it is part of the reason we are friends is that we have been friends. And it's, it's a sort of curiosity. I mean, like we, we don't necessarily hold the highest things in common anymore, but that history is itself a source of a deep strength. I mean, they've become kind of like family, right?

Like, and one of my friends, I love him to death. I mean, he's got, you know, vices otherwise zoo. And so it's certainly not friendship in the highest, but I mean, you know, I love him like my brother David Barr. And, and I don't know, that is something he talks about.

Right? So I do think, I think that the first pass in undergraduate can have at this is that it's very, sort of very, very clear categories. And the categories actually get blended and he does, he does sort of problematize it in other ways too. But yeah, I think you're right though, I mean, there's not to reject Alice's contention that this highest type of friendship is exceedingly rare hierarchical.

I think that that's right. Yeah. I do think that that's one of the, the ethics can get dark. There's a, yeah, that's too effective.

That's very dark. And this section can destabilize. Yeah. Young people who are searching for an intellectual model, they can start cutting off friendships.

I remember talking to somebody in grad school that I was trying to model their life off of this and just cutting people off. It's totally confused. That's ridiculous. So, do I think I do, in certain cases, that might be healthy.

Right? I mean, not cutting people off and being like, I've read Aristotle, therefore he must go through, right? Nothing like that. But, but it might be worth thinking about whether your time is well spent with certain people.

There is a serious question here. He does raise one of the perplexities around friendship is when do you cut off a friendship? That's right. So your friend becomes extremely vicious.

Now, of course, the moral is going to say, well, of course, you immediately cut off. But then it's like, well, con are you actually a really good friend to that person? When they need you most, that's when you cut. In other words, aerosol thinks that's a real perplexity.

That's a problem. Like my friend with whom I was friends because we were both virtuous has become vicious. Do I end it because he's no longer virtuous? Or do I say with him because he's my friend and I need to try and help him return to the virtuous path.

So you hear this in common language all the time? Yeah, of course. Some people with loved ones in friends who have an addiction of some kind, right? Right.

Right. So people like some, well, you hold them close. Well, that enables them. You just got to cut them off.

Yeah. So, this is a real problem. It's a real problem. Yeah.

I think that's right. If you guys don't mind, I want to turn to the mom business just because it touches on something I think is, I don't care about mom friendship and mom love as much as I do. But I do think it actually turns to work. First cousins and I know I have sisters.

We're in the market for mom love. Don't worry. I am serious about him in book nine, chapter four, seeming to hold out mother child friendship as the model of friendship to which all other models seem to fall short. And I have in mind just the way that mothers seem to unconditionally love their children.

And by the way, some students when I thought this last guy sort of offended on behalf of fathers that it's not it's not simply parent. I mean, aerosol is very clear. He thinks mothers love their children more than fathers do. We have a couple of fathers on the show.

You guys can tell me if that's correct. My impartial experience as an only outside observer is that mothers love their children more than fathers. I realize I've just alienated half the audience. But then he says, Greg, there's some days where I just want to get in the car for a pack of smokes and never come back.

I've got a countdown clock to in there out of the house. I mean, my small piece of evidence is that when a mother of bandits or children is headline news, when a father of bandits is like, well, it's Tuesday, right? Like that just happens. But the interesting thing is then he likens the parent, excuse me, the mother child relationship to teacher, student and God, man.

And so these are these are three different kinds of friendship or relationships that he likens to one other. And what's interesting to me is that he stresses that the mother loves the child more than the child loves the mother, because the lover loves more than the loved. And the one who did the work to make the thing. But what I find interesting, and you guys should correct me on this, and then he analogizes teacher to student.

But in my experience, the love and that relationship is I would say stronger from student to teacher than teacher to student. And then that makes me wonder about God to human time. But right? I mean, am I wrong about that?

Like, I mean, how many people we had on is guests and they all talk about how much they love their teachers. Yeah. Did any of them talk about their students? Yeah, I think that's interesting.

I think, yeah, I mean, that sounds generally correct. I mean, as a father, I know there is no amount of affection my child can give me that I'll be like, all done, you know what I mean? You paid me back. Yeah, I feel good.

You just like you love your child so much. And like, I'll go to my daughter, I'll be like, and I'll be gonna have a hug. And she just goes, no. And she just like shakes her head.

And I grab her, she starts screaming, right? I get like one kiss every like three months. I tell my mom, I love her. And she's like, I love you too.

And I'm like, I love you too, mom. And she's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I love you. I love you too, mom.

And she's like, no, you don't get out of your way from me. You don't even know what I'm talking about. Christ, that explains a lot. Great.

My Lord. That's a rough ride there. No, I think you're right. And you brought up an interesting point about God because way back in chapter one, he's going through the common opinions about friendship.

He's talking about cosmology, strangely. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, no, no, no, we just want to talk about it in a human sense. Let's talk about the passions.

