Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

This is Philosophy Bites with me,

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

David Edmonds.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And me,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Nigel Warburton.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Philosophy Bites is available at www .philosophybites .com.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

What is a friend?

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That was Aristotle's view.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Gore Vidal's vision was a touch less romantic.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Whenever a friend succeeds,

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

a little something in me dies.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Has friendship anything to do with philosophy?

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Mark Vernon should know.

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S… Speaker 3 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He's written a book on the philosophy of friendship.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Mark Vernon,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

welcome to Philosophy Bites.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Thank you very much,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it's very good to talk to you.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Now the topic we're focusing on today is friendship.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

What do you understand by friendship?

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's a good question,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it's one that philosophers never quite solved,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but I have a sort of thumbnail idea of it,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

by comparing it with other sorts of love.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

If you think of,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

say...

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The love shared in families,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that would be the love that longs to care and be cared for.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And if you think of the love between lovers,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that would be the love that longs to have and to be had.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

If you believe in it,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

if you think of divine love,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that might be a kind of sustaining love.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

So friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is the love that longs to know and to be known by somebody else.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That seems to me to be the heart of friendship and perhaps differentiates it from other sorts.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The characteristic of friends is to talk,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

and that would seem to support the idea that at the heart of friendship...

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is knowing someone and getting to be known.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Within a friendship,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

there has to be more than just knowing or wanting to know someone.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You have to like them.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

There must be many other aspects of friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Yeah, of course you're right.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I mean, there are virtues,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

if you like, that serve knowing someone well.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

For example, a certain kind of loyalty,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

which would be related to trust.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

To open up to somebody,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you have to trust them,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

and if they betray that trust by being disloyal,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that's obviously going to stump friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

There's very basic things.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's like spending time together.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Aristotle said that you should live with someone to be their best friend.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think he didn't quite mean live in the same house,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

like we would suggest,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but to spend time over a lifetime with each other would be important to friendship.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

For me, there's a spectrum within friendship.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I mean, there can be close friends and less close friends.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Are we talking about just the friends that we love because they're relatively few

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

in number?

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But there are many people who I like who are friends in a looser sense.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You've got to the number of the problems that the philosophers of friendship identified.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's the person that you've known all your life,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

your soulmate,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the same kind of friend as your gym instructor or your hairdresser

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

or something with whom you're friendly,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but it seems a bit strange to call them friends.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And Aristotle,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

probably the most well -known philosopher of friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

he had a useful tripartite distinction.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

First of all,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

there are friends that you know because you do something with them.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Friends at work would be a good case in point.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And it's good.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It makes office life friendly and much more human.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

humane but people may have had the experience of having been very friendly with someone

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

at work and then either they move office or someone else does and suddenly

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the friendship just sort of dissolves and it doesn't really seem to sustain itself anymore and

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Aristotle would say that's because the friendship depends on doing something together and

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

if what you do together stops then the friendship tends to collapse as well.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Similarly with his second sort of friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

which are friendships where you share a pleasure with somebody.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It might be football,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it might be shopping,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it might be sex.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He puts sexual friendship into this category.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Again,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the friendship depends upon the shared pleasure.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But if that pleasure ceases,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

then again,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the friendship struggles to have any foundations anymore.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The third sort of friendship is for Aristotle,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the quintessential friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And this he called friendships of excellence.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And the idea there,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think, is that you know somebody and love them for who they are in themselves.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It doesn't depend on any third thing.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It doesn't depend on working together.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It doesn't depend on any activities.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

With the excellent friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you can sit in the room in silence and you'll still be contented and happy

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

with the friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

This would be perhaps what we would call soulmateship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's the kind of experience perhaps that people have when they've maybe not seen a friend for a long,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

long time.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

They get back together again and they say,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

gosh, it's like we've never been apart.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And that's because it doesn't really matter.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

what they've done together or not done together.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

They know each other as they are in themselves.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That philosophical idea of knowing what people are like in themselves

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is problematic,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

isn't it?

