The Beauty of Friendship

7/24/2019 The Beauty of Friendship

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gnes Heller

The eauty of Friendship

Ihe representative stories about emstold by

Plato in the Symposium and the

Phaedrus,

to-

gether with a few other themes developed in

other dialogues, became the narrative ground of

beauty. Our desire is attracted bybeautyitis

beauty that we desire. Plato speaks also

ofphUia

(love as

friendship)

andphilein(to love, to be a

friend of), especially in

the Lysis,buthere,

much

as in

Plato'sother representative narratives,philia

remains closely associated witheras.Philosophy

(the love orfriendshipof wisdom) is also an ob-

ject of our desire. We love wisdom, that is, we

desire it, because we do not possess

it.What

we

love is perfection, and we, the lovers, are not

perfectwhich

is

why we

desire perfection.

The strongerotidzationof philia

can

bearwit-

ness to a tragic life experience. Plato rejected

tragedy as a politically dangerous genre, but he

still believed in

the

existence

and

power of tragic

experience.Ourwholelife is justasingle strenu-

ous effort to findtheobject ofourdesire, to pos-

sess something which cannot be possessed, to

achieve

autarkyself-sufficiencythe

only state

where we can finally find peace. Plato's percep-

tion oferasis not

a

happy

one;

rather, it reminds

The

South Atlantic Quarterly97:1,Winter1998.

Copyright 0 1 9 9 8 by Duke University Press.


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6

Agnes Heller

me of the daemon's ironic comment, described by Aeschylus and quoted

by Nietzsche, that the best thing for man is never to be born, and the sec-

ond best is to die young. The state o f autarky is like the state o f death, not

necessarily physically but m entally: an autarkic person dies for all hum an

relationships. One cannot get rid of desire before death, nor can one be

happy before death. Since it is both archaic and tragic, Plato's narrative

does not elevateeras but devalues it. More precisely, eras has no value of

its own; it is just a vehicle, a mediator, a kind o f energy source that serves

som ething else above and beyonditself.

The concept o f the beautiful which emerges from this story can develop

in two different ways. One can take it in the direction of extrem e sublima-

tion:

the beauty that w e desire is thought o f as som ethin g entirely spiritual

or mental, a kind of beauty that we do not see or hear and which does

not shake us emotionally (for there is no emotional involvement without

bodily pain or pleasure). The storyteller can alternatively take beauty in a

direction that still preserves th ese th em es but in another orchestration: in-

stead oferaswe seephiliaem erging.

The arch-narrativeo f philiaor

phUein

was n ot told by Plato but by Aris-

totle. This was a second, and different kind of,

"beginning.''

And if one

thinks genealogically, one must conclude that modern concepts of love

have gained as much inspiration from Aristotle's story

of philia

as from

Plato's story oferas.This can easily be docu mented. What will be m ore

dif-

ficult to make explicit is my thesis that the kind of love the Greeks called

philia,that is, friendship as it appeared in Aristotle and reappeared in all

variations on Aristotle's concept, has as great an affinitytobeauty as Plato's

erasdoes.

But you need not take it from me that the arch-narrative of friendship

was invented by Aristotle. You can rely o n Derrida'sPolitics

of Friendship,

1

as Ido. To briefly recapitulate its m ain th em es: Derrida takes as the repre-

sentative senten ce on friendship the pseudo-Aristotelian rhetorical address

(attributed or misattributed to A ristotle by Diogenes Laertius): "My dear

friends, there are no friends''; or, in another version, "My dear friends,

there is no friend.'' In fact, Derrida follows the historical vicissitudes of

this address, the twists and turns of its philosophical interpretations, in

the works o f Cicero, Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, and Carl Schm itt, am ong

