During the month of December, Let's Just Leave That Here presents a series of weekly word explorations on love. The ancient Greeks used four separate words to differentiate the different types. This week's word is Philia.
From thoughtco.com:
Philia means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek. It is one of the four types of love in the Bible. Philia (pronounced FILL-ee-uh) conveys a strong feeling of attraction, with its antonym or opposite being phobia. It is the most general form of love in the Bible, encompassing love for fellow humans, care, respect, and compassion for people in need. For example, philia describes the benevolent, kindly love practiced by early Quakers. The most common form of philia is friendship. Philia and other forms of this Greek noun are found throughout the New Testament. Christians are frequently exhorted to love their fellow Christians.
Examples of Philia Love in the BibleLove one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. (Romans 12:10 ESV)
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another... (1 Thessalonians 4:9, ESV)
Let brotherly love continue. (Hebrews 13:1, ESV)
And godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. (2 Peter 1:7, ESV)
Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart ... (1 Peter 1:22, ESV)
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. (1 Peter 3:8, ESV)
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (James 4:4, ESV)
Philia Is a Family WordThe concept of brotherly affection that unites believers is unique to Christianity. As members of the body of Christ, we are family in a special sense. Christians are members of one family—the body of Christ; God is our Father and we are all brothers and sisters. We ought to have a warm and devoted love for one another that catches the interest and attention of the non-believers. This close union of love among Christians is only seen in other people as members of a natural family. Believers are family not in the conventional sense, but in a way that is distinguished by a love that is not seen elsewhere. This unique expression of love ought to be so attractive that it draws others into the family of God:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34–35, ESV)
From Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
Historically, in the Western tradition, Plato’s Symposium presents the initiating text, for it provides us with an enormously influential and attractive notion that love is characterized by a series of elevations, in which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual conception of love which also is surpassed by what may be construed by a theological vision of love that transcends sensual attraction and mutuality. Since then there have been detractors and supporters of Platonic love as well as a host of alternative theories—including that of Plato’s student, Aristotle and his more secular theory of true love reflecting what he described as ‘two bodies and one soul.’
In contrast to the desiring and passionate yearning of eros, philia entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. For the Greeks, the term philia incorporated not just friendship, but also loyalties to family and polis-one's political community, job, or discipline. Philia for another may be motivated, as Aristotle explains in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, for the agent's sake or for the other's own sake. The motivational distinctions are derived from love for another because the friendship is wholly useful as in the case of business contacts, or because their character and values are pleasing (with the implication that if those attractive habits change, so too does the friendship), or for the other in who they are in themselves, regardless of one's interests in the matter. The English concept of friendship roughly captures Aristotle's notion of philia, as he writes: "things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done" (Rhetoric, II. 4, trans. Rhys Roberts).
Aristotle elaborates on the kinds of things we seek in proper friendship, suggesting that the proper basis for philia is objective: those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so on. Philia could not emanate from those who are quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality, who are unjust, and so on. The best characters, it follows, may produce the best kind of friendship and hence love: indeed, how to be a good character worthy of philia is the theme of the Nicomachaen Ethics. The most rational man is he who would be the happiest, and he, therefore, who is capable of the best form of friendship, which between two "who are good, and alike in virtue" is rare (NE, VIII.4 trans. Ross). We can surmise that love between such equals-Aristotle's rational and happy men-would be perfect, with circles of diminishing quality for those who are morally removed from the best. He characterizes such love as "a sort of excess of feeling". (NE, VIII.6)
Friendships of a lesser quality may also be based on the pleasure or utility that is derived from another's company. A business friendship is based on utility--on mutual reciprocity of similar business interests; once the business is at an end, then the friendship dissolves.
The first condition for the highest form of Aristotelian love is that a man loves himself. Without an egoistic basis, he cannot extend sympathy and affection to others (NE, IX.8). Such self-love is not hedonistic, or glorified, depending on the pursuit of immediate pleasures or the adulation of the crowd, it is instead a reflection of his pursuit of the noble and virtuous, which culminate in the pursuit of the reflective life. Friendship with others is required "since his purpose is to contemplate worthy actions... to live pleasantly... sharing in discussion and thought" as is appropriate for the virtuous man and his friend (NE, IX.9). The morally virtuous man deserves in turn the love of those below him; he is not obliged to give an equal love in return, which implies that the Aristotelian concept of love is elitist or perfectionist: "In all friendships implying inequality the love also should be proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he loves." (NE, VIII, 7,). Reciprocity, although not necessarily equal, is a condition of Aristotelian love and friendship, although parental love can involve a one-sided fondness.
From gotquestions.org:
Philia refers to brotherly love and is most often exhibited in a close friendship. Best friends will display this generous and affectionate love for each other as each seeks to make the other happy. The Scriptural account of David and Jonathan is an excellent illustration of phileo love: “After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. . . . And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself” (1 Samuel 18:1-3).
From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
word-forming element meaning "friendship, fondness, tendency toward," and in recent use "abnormal attraction to," from Greek philia "affection," from philos "loving," which is of uncertain origin.
From Wikipedia:
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defines the activity involved in philia (τὸ φιλεῖν) as:
"wanting for someone what one thinks good, for his sake and not for one's own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for him" (1380b36–1381a2)
Aristotle takes philia to be both necessary as a means to happiness ("no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods" [1155a5–6]) and noble or fine (καλόν) in itself.
Aristotle gives examples of philia including:
"young lovers (1156b2), lifelong friends (1156b12), cities with one another (1157a26), political or business contacts (1158a28), parents and children (1158b20), fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers (1159b28), members of the same religious society (1160a19), or of the same tribe (1161b14), a cobbler and the person who buys from him (1163b35)."All of these different relationships involve getting on well with someone, though Aristotle at times implies that something more like actual liking is required. When he is talking about the character or disposition that falls between obsequiousness or flattery on the one hand and surliness or quarrelsomeness on the other, he says that this state:
"has no name, but it would seem to be most like [philia]; for the character of the person in the intermediate state is just what we mean in speaking of a decent friend, except that the friend is also fond of us." (1126b21)This passage indicates also that, though broad, the notion of philia must be mutual, and thus excludes relationships with inanimate objects, though philia with animals, such as pets, is allowed for (see 1155b27–31).
Aristotle divides friendships into three types, based on the motive for forming them: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure and friendships of the good.
Friendships of utility are relationships formed without regard to the other person at all. Buying merchandise, for example, may require meeting another person but usually needs only a very shallow relationship between the buyer and seller. In modern English, people in such a relationship would not even be called friends, but acquaintances (if they even remembered each other afterwards). The only reason these people are communicating is in order to buy or sell things, which is not a bad thing, but as soon as that motivation is gone, so goes the relationship between the two people unless another motivation is found. Complaints and quarrels generally only arise in this type of friendship.
At the next level, friendships of pleasure are based on pure delight in the company of other people. People who drink together or share a hobby may have such friendships. However, these friends may also part—in this case if they no longer enjoy the shared activity, or can no longer participate in it together.
Friendships of the good are ones where both friends enjoy each other's characters. As long as both friends keep similar characters, the relationship will endure since the motive behind it is care for the friend. This is the highest level of philia, and in modern English might be called true friendship.
Not all bonds of philia involves reciprocity Aristotle notes. Some examples of these might include love of father to son, elder to younger or ruler to subject. Generally though, the bonds of philia are symmetrical.
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