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The sense that there is a true self that could be discovered by somebody

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

else.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's another very good point.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Aristotle picked it up saying that another definition of friend for him was that a friend

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is another self.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And I think he meant both that you understand more of yourself in the

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

friend.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

and the friends like a mirror to you,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but also that there's a kind of meshing of selves in friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You know, when people say they have the experience of basking in someone's reflected glory,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

they haven't done anything to merit the glory,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but nonetheless they feel the joy or the delight as well.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And that kind of merging of selfhood,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is part and parcel of what Aristotle saw in friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Conversely,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Nietzsche is another very interesting writer on friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He thought a lot of friendship is actually feigning.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And the idea there,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think, is that it is hard to know yourself,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

even if there is a self to be known.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And so in friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you do spend quite a lot of time,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

particularly in the lesser sorts of friendship,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

either consciously or unconsciously working out what to say and what not to say.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

So if your friend brings their kids around and the kids really

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

annoy...

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You probably don't say your kids are really annoying,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

because the friendship wouldn't really be up to it.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You're saying that with a friend,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the truth is perhaps unspeakable,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

unshowable,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

whereas perhaps with somebody you weren't friendly with,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you'd be prepared to say,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I don't like what you're doing.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That's another interesting point.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Why are people prepared to say things to strangers that they would find very

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

difficult to say to a friend,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

even a close friend?

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think it's something that Plato understood as well,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

actually.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Certainly in the early Potomac dialogues,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the ones which perhaps are closest to Socrates,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the historical Socrates,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you do get a very strong idea that the best kind of philosophers...

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

are the people that can potentially form the best kind of friendships.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You get it particularly in the dialogue,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the Gorgias,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

where Socrates says that the best philosophers are the people that are prepared to be honest with

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

each other, people that are prepared to be open with each other.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And it's only when you can really expose not just your ideas,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but your character,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that the philosophy can really fly.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But of course,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the friendship perhaps can really fly with that as well.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Well,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

look, my good friends,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I hope they're going to be honest with me.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I want them to tell me the truth or point me in the right direction,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

not to mislead me about what they think about me.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I'm sure that's one of the greatest gifts that friendship can bring.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But if you've been involved in a situation like that,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you have to get your timing right.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That's because you have to be ready to hear it as well as your friend ready to say it.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Now, I can imagine somebody listening to this and say,

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

well, that's all very interesting.

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S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But why is that philosophy?

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Again,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it's quite striking that friendship was.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

on the curriculum,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

as it were, for the ancient philosophers.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Plato wrote about it.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He dedicated a dialogue to it.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Aristotle, as we said,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

wrote about it.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Epicurus thought it was very close to wisdom as well.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Cicero in the Roman period,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

he wrote on friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You have a kind of flowering in the medieval period where you have

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Thomas Aquinas who wrote on friendship and then other theologians,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

perhaps more than philosophers,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but someone like Elred of Rivo,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

he wrote a lot on friendship.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You get into the 19th century with Nietzsche.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

In fact, Nietzsche said,

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

not since the Greeks has friendship been thought a problem worthy of a solution.

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S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But into the 20th century,

6:58

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

there does seem to be a bit of a dearth.

6:59

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Perhaps friendship is seen as something that's more in the area of psychology

7:04

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

now.

7:04

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's also, I think,

7:05

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

because perhaps 20th century philosophy has been dominated by the what do we think kind

7:09

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

of philosophy rather than the how should we live kind of philosophy.

7:12

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But it is receiving more attention.

7:14

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's a kind of growth area,

7:15

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think, now,

7:16

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

perhaps through the interest in ethics and virtue ethics in particular,

7:19

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

where matters to do with character and relationships come to the fore again.

7:23

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Perhaps also in feminist philosophy,

7:25

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the philosophy of care and friendship seems to play a big part in that.

7:29

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I still think...

7:30

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It needs justification.

7:31

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I mean, is it because it's part of moral philosophy that the philosophy of friendship

7:35

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is important?

7:36

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

There are special moral considerations that arise in relation to our friends

7:40

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

and family that don't arise in relation to strangers.

7:43

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Is that why it's an important philosophical area?

7:45

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It would justify itself in the sense that it's clearly an important part of life.

7:49

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Aristotle said that the good life,

7:51

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the happy life, is inconceivable without friendship.

7:53

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

In fact, he said you could drop anything else out of the good life,

7:55

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but friendship would have to remain.

7:57

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

So if philosophy is at all interested in life,

7:59

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

then I think friendship must get back onto the agenda.

8:01

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And you mentioned the problem.

8:04

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

friendship what is the philosophical problem of friendship when

8:08

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

plato wrote his dialogue on friendship the lysis he adopted a clever strategy it's

8:12

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

a dialogue on friendship between friends talking about what friendship might be and

8:17

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

he meets lysis and they have various discussions about you know friendship is it

8:21

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

to do with freedom is it to do with understanding what friendship is you know what does it aspire to

8:25

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

they talk through a lot and in fact they kind of become friends in the process

8:29

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But at the end, Socrates makes this rather paradoxical comment.

