论友谊

On Friendship

本文讨论了欧洲友谊观念变迁史。亚里士多德关于友谊的观点主要包括如下几点:只有好人才能做朋友;朋友是另一个自己;友谊是城邦政治的必要纽带;友谊是人性的实现,等等,这些对后世的友谊观产生了决定性的影响。西塞罗将好人的概念更加具体化,友谊开始逐渐转向了私人性的一面;蒙田则完全淡化了友谊的政治功能,友谊完全是私人领域的交往。他也不强调朋友双方都应该是好人这样的经典观点。而培根则离亚里士多德最远,他打破了朋友是另一个自己这样的经典观点,对培根来说,朋友可以和自己分离,朋友是一个他者,而且朋友可以对自己有物质上的帮助——所有这些都背离了前人的友谊观点。

This paper discusses the history of changes of the European concept of friendship.Aristotle’s views on friendship mainly include the following points:only good people can be friends;a friend is another self;friendship is the necessary bond of city-state politics;friendship is the realization of human nature,etc.,which have a decisive impact on the views of friendship in later generations.Cicero concretized the idea of a good man,and friendship began to turn to the private side.Montaigne completely downplayed the political function of friendship,which is purely a private sphere of communication.He also did not emphasize the classic view that both friends should be good people.Bacon,on the other hand,was the furthest away from Aristotle,breaking the classical idea that a friend is another self.For Bacon,a friend can be separated from himself,a friend is an other,and a friend can help him materially—all these deviate from the previous views of friendship.