But if friendship has a wider application beyond near-interhuman relations, but it starts as a cosmic principle, or as you point out, a theological principle, then whatever implications we find out about friendship of the human sphere, its possibilities, limits, what have you, might have vast cosmological, theological implications. It's erosum metaphysics, right? It's sort of animating our emotions toward the prime move or not, Philia. Is that right?

I can guess. I can guess. I can guess. I can guess.

I can guess too. Oh, Alex, do you think he's making an oblique? Yes. Okay.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. I think so. I think it's one of those things where it's safer to be very critical or suggest some critical things about human friendship.

Right. And that can have far-reaching implications. Yeah. That's kind of where I was headed with that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, if you take just this peak of friendship where the friend is another self, right? And you don't ever know if they have that complete virtue, right?

Then the completeness or the possible completeness of friendship, if it involves a kind of deficiency of self-awareness, it makes you wonder, you know, to what extent your love of God, for example, could be fully self-aware, right? Or it could be, or might involve a projection, right? So that would be one way to think through this. That was why we went to doggy's and put it in a game.

Oh, you know, God's no backwards is dog. Thanks, Norm. Before we wrap up, and we could talk about like our actual friendships. Well, I had one more question.

Okay. Sure, sure. Can you explain? It's fairly obvious, but could you make it more concrete for listeners that may be unfamiliar with the relationship between the ethics and politics?

It's like a circle. The way that they both end the lead to the other book. So that they're definitely have a pair. I think obviously one thing Alex has spoken about and can't speak about the transition real quick, but obviously the following we've done this kind of quickly and of course, we're doing this mostly for entertainment purposes.

But I think one of the things that comes out of my reading of aerosols, a kind of friendship is that if we are rational by nature, and if we are political by nature, and Alex talked about how the friendship with this other is principally conversation and logos, it would seem that the relationship that most satisfies our human nature as rational political beings will be friendship. It's the relationship that brings us together into communion with other human beings, but it's the only relationship whose principal activity seems to be devoted to the highest things that we do, discussion about the highest things. So I wanted to rail the question about how these two works go together. But I thought if, though, from my point of view, the politics points to the ethics and the ethics points back to the politics, but if we learn from the ethics that we want us to be virtuous and happy and learn from politics that we're sort of political, meaning we sort of need to be in some sort of social relationship with others, it would seem that philosophical friendship is the peak human relationship.

Maybe that's obvious, but in other words, to connect this to my previous point on teacher student, I think one of the things that I'll talk about is unequal relationships where someone's superior and someone's inferior, so teacher student. But it seems to me on the basis, I don't have time to tease out, but the highest kind of friendship is a teacher student relationship where the teacher elevates the student to their status of equal, if that makes sense. So then to play on Aristotle become equals and friends, as he says, and one of the ethics. The friends Jerry equals, have you seen that episode of time?

Of course. Jerry's cousin is a friend of what I mean. That's another puzzle we didn't have time to go through all the puzzles, maybe we should do more episodes on friendship, but one of the puzzles is friendship between unequals. Like what's in it for the superior person?

Why should I befriend? Why should David befriend me as my superior? It doesn't make any sense. What's he getting out of it?

Unless there is that deficiency. David's question, I think that was really well put in a way. But I think also, I talked about this last time, but the ethics is at least on its surface, like it is dark and everything, but it's got a lot of like really helpful advice, some pretty memorable characterizations of virtues, and it ends quite beautifully with the friendship and then of the contemplative life as this happy life and the most self-sufficient. And then you turn to the politics, you really find yourself in a discussion of slavery and of virtue as highly limited by your station in the political community.

So you want to have virtue and tire, but instead you got to have the virtue of a house builder or something like that, because that's how you got to pay the bills. And then you get to the discussion of slavery and you're told that, well, the natural slave, you could maybe be friends with that guy. There's obviously like a friendship of utility, mutual benefit. And so it's highly unequal.

It gets very, very explicitly dark there, I think in a way that it wasn't in the ethics. And so I think it kind of puts a sort of shock to the system of necessity. Right? I'm not sure that the ethics account of friendship is dark at all.

I mean, my question with students is that they're quick to think, oh, yeah, of course I have these highest types of friendships with my friends. I mean, they categorize the way you say, I think that's right. Like, oh, well, okay, Jimmy's just my friend from the hood. I mean, it's subtly dark, subtly dark.

Yeah, it just seems unattainable. Okay, it's very bright on the surface. I mean, but if I think in a way, there's a kind of attainability, if you go to the end of chapter nine, sorry, book nine, chapter nine. Yeah, we're, yeah, he says, just as then lovers are fondest of seeing to beloved and choose this sense perception more than the rest of the grounds that love exists and arises, especially in reference to sight.

So is it similarly the case for friends that living together is most choice worthy for friendship is a community. And as someone is disposed toward himself, so he is disposed also to one friend. The perception of person has about himself, namely that he exists is choice worthy, just as is the comparable perception about the friend as well. He's just like your friends in the basis and like being together and seeing one another.