others. These brilliant analyses and interpretations, however, do not even

touch on the question of beauty. As the title of his book shows, Derrida


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BeautyofFriendship 7

is mainly interested in the political implications of friendship, hence his

choice of guiding sentence. I, however, am interested in friendship's re-

lationship to beauty; therefore, my guiding sentence will be a different

oneanotherfamous pseudo-Aristotelian statement"Plato is my friend,

but

Truth

ismy

better

friend";or the

more

pleasant-sounding"I

love

Plato,

but I love Truth more." That is, if

I

must choose between my friend and

the truth,Iwill choose the truth and abandon my friend. This is not just

a statement of personal preference nor one meantto represent the merely

occasional preference ofaperson called Aristotle.Itis to be understood as

normative, as saying that in the case of a conflict between friendship and

truth,

a

philosopher should

do as I do and

choose truth. The choice ispain-

ful, but the outcome of the conflict between these two emotional involve-

ments is not in doubt. If you are a philosopher, if you love wisdom, that

love ofwisdomthe truthshouldtake precedence over all other loves.

"Doingthe

right

thing"is identified

with

choosing truth, forto

choose your

frienduntruthwouldmean abandoning philosophy, undoing yourself

as a philosopher (an ideareminiscentof Max Weber or, at the very least,

Kierkegaard). The philosopher's absolute obligation to choose the truth

overhis friend

follows

from his initial choice of guiding daemon.

In this pseudo-Aristotelian formula, truth cannot be replacedby justice.

If it could, the sentence would fit perfectly

into manytraditional,

and most

modern, ethics. One could then say that in the case of a conflict between

the virtue ofjusticeand the virtue of loyalty, it is generally (if not always)

better to choose justice, for the virtue of justice (as the sum total of the

other virtues) stands higher than that of loyalty. Furthermore, in the case

of such a choice, I remain in the territory of ethics, ofwhat is valid for

everyone

(or at

least for all men) in

a

similar position.

But

when

my

choice

is betweenafriend and the truth,Ileave the territory of "everyone." Isee

the truth even if there is no one else to seeit; Iknow what truth is even if

there is no second person to share this knowledge.Loyaltyto my friend is

simply

ethicaleveryone

knows what loyalty is. Nevertheless, I sacrifice,

or I should sacrifice, loyalty to this knowledge, this insightmytruth,

thetruthtothis ghost. Aristotle, of course, would never have said "my

truth." His truth

was

Truthaboutthe cosmos, man, being and thinking;

about theend, the good,and truthitself;in other words, about everything.

Seen in this light, the choice between truth and friendship isachoice not

between two virtues but between an absolute claim

and

the claims of per-


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8 Agnes Heller

sonallove or loyalty. If formulated in this way, there is no choice at a l l -

love fortheAbsolute is the absolute love.

Let me now, for a moment, take Plato's perspective. How would Plato

have answered Aristotle's challenge? Hewould haveaccused Aristotle of a

double betrayal. He would have said something like Aristotle was disloyal

to m e, but even worse, in abandoning truth for untruth, he betrayed both

friendship and truth. He chases a chimera; he cherishes a misconception

about truth. For

I

am the one

who

holds the key

to

Truth, and all my loyal

students share it.

This pseudo-Aristotelian sentence can be uttered with conviction only

by someonewho, abandonedby his friend(inthiscase Plato), would aban-

don his friend (Aristotle) in

turn

forthesame reasonand inthe sameway.

All the traditionalschoolsof philosophy hold that you should love the tram

more than your

friend,

who can be and remain your friend only if you both

share the same truth. Is "truth-sharing'' a beautiful relationship? Is the

choice oftruthabeautifulchoice?Isitthechoice of beauty? Platosaysthat

we cannot desire what we possess.Yet,for Aristotle, saying

I

love Truth

more" means knowing what Truth is. IfIsay, Ilove truth," I am in pos-

session of the truth, which is whyI canbe the friend of truth.

