Friendship

Use in the book

Friendly address pervades a conversation that includes embarrassment, teasing and sharp refutation. Socrates addresses his unnamed listener as a companion and repeatedly calls his interlocutors friends. Such vocatives do not by themselves prove intimacy or erase the unequal positions of adult and youth. The school exercise at 161d places friends beside enemies: writing either person’s name is ordinary learning, so friendship cannot determine whether the act counts as doing one’s own business. More consequentially, Socrates at 166d explains that scrutiny is undertaken chiefly for his own sake, and perhaps also for his other friends or associates. He immediately broadens the justification to a good common to nearly all people. Friendship therefore belongs to the stated purposes of examination, not merely to polite address. The cautious “perhaps” is worth keeping: the primary avowed motive is protection against his own unrecognized ignorance. At 158e the impersonal construction with philon makes a proposal welcome or desirable; it does not identify a new friend.

Places to read

1. 154bThe narrator addresses his unnamed listener as hetaire.
2. 158e“If it is welcome to you” asks whether Charmides wants the joint examination.
3. 161dFriends’ and enemies’ names are both written in the school exercise.
4. 166c–166e2Socrates places friends or associates beside himself as possible beneficiaries of scrutiny, then invokes the common good.

Translation in this edition

English “friend” gathers more than one Greek expression. The translation’s “other friends” at 166d renders epitēdeiōn, so a search restricted to the phil- family would miss a philosophically important occurrence.

ἄγνωτος

Attested: ἀγνῶτας (agnōtas). People personally unknown to Socrates in the gathering. References: 153a. Lexical identification: lemma: ἄγνωτος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἀσπάζομαι

Attested: ἠσπάζοντο (ēspazonto). They greeted or welcomed him; social recognition before philosophical questioning. References: 153b. Lexical identification: lemma: ἀσπάζομαι. See Friendship and companionship.

γνώριμος

Attested: γνωρίμους / γνωρίμων (gnōrimous / gnōrimōn). Personally known or familiar; describes Socrates’ acquaintances at the palaestra and those reported killed in the battle. References: 153a, 153c. Lexical identification: lemma: γνώριμος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἐπιτήδειος

Attested: ἐπιτηδείων (epitēdeiōn). Associates or friends; people with whom Socrates wants to examine truth for a shared good. References: 166d. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐπιτήδειος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἑταῖρος

Attested: ἑταῖρε (hetaire). Companion or familiar addressee; Socrates’ conversational address need not imply a formal association. References: 154b. Lexical identification: lemma: ἑταῖρος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἐχθρός

Attested: ἐχθρῶν (echthrōn). Enemies; the schoolchildren write their enemies’ names as well as their own and their friends’. References: 161d. Lexical identification: lemma: ἐχθρός. See Friendship and companionship.

κοινὸν ἀγαθόν

Attested: κοινὸν οἴει ἀγαθὸν (koinon oiei agathon). A common or shared good; Socrates says that making clear how each thing stands benefits nearly everyone, explaining why examination is not merely a contest against Critias. References: 166d. Lexical identification: phrase template: κοινὸν ἀγαθόν. See Friendship and companionship.

φίλος

Attested: φίλε / φίλων / φίλον (phile / philōn / philon). Friend, friendly person or familiar address; the neuter can mean welcome or pleasing, as context requires. References: 155a, 155c, 157c, 158b, 160c, 169a, 172b, 173d, 174c, 161d, 158e. Lexical identification: lemma: φίλος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἄριστε (ariste)

My excellent fellow; a courteous vocative used within a probing question, not a proof of excellence. References: 168d. Lemma: ἄριστος. See Friendship and companionship.

βέλτιστε (beltiste)

My good fellow; a polite or pointed vocative, not a considered ranking of Critias’ moral worth. References: 162d. Lemma: βελτίων. See Friendship and companionship.

γνωρίμους (gnōrimous)

People personally known to Socrates; acquaintances, not automatically intimate friends. References: 153a. Lemma: γνώριμος. See Friendship and companionship.

ἑπόμενον (hepomenon)

Following; describes the crowd accompanying the youths, while at 173d Socrates uses the verb for following an argument so far. References: 154a. Lemma: ἕπομαι. See Friendship and companionship.

κατέλαβον (katelabon)

Found or came upon; Socrates encounters a mixed company of familiar and unfamiliar people. References: 153a. Lemma: καταλαμβάνω. See Friendship and companionship.