The activity of this perception arises in living together. And the friends understandably aim at this as a result, whatever existing is for each or whatever the goal is for the sake of which they choose living, it is well being engaged in this that they wish to conduct their lives with their friends. So it is that some drink together, others play a dice, still others exercise and hunt together, others together, or philosophize together, all in each passing their days together, whatever the fondest of in life, for since they wish to live with their friends, they pursue and share in those things in which they suppose living together consists. I have to call Bob and check on that translation.

But it's how I remember that. I don't know that's Bob Bob. For what it's worth there, all of those examples with the exceptional dice playing are used as metaphors and other places for philosophizing, drinking, exercising, hunting. So I mean, they all three, all the examples seem to amplify the idea that this philosophic friendship is indeed what's highest.

Yeah, but it's a kind of beautiful statement. Yes. I know my friends. I like to just sit down and have a beer with them, right?

I like to go out and hunt with them, right? Other things. All of them are sort of mutual activities that you enjoy being with them. Yeah.

Can I transition us away from the ethics of this one and just speak more broadly about friendship? Do it. All right. I'm sorry, Jake.

Jake. Oh, who was your first friend? Hmm. Probably my younger brother.

Tell me about him. Why are you guys friends? I believe the ethics actually goes over this. At least it's on extent to book eight and nine is that like we grew up together, head shared experiences.

So like in a sense, like our friendship was built on shared experience. And so we've been like just like by my music social almost. You end up spending so much time with them that you find and then you find out that you have you were raised the same way, educated and similar with the same places. So you end up with like a lot of things in common that you can use to build off of her later.

You guys still friends? Best friends. Best friends. Wow.

That's great. He's the best man in my wedding. That's fantastic. What's the name?

His name is my brother. Yeah. What's the name? His name is Ryan.

Ryan. That's great. Well, that answers my question. She's your best friend.

But it's your friend brother. What about you guys Alex? They would first friend you remember having. But this is a name named Rod Rigo.

Yeah. How old? And kindred our when we first moved to the United States. Yeah.

I don't know. That's mean, I for me, it's about the same age. Five years old is what I remember. I can't name Risi in my neighborhood and another kid named KK.

Those are the two friends. What happened to KK? That was Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, several decades ago. I have no idea.

And then we moved to I have no idea. Yeah. Yeah. I think about these old friends sometimes.

I think about it. That was my first place I lived. I can remember those two kids and then I was six when we moved to Germany. And I specifically remember two kids named Mikey and Jimmy there.

Oh, not Hans and Franz. No, no, no. They were the jerks in town. Hans and Franz always lived in wait.

Mine was probably my neighbor. I was thinking about this while I had a great one of the best things about my childhood is I grew up on a little dead end street and a lot of kids around our age, you know, stemming from maybe a couple years younger to a few years older. I used to play games all the time. But my best friend at the time was my neighbor who lives right behind me, kid same age.

We went to high school in South Carolina. We weren't friends all through that time. But that was like one of the best things in my childhood was just putting games and hanging out and we would do like Christmas together and all the families and stuff. Friendship or pleasure?

Yeah. It was definitely a friendship of pleasure. Yeah. It was the first time you think you had a friend, this rainy view that you would qualify as someone loosely speaking who was trying like a good friend and someone who was trying to help you become a better human being.

Were you recognized that about them? Jake, you go first. Just crickets because David and Alex have nobody know life like that. Okay.

I'm gonna get brownie points for this one. No, your wife? You guys are your wife Jake? Let's say we're gonna find you.

I'm not married. I'm not married yet. I have like a month. Almost a month.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. But I won't say it's the first, but I will say my friendship with David actually. Get a check stepbox.

Yeah. David Barr? Yeah. David Barr.

I know for all the crap you guys give him. I give him credit for that. Hey, he checks that box. And this is an awesome area.

I'm not just, if you think that David is a friend who's helped you become a better human being, what are David's chief virtues? I care to my super long neck. Loyalism David is extremely loyal. I admire you for that too.

You're a loyal friend. You're a deeply loyal friend. I feel like if somebody ever insulted me publicly, I would worry for them that you might kill them. Yeah.

I get a text. You guys this all the time. I have you and Alex will call me down. Yeah.

I'll just I'll just start to hate people for perceives like against friends or Alex will say something about a publisher that wanted to pass on the book and I'll call him a bunch of suckers and you know, I should get it all that out and just be a bit fine. Yeah. That's really cool. Well, thank you, Jake.

That was really sweet. David, Alex, nothing? Oh, wow. I don't know.

David definitely like looks out for me and you know, he's got a kind of but he's also got a mercenary side that I know too well. I don't want to turn my I don't want to turn my life a good friendship just brought me a beer. Thank you, honey. It's a sweetheart.

I don't want to turn this into extolling David Barr's virtues. But when I was at one of the lowest points in my entire life, David did his best to help me try to get my life back together. So, David's a good man. Well, thank you.

Really do appreciate that. Yeah. What happened? One of my wives left.