Plato

would

say that I am not in possession of the truth, yet I have foreknowledge of

Truth. Driven to it byens,by my love of wisdom (philosophy), I approxi-

mate Truth. But for Plato mere was essentially only one representative,

all-encompassing, absolute philosophy. For Aristotle, however, because of

the pluralization of metaphysical philosophy within the same school, the

same city, and even among friends, the schism seemed necessary. The

pseudo-Aristotelian sentence conveys the message of a drama. Aristotle's

turning away from Plato was not like Spinoza's turning away from Des-

cartes.

The

pseudo-Aristotelian sentence speaksofthefirstchoice between

anabsoluteyet nontraditional

(and

in

this

sense personal) Tramand aper-

sonal, untraditional friend. But if we leave drama behind and speak of the

philosophical "core" of the sentence, we return to the thought that it is

only

inourpossession ofthe

beloved (Truth) that

we can

love

it(thetruth).

The

history of philosophy is

the

historyof disloyalty,

the

history of betrayal

for thesake of

a truth that

thephilosopher (allegedly) possesses.

The modern, particularly the postmodern, philosopher or philosophical

thinker renounces the claim to possess

the

truth." She can truthfully dis-

close what is true of all philosophical truths, that what is possessed is my


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Beauty of Friendship 9

truth." Whether she says (with Kierkegaard) that truth is subjective

orsub-

scribes (with Nietzsche) toa perspectivistconcept of truth or points (with

Heidegger) toaletheia,it amounts

to

the

same

thing:

I

believe in

my

truth,

embrace it, take responsibility for it, for I love it (whetherIbelievematI

also possess it ornot).At the same

time,

I admit that others

may

have

other

lovesandmay possess other truths, not just because they claim to possess

them but because they also take responsibility for them. We still have a

desire to abandon ourselves to something or someone, to a cause or mis-

sion,

in order

to

overcome our metaphysical solitude, but the ethical issue

lies in whether or not to follow the voice ofthisdesire unconditionally.

It is difficult to determine whether abandoning ourselves unconditionally

to our truth is morally permitted. That depends on the character of our

truth, on our situation and other factors. If we address this truth as

my

truth'' and not as thetruth," however, the danger of moral transgression

will be limited. In

any

case, if all of this sounds true, then a

(postmodern

philosopher or philosophical thinker will not betray philosophy or philo-

sophical thinking if he loves his friend better than his truth. Moreover, in

all probabilitythischoice will not presentitself.Thethinkerhashis friend

andpossesses his truth; his friendcanpossessanothertruth. Ifbothtruths

are morally permissible, why should one choose between friendship and

truth? Or, assuming that someone who has

a

dear friend desires truth yet

does not possess it, why should he abandon the friend whom he has and

desiresforsomething (truth)

that

he

desires

but does not possess?

The demise of metaphysics brought about the demise of philosophi-

cal

schools.

Truefriendships, in becoming less like truth-sharing alliances

even among philosophers who still emphatically embrace their personal

truth, have become more personal, more subjective. Ideological friend-

ships still remind us of old times, yet they are generally short-lived; an

ideological alliance like the one between Heidegger and Jaspers lasts only

as long as the conditions that make it necessary or desirable. Such alli-

ances represent a kind of

camaraderie

in civic

battlesunless,

of course,

personal love outlives the common cause.

Everything said so

far has

pointed to the importance of the Aristotelian

move to abolish, or at least to avoid, the strictPlatonistdistinction be-

tween possessing and desiring. The difference betweenphiliaanderas is

less important than the fact that the relationship between possession and

desire is what essentially makes the difference between friendship and


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10

Agnes Heller

passionate love. In friendship there is desire,ems (at least there can be),

but there is also possession oftheperson (or thing or thought) mat one

desires. The

beauty of

friendship

s the unity of possession and desire. For

this and only this kind of love is love

infreedom

andreciprocity.There is

freedom in every kind of

beautythe

free play of imagination, the free

handling of

artistic

material, and so on. Friendship is the most beautiful

emotional attachment because it

is

freely chosen, freely cultivated; it flour-

ishes in reciprocity, mutual possession, and mutual self-abandon. Sartre

said convincingly (inL Etreet le neant) that one can be free only in aban-

doning oneself to another. Freedom becomes actualized in self-alienation.