συνόντα (synonta)

Being with or associating with; Charmides remembers Socrates’ company with Critias. References: 156a. Lemma: σύνειμι (be with). See Friendship and companionship.

Use in the book

Alcibiades identifies friendship among citizens as the condition by which a city becomes better tended and ordered, paired with the absence of hatred and faction (126b–c2). This answer is constructive: he recognizes that the city requires a quality of relations among its people, not merely resources or coercive strength. It also provides the proposed result of the ruler's good counsel. The test is whether he can explain that result precisely enough to identify a political craft.

Socrates asks whether friendship is concord or discord, and Alcibiades chooses concord. Their next examples make concord depend on knowledge shared within a subject. Alcibiades responds by pointing to loving family relationships. A father loves his son, a mother her child, brothers one another, and husband and wife each other. But the household's division of work allows one partner to know what the other does not. If affection requires shared specialist understanding, it will be absent precisely where husband and wife perform their separate tasks.

Alcibiades protests that doing one's own business is what creates friendship and civic order. He also accepts that such conduct is just, and that just citizens must be friends. Socrates concludes that friendship seems now present, now absent in the same people, under Alcibiades' account (127d). The impasse concerns the proposed identification and its application; it is not a denial that the relatives genuinely love each other. The text needs the familiarity of these attachments for the difficulty to bite.

The passage can thus be read as uncovering a difference between practical interdependence and agreement in expert judgments, but that is a diagnosis of the problem, not a solution explicitly adopted by the speakers. The dialogue leaves the successful definition of civic friendship unstated. It instead brings Alcibiades to recognize that he does not know what he is saying and must begin caring for himself.

Elsewhere friends are not philosophical abstractions: family connections are among Alcibiades' presumed advantages at 104a–b, and helping friends in battle supplies the test case of courageous action at 115b–116a2. The civic argument broadens this ordinary relational vocabulary into a possible account of what makes a whole city good. Its failure shows why a politician must do more than invoke the name of a valued relation.

Places to read

1. 104a–104bFriends and kin are counted among Alcibiades’ social advantages
2. 115b–116a2Helping friends in battle is fine through courage despite the risk of death
3. 126b–126e23Friendship is proposed as civic improvement and illustrated through familial love
4. 127a–127d2Identification with concord clashes with specialized work and just conduct

Translation in this edition

“Friendship” renders φιλία, while the corresponding verb appears as “love” and “be loved.” The entry does not treat every occurrence of English “love” as belonging to this family. Socrates' oath by Zeus Philios at 109d is a religious use of the friendship family, treated under the divine and personal entries rather than as a definition of civic philia.

φιλία / φιλέω

Attested: φιλία (philia; 126c); φιλῶν (philōn; 126e); φιλοῦνται (philountai; 127a). At 126c: Friendship among citizens proposed as what makes the city better. At 126e: A father loving his son, an example of the relationship Alcibiades calls concord. At 127a: Being loved by husbands, apparently denied in the respect of separate expertise under the tested definition. Lexical identification: family label: φιλία / φιλέω. See Civic friendship.

Use in the book

Friendship becomes the proposed answer to a breach of conversational trust. Socrates quotes Hipparchus’ command not to deceive a friend and immediately calls the companion his friend. The reasoning is practical and personal: if he is a friend and obeys the wise man, Socrates should not be deceiving him. It does not follow merely from knowing or admiring the maxim that he actually fulfils it.

The companion makes precisely that distinction. He replies that either Socrates does not regard him as a friend or does not obey Hipparchus. His continuing conviction that he is being deceived refuses to let the relationship be established simply by Socrates’ declaration. Friendship is tested by the conduct of the argument rather than secured by a friendly address.

The prohibition’s narrow object also matters. “Do not deceive a friend” does not state that deceiving everyone else is permitted, and the dialogue does not discuss such permission. Conversely, converting it into an unrestricted maxim against all deception would remove the condition on which the companion’s dilemma relies. The speaker’s immediate ethical resource is a particular reciprocal relationship.

Earlier the argument has claimed that everyone loves good things. Friendship introduces an ethical requirement involving someone other than the person who gains. This creates a possible tension between a universal desire for benefit and responsibility for another’s trust. The dialogue does not solve that tension by offering an account of shared good, yet Socrates’ offer to take back a move can be read as an attempt to repair the relationship in practice. Whether the repair succeeds remains qualified by the companion’s final distinction between being compelled and being persuaded.

