/lit/ - Literature

Let's try for a little depth /lit/. How about we focus on one text that quite a few people will be familiar with (and is usually discussed in a more general, non-critical sense) and pick out strains of thought, inconsistencies, interesting remarks left unexplored, etc...?

How about Nicomachean Ethics.

What do you all make of the other self justification of friendship? Bascially, the noblest of friendships are in which one loves the other for themselves rather than for mere pleasure of base utility. Yet, Aristotle in trying to justify why a happy man would need friends succumbs to both as isolated foundations for justifications and fails to make the critical bridge between the two (the love of the other for themselves) clear or strong.

So the good man loves perceiving his being because existence is naturally good and pleasant for such a man. We tend to make friends with people like us, therefore the good man is able to gain more pleasure in his perceiving of his own being through scrutinizing the being of his friend.

And since virtue lies in activity and the highest of virtues lies in giving, we would want more friends (but not too many because that would limit the goodness of their potential being(s) and the extent to which are activities can be of the highest).

So basically, Aristotle provides us with a justification through pleasure which seems to be self-reflexive rather than truly contemplative of the Other and a justification through utility which is in itself not enough for a noble friendship.

It seems like Aristotle's conception of the Other as friend is paradoxical in that we should love a friend for himself yet in Aristotle's justification of friendship, we love them for their likeness to ourselves.

There is a lot to read into this topic but feel free to bring up other tensions or questions.