This was, for Sartre, a tragic fact of

life,

since he believed that reciprocity

was impossible.Aristotletherealist oftheRhetoricsdidnot have high

expectations for human relationships. But his two Ethics, both models for

later moral philosophy, are normative, though not in an extreme sense.

Aristotle presents uswith virtuesnormsthatcanbe practiced,yetwhich

arefrequently not practiced.Thisis preeminently true of Aristotelian first

friendship. Much later, Kant did something similar in hisMetaphysic of

Ethics.After quoting Aristotle on absolute friendship, headdedthat itwas

extremely rare but possible nonetheless. This is what makes the differ-

ence between

the

most morally sublime

human

attachment

and the

choice

of maxims according to duty.

We

do not know whether anyone has ever

chosen

all

of his maxims according

to

moral law,

and

in all probability

that

law is only approximated. Butprate

phUia,

as rare as it is, is possible and

visible; here one can hit the center of the circle, for friendship is the sen-

sual, perceptible actualization of human perfectionandvirtue.

Perfect friendship is morally good, and it is also beautiful; it contains

and embodies the promise of happiness.

It

is where virtue

and

grace, pos-

session and desire, coalesce. Friendship, not erotic love, is the beautiful

human relationship.

Aristotle's model of friendship is well-known from the Nicomachean

Ethics,

the Eudemian

Ethics,

and, though in all probability not one of his

genuine works, theMagna

Moralia.

Friendship belongs to ethics; it is a

virtue. In none of these three ethical treatises do we find the emphatic

stance toward Truth of the oft-quoted master sentence attributed to Aris-

totle. He speaks mainly to common citizens and, with the possible ex-

ception of book10of the

Nicomachean

Ethics,to nonphilosophers. Those

common citizens were, as we are today, hardly faced with a dramatic


7/18


choice betweenfriendship

and

truth. Friends are freely chosen. Although

we frequently call our friends our brothers, they are not brothers. Freely

chosen relationships are closer than blood relationships. Friendship is, as

we know, always mutual. It is reciprocal precisely because it is a relation-

ship.

Both parties in

afriendshipabandon

themselves fully

to

their friend.

Myfriendreceivesmy freedom, asIreceive his.

Freedom is an organic element in beauty, but as freechokeit is also a

moral matter. Indeed, it is preeminently a moral matter. In any ethically

relevant choice, the chooser takes responsibility for something. It is for

the sake of

living

up to this responsibility that I (as chooser) sometimes,

perhapsfrequently,do not do the things I like doing m ost or that I exert

pressure against

my own

impulses, causing

pain and

self-conflict. Nothing

like this happens in friendship, which is ethical because turning toward

the

other

in love is praiseworthy. But

I

abandon myself in freedom;

I

aban-

don myselfto a person whosefriendshipIpossess,asheabandonshimself

tome,

whose friendship he possesses.

There

is no conflict between

us,

and

none within us. Living up to my responsibility to him, as he does to me,

requires neither of us to make painful spiritual sacrifices.

It

is joyful

to

live

up to this responsibility; it is what we wish for most, what we both most

desire. Whatever I do for the other is my pleasure and not my duty. Re-

sponsibility itselfispleasure, never duty. In friendship, where possession

and desirecoalesceinprote philia(i.e.,special

friendship

irstfriendship,

bestfriendship)reasonand passion coalesce. And the coalescence be-

tween reasonandpassion iswhat wecall the beautiful: it is beautiful.

Aristotle'sprote philiaresembles Aristophanes' mythic encounter of the

two separate halves of

man/woman

in Plato's

Symposium.

Yet it is also

essentially different, and it is this difference which makes

friendship

(the

absolute relationship) beautiful in Aristotle's philosophy. The encounter,

the eternal embrace, in the myth of Aristophanes is likefateitis

fateful.

