Isaac Chan’s Reviews > The Nicomachean Ethics > Status Update

Aristotle says “the essence of friendship is living together” – I am now reminded of my friends from another life: when we all lived together as brothers in NAQ, and I thought the saddest thing in the world was to be separated, by each of us gaining our own lives and thus drifting apart. Does Aristotle have anything to say about whether someone was even a friend in the 1st place, if it took so little to drift apart?

Note 3/3:

Finally, I think why one should 'keep a remembrance of former intimacy' is coz you can always, always learn from your past friendships/ relationships.

Note 2/3:

... enemies. There's always negative utility to having an enemy. What if life brings the 2 of you tgt in the future, or you need them in the future? Always seek a margin of safety. And you might even be friends with them in the future anyway, when both parties have matured.

Note 1/3:
'To those who have been our friends we ought to make some allowance for our former friendship, when the breach has not been due to excess of wickedness.' What an interesting thought. But ... how would one 'make some allowance' for one's former friendship?

I interpret this as - you can drift apart from, or even fall out with, your former friend, but there's zero need to declare war with them, and be ...

Note 2/2:
... tbf, Jon never deceived me – & frankly, telling your bro that you're friends with them for their 'character' is so gay and weird lmao.

Note 1/2:
Some thoughts: 'There is ntg strange in breaking off a friendship based on utility or pleasantness, when our friends no longer have these attributes.' So I wonder if it was coz I lost certain attributes, that Jonjon broke off our friendship. Also, 'when a man has deceived himself and has thought he was being loved for his character, when the other person was doing ntg of the kind, he must blame himself; ...

Note 3/3:

... young woman complains if the old man ever declines in his financial position.

Hopefully, I'm not just in it for pleasure, because as Aristotle cautions, this kind of relationship crumbles. And I don't think I am, anyway.

Note 2/3:
... view of relationships, i.e. the demarcation into the lover and the beloved, while relationships are supposed to consist of 2 lovers, but then I can't say that this isn't a realistic description of most relationships, i.e. driven by animalistic pleasure by the old man, and financial utility by the young woman.

And the lover, ofc, complains that the gold-digger does not love in return, while the ...

Note 1/3:
'The lover complains that his excess of love is not met by love in return, while often the beloved complains that the lover who formerly promised everything now performs nothing. Such incidents happen when the lover loves the beloved for the sake of pleasure while the beloved loves the lover for the sake of utility' ... damn what an interesting explanation. Idk why Aristotle presents such a one-sided ...

Note 2/2:
Ig I can see this as a soft solution to Hume's skepticism of reason to incite any form of agency, however. PRACTICAL reason can incite human action, since it, by definition, aims at smtg. It perhaps speaks to the inherently self-circling nature of intellectual nature that it moves nothing – cautionary words that I could perhaps take to heart!