8:32

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He says that although we think we're friends,

8:34

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

we might look foolish because we can't really quite say what friendship is.

8:38

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

So that's another philosophical problem.

8:40

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's very hard to pin down.

8:41

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Do you think that friendship is incompatible with sexual attraction

8:46

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

or sexual involvement?

8:47

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The quick answer is no.

8:49

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

in as much as people certainly aspire to be friends with their partners,

8:54

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

with their lovers.

8:54

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But there are tensions.

8:56

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

A good way perhaps of thinking about this would be to reflect just on the original

9:00

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

distinctions that I tried to make between lovers who desire to have and

9:04

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

to be had,

9:05

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

possessive love,

9:05

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

whereas friendship in this knowing and being known is a more open -ended

9:10

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

love. In a way, it wants the opposite.

9:11

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It doesn't want to try and possess someone.

9:13

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It wants them to flourish,

9:14

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

partly to be separate.

9:15

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

A common experience perhaps illuminates that.

9:17

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Lovers hate to be apart.

9:19

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Whereas friends would never think twice really about being apart.

9:22

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

You know,

9:23

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

a day, a week,

9:23

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

fine.

9:24

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

So the retentions,

9:25

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I'd say.

9:26

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

In your book,

9:27

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

The Philosophy of Friendship,

9:28

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

you end with this notion that philosophy and

9:32

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

friendship share some common aims.

9:35

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Could you elaborate a bit on that?

9:37

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Nietzsche has a very nice few paragraphs on this that actually reflect on what

9:41

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

we were just talking about,

9:42

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

the difference between the kind of erotic love and friendship.

9:44

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He starts in a very Nietzschean kind of way,

9:47

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

decrying the things that people call love.

9:49

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He says it's possessive,

9:50

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it's avaristic,

9:51

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

it's selfish.

9:52

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He really lays into the worst kind of selfish,

9:55

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

erotic love.

9:56

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But then at the end he says...

9:57

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But sometimes you see another kind of love.

10:00

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

He calls it a thirst for something higher.

10:02

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And he says, what is this love?

10:04

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Its right name is friendship.

10:05

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And I think that there is something in friendship.

10:08

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's not just about wanting to know and be known by another person.

10:12

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

That spills over,

10:13

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

as it were, into a desire to know something about the world around you.

10:17

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

As much as I've reflected at all on my own

10:21

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

friendships, I've never thought of myself as trying to know another person.

10:24

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Ideally...

10:26

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I'd want them to flourish and be in my company and so on,

10:30

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but it's not a matter of knowing them.

10:31

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's not a quest for knowledge about them.

10:34

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I think what you're touching on there,

10:35

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

perhaps, is the difference between a kind of description of friendship and a prescription about friendship.

10:40

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

If you go up to someone and say,

10:42

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I want to get to know you better because I want you to be my friend,

10:44

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

that's probably a recipe for disaster.

10:46

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But if you're asking yourself,

10:49

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

why would I say this person is a closer friend to me than someone else,

10:53

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

then I think it would make...

10:54

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Pretty good sense to say that you know them better.

10:56

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

One last cheeky question.

10:58

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Do you think that all this reflection on friendship makes you a better or a worse friend?

11:03

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Like in any kind of relationships,

11:05

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

a little reflection sometimes,

11:06

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

particularly to work out what they're not as much as what they might be,

11:10

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

is always useful.

11:11

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Again, in friendship,

11:12

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

one of the most difficult situations can be when someone...

11:15

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

makes too much of a demand on the friendship.

11:17

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

It's fine to be useful in friendship,

11:19

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

but to feel used is a disaster.

11:21

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And just to reflect that the friendship isn't up to it is always a useful

11:25

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

thing.

11:25

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Whether or not it makes you a brilliant friend,

11:27

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

I doubt,

11:28

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

because that's about all sorts of things other than just having a bit of philosophy in your head.

11:32

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

But I guess it could help.

11:33

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Mark Vernon,

11:34

S… Speaker 2 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

thank you very much.

11:35

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

Thank you too.

11:35

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

And you can hear more Philosophy Bites at www .philosophybites

11:41

S… Speaker 1 (Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship)

.com.

Philosophy_Bites_Mark_Vernon_on_Friendship

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