The Purpose Of Friendship - 1304 Words

Joseph Thielemann Professor Baker Intro to Philosophy 13 April 2015 The Purpose of Friendship We all have friends that we enjoy spending time with, but we do not seem to think heavily as to why we have these friends. These relationships are not necessary to survival; all that is needed for our physical body to survive is food and water, yet people want to create long-lasting friendships with people they cherish. In his work, Lysis, Plato says that that friendship is the least of natural loves, ones which we do not need to reproduce. C.S. Lewis complements this by describing friendship as â€Å"unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.† Many early†¦show more content†¦Bennett Helm describes friendship as â€Å"a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, a concern which might reasonably be understood as a kind of love.† I believe friendship is a greater form of an acquaintance. With an acquaintance you will exchange greetings whenever you happen to meet and maybe have a small conversation, but that is where the effort of becoming a friend stops. A quality friendship is where each person cares for the other to succeed, enjoys going out of their way to spend quality time with the other, and deeply care for the other’s health. Is that all there is to friendship?Are there any other forms of friendship? Aristotle says that there are different types of friendships. He divides friendship into three different variants. The first is a friendship based upon utility. Utility is the quality or state of being useful This friendship is easily seen as the weakest of the three because it is a selfish form of friendship based around personal gain. The second kind of friendship is one based upon pleasure. The people in this type of relationship are only drawn to the others physical qualities. These friendships are each seen as weak because the people only continue the friendship for what they can get out of it. Due to this, th ese types of friendships to not last very long. The last kind of friendship is the strongest and most caring. Aristotle states that the final