Places to read

1. 229bμὴ φίλον ἐξαπάτα — The negative command singles out a friend as the person not to deceive.
2. 229bσὲ ἐμοὶ ὄντα φίλον — Socrates explicitly applies the relation to his interlocutor.
3. 229dεἰ ἡγῇ φίλον — The companion turns Socrates’ estimate of their relationship into a condition.
4. 229eἵνα μὴ οἴῃ — The offer of revision addresses the companion’s belief that he is deceived.

Translation in this edition

The edition uses “love” for φιλεῖν and “friend” for φίλος in the maxim; the lexical kinship should be visible without forcing identical English expressions into unlike contexts. Its “think me a friend” preserves that the companion challenges Socrates’ acknowledgment of the relationship, not merely the external label attached to their meeting.

Use in the book

Friends appear in two practical settings. At 136c Socrates asks what the lover would do if a friend he cared greatly about fell sick. Concern for another person sharpens the demand for competent help: the doctor’s expertise matters because someone dear needs health. At 138e friends entrust arbitrations to the philosopher. He is now the person whose competence must justify their trust.

The parallel is significant. In the first case the cultivated man must recognize another’s superior knowledge; in the second he must possess adequate judgment himself. Philosophy cannot be defined solely by being an impressive participant in discussions if people have reason to rely on its practitioner for decisions affecting them.

The text pairs the friends’ private entrustment with the city’s command to decide or judge something. It thereby covers more than formal political office. The philosopher need not be a king to encounter a responsibility in which second or third place would be shameful. Ordinary relations of trust can require authoritative practical judgment.

No actual lawsuit, named friend or disputed matter is given. The passage is hypothetical and does not prescribe a detailed arbitration procedure. It also does not establish that being someone’s friend alone supplies the knowledge to judge well. Friendship provides the occasion of trust; the entire preceding argument concerns the competence necessary to deserve it.

Places to read

1. 136cτῶν φίλων τις τῶν σῶν περὶ ὧν σὺ σπουδὴν μεγάλην ἔχεις — A cared-for friend makes the medical test personally serious.
2. 138eἐάντε οἱ φίλοι αὐτῷ διαίτας ἐπιτρέπωσιν — Friends may entrust arbitrations to the philosopher.
3. 138eἐάντε ἡ πόλις τι προστάττῃ — Private trust is paired with a public assignment.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s “arbitrations” is a contextual rendering of diaitai, not a reason to give every occurrence of the Greek noun that meaning. Keeping the friends and city as two possible sources of an assignment prevents the final demand from being narrowed to royal government alone.

Use in the book

At 207c the boys’ friendship is already treated as a fact of their lives. The theoretical inquiry later asks what can explain such a relation. At 214d “true friendship” is associated with the proposed friendship of good persons, but the adequacy of that proposal is immediately tested.

The noun also applies beyond reciprocal personal friendship. At 217e it names attachment to the good; at 219a medicine has gained the body’s friendship for the sake of health. At 220b the plural “so-called friendships” names attachments that lead toward what is really dear. The noun belongs to the broad inquiry about φίλον rather than one modern definition of friendship.

At 221d–e desire is proposed as its cause, and friendship is placed beside erotic love and desire as directed toward the akin. The ending does not deny that the speakers are friends; it withholds a successful definition of what a friend is.

Places to read

1. 221dἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς φιλίας αἰτία — desire [as] the cause of friendship.
2. 207c
3. 214d
4. 215d
5. 217e–219a23
6. 220b
7. 221d–e
8. 223b

Use in the book

The harmonious-soul fragment places friendship beside love, sorrow and ordinary activities. Harmony does not require exemption from sorrow or business. The note on bonne chère locates tender friendship in treatment of a guest: fare includes reception and welcome, not food alone. Joubert then associates chère, charité and aimance. This verbal movement connects hospitality to lovingness, but its attraction as an association is not proof of its etymology.

Places to read

1. II, p. 557, entry 8, ¶1Friendship is one sphere of the harmonious soul.
2. II, p. 744, entry 9, ¶1Hospitality manifests joy and tender friendship.

Translation in this edition

The English translation preserves friendship and tender friendship. It uses “fare” with a note on the wider hospitality sense, and “lovingness” as a contextual rendering of aimance. The derivation remains Joubert’s proposal, not a claim endorsed by the lexicon.

