It occurs to me that, just as we have circles of friendship, so also we sometimes have circles of influence and affection in the books we read. Certain books and authors are like best friends that we revisit again and again: think of those who cherish the novels of Jane Austen, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Confessions ofContinue reading “Best Friend Books”
Category Archives: Friendship
The Circles of Friendship
As noted last week, Robin Dunbar, who has done amazing research into close personal relationships, is best known for “Dunbar’s Number” – his finding that the typical friends network contains about 150 people (as discussed in a recent post by Arnold Kling). Yet as I also noted long ago in my blog post “Joining theContinue reading “The Circles of Friendship”
The Seven Pillars of Friendship
Love, friendship, and other close personal relationships have been ill-served in the philosophical literature. Aside from Aristotle’s foundational discussion and the occasional essay by the likes of Montaigne, Bacon, and Emerson, few philosophers have contributed deep insights to human relationships. This is disappointing, because as Aristotle observed 2400 years ago we are social creatures forContinue reading “The Seven Pillars of Friendship”
The Rules of Friendship
While doing some research recently on relationships, I came across an old but classic scholarly paper entitled “The Rules of Friendship” by Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson (Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 1 (1984), pp. 211-237). Using populations from Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan, the authors studied several related topics: What areContinue reading “The Rules of Friendship”
The Self as an Achievement
What is the self? Naturally this question invokes vast reflections spanning philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, sociology, biology, and many other fields. Although I claim no special insight, in my Aristotle readings over the last few years I chanced upon a fascinating perspective that I thought I’d share. In her book Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship (SUNY Press, 1995),Continue reading “The Self as an Achievement”
A Friend by Any Other Name
It is said that when the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus died, he left behind thousands of friends. This was 2300 years before Facebook, so how could he have befriended so many people? I suspect that most of them were not dear friends (it’s impossible to be close to that many people) but instead students orContinue reading “A Friend by Any Other Name”
Speaking Freely
Emerson was really onto something when he spoke about the high freedom of great conversation. I’ve been thinking about two more aspects of such freedom. First, great conversation requires great spontaneity. Although when conversing we might have a deep goal of sharing and discovery, our conversation doesn’t have an agenda or a script and weContinue reading “Speaking Freely”
Fascinated with Conversation
Since posting about Emerson’s thoughts on friendship and conversation a few weeks ago, I’ve continued to reflect on the actual practices involved (spurred by an email exchange with my friend Adrian Lory). Beyond just good listening, what can we do to cultivate the high freedom of conversation? The authors of the book Co-Active Coaching emphasize the importanceContinue reading “Fascinated with Conversation”
The High Freedom of Great Conversation
Aside from Montaigne and perhaps Plato, few philosophers have reflected deeply on conversation, especially the one-to-one, heart-to-heart exchange of thoughts between friend and friend. A shining exception is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote as follows in his essay on friendship: Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each so well tempered andContinue reading “The High Freedom of Great Conversation”
Peter Saint-Andre, Philosopher-Coach 