Use in the book

The book itself enacts friendship by offering knowledge intended to make another a possessor of the world. Divine friendship is abundant rather than exclusive: other creatures are added so that the beloved has companions and witnesses of happiness. Human society can likewise become an exchange of whole lives and joys, each friend receiving the good of the other. Traherne does not ignore its vulnerability. Mortal friendships change, so God must remain the sovereign friend. Repentance also belongs within friendship, where an offending person’s contrition can renew a damaged relation.

Places to read

1. I.3The promised explanation of universal inheritance is offered as an act of friendship.
2. I.68Divine friendship multiplies companions instead of isolating the beloved.
3. IV.19Mutual self-giving enriches society, while the instability of human friendships requires a firmer ground.
4. III.83Contrition and praise are understood as expressions and renewals of friendship.

In this edition

The language can be intimate without identifying a biographical correspondent. “Friend” within a meditation should not be assigned a historical name unless the text supplies one.

Use in the book

Friendship matures like fruit, strengthens through conversation, and need not rest on likeness. François’s spontaneous poetry consoles a speaker who believes himself unlike his friend; difference becomes a reason for the attachment rather than its defect. With Élie, speculative discussion and modest shared tasks combine thought with ease. Such relationships are active conditions of inward life.

Hospitality gives them a material form. Le Val is not merely a beautiful setting but a household whose daily rhythm shelters the visitor between retreat and the world. The feeling of home involves greetings, meals, shared work, and a voice announcing dinner. Even the imagined microscopic retreat remains open to a guest who comes in sympathy. Guérin’s strongest fantasies of withdrawal thus preserve a threshold for another person.

Parting reveals what habitual proximity concealed. Only after leaving Lamennais does he recognize the inward tearing of separation. The notebook itself can then become a substitute friend, receiving speech that the crowd makes impossible. This substitution should not obscure the human friendships that made its ideal possible. Exile is felt most acutely as the loss of a particular quality of presence and understanding.

Places to read

1. 13 August 1832 · ¶3Friendship acquires seriousness and sweetness through maturation.
2. 7 May 1833 · ¶1Difference from François becomes a source of consolation rather than a barrier to friendship.
3. 4 July 1833 · ¶1Even a self-walled microscopic world admits a sympathetic visitor.
4. 1 October 1833 · ¶3Separation reveals an attachment to Lamennais that daily habit had left partly unobserved.
5. 20 December 1833 · ¶2Hospitality is embodied in the recurring acts and voices of family life.

Translation in this edition

The supplied English keeps “friendship” for amitié even where the feeling is ardent. At the opening, Guérin’s own English at home and his French chez soi remain visible; the translator does not invent that bilingual meditation on belonging.

Use in the book

René treats Amélie's apparent joy at his departure and avoidance of his return as proofs that human friendship is inconstant. The later revelation alters the evidence: conduct he read as indifference can be understood as an effort to resist forbidden desire. His generalizations are built on incomplete knowledge of the person closest to him.

The two elders offer another kind of relation. Their approaches differ, but both persist in trying to hear him. Chactas supplies indulgence and touch; Souël supplies an austere demand that feeling become duty. Their disagreement is not a choice between friendship and its absence. The outer narrator explicitly attributes compassion to the severe priest, and Chactas accepts the substance of the rebuke.

The closing return toward their cabins restores the image of three companions, while René's unhappy reunion with his wife remains only a report. Friendship can secure a hearing and exert pressure without guaranteeing transformation. The narrative thereby resists making either sympathetic reception or moral advice a sufficient cure by itself.

Places to read

1. p. 148l'inconséquence des amitiés humaines — René generalizes before he understands Amélie’s motives.
2. p. 156l'amitié, que la présence attiédit — The accusation emerges from another misread separation.
3. p. 140de douceur et d'autorité — The listeners combine affection with pressure to disclose.
4. p. 189un cœur compatissant — The narrator qualifies Souël’s outward severity.
5. p. 191Les trois amis — The group remains a relation after the correction.

Translation in this edition

The French term amitié must not be silently translated as erotic love whenever it describes René and Amélie. Their asymmetrical knowledge matters. Equally, the word's acceptable surface can be part of how her letter expresses more than René initially understands. The lexicon preserves both possibilities without collapsing them.