These halves have not chosen to be cut offfromone another, nor do they

choose to be reunited; instead, they are driven together by an irresistible

desire to embrace. But inprote philiathe free choice comes first because

it is a relationship founded on mutual free choice. The irresistible drive

or desire to be together, to live together, to see each other constantly and

never to be separated from oneanotherinshort, everything that Aris-

totle enumerates among the manifestations ofprote philiaresults from

that

free

andmutual choice.Desire enters the world and ihe works of friendship


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12 Agnes Heiler

ikroutfifreedom.Itstill remains irresistible.Butsincethisdesiregrowsout

offreedom,neither of the twofriendswants to resist it, so in this sense it

is not irresistible.

Harmony

and

symmetry, on the one hand, the unity of reason

and

emo-

tion,

on the other, are the most characteristic constituents of beautiful

phenomena.Prote philia

is

the

most

beautiful of them all. Although friend-

ship is an ethical matter, it is also beyond the realm ofmoralityinthe

same way and to the same extent that a beautiful statue or a beautiful

poem is. Since there is no drama, no painful conflict tears apart the soul,

and no moral practice per se is required to preserve the capacity for re-

sponsibility. First friendship is ethical, insofaras

friends

doforeachother

all of those things which qualify as "virtuous" or "good" in ethics; yet first

friendship is also beyond ethics, for the motivation ofthefriendss not

moral but emotional. Finally,

irstfriendship

cannot go against morality,

for only righteous and brave men have the capacity to be suchfriends; thus

do

beauty

and

morality coalesce.

Plato idolizes self-sufficiency [autarkeia). A person is most free if he

needsanddesires nothing because he is in possession of everything. Aris-

totle takes up this idea too;protephiliais indeed a relationship between

two autarkic persons. Aristotle speculates on this issue: Why would two

men,

each of whom is self-sufficient, stillneed a friend?

For,

miraculously,

they do. The two are ofoneonesoul in two bodies. Together, they are

self-sufficient, autarkic. Being

for

one another belongs

to the

goodness and

the autarky of best friends, which is also their freedom. This sounds very

Nietzschean, like close friendship.

It

is not out of

any

need,lack,or deficit

that someone seeks a friend. Best friends are always living in abundance;

spilling

over with the

plenteousness of

life,they arerich,

not

poor.

Friend-

ship is a plus, an addition to wholeness; it is a gift given by, and received

by, such men who are already in possession of more than they need. It is

not the deficiencybut the Beingof one anotherthat triggersthis love.

Beforefollowingthis thread any further, a few other elements in Aris-

totle's concept of friendship must be considered, as these will have some

bearing on thequestion ofthe beautyoftheabsolute relationship. Aristotle

analyzes friendship in

terms

of

the

categories

of

quantity, quality,ime and

space.I havealready mentioned qualityandspace.Thatfriendship s freely

chosen and reciprocal, that afriendpossesses what he desires, and vice

versa,pertains to thequality offriendship;goodnessand autarky arequali-


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Beauty

of

Friendship

13

tiesofprate

philia.

As is well-known, Aristotle distinguished among three

kinds of friendship(friendshipsof utility, of pleasure,

and

those based on

the good). But why must absolute friendship be based on goodness? Why

must absolute friends be good? This sounds like an artificial condition.

We can recall counterexamples of morally ambiguous, sometimes even

wicked, men who were goodfriendsnotfor the sake of utility or plea-

sure, but just for friendship's

sakeand

who remained true to each other

until death. On the basis of such examples we could say that Aristotle's

condition (goodness) was artificial, serving only to satisfy his theoretical

presuppositions.

But was not Aristotle right, in spite of the fact that morally problem-

aticandwicked men can maintain ties of friendship for friendship's sake?

Perhaps such friendships only resembleprate philia,being in fact eroticat-

tachments of the

Platonic tradition

kind;or,perhaps

such

ambiguous char-

acters can keep an entirelymoral/ethicalkind of friendship as a "niche"

of virtue in their personal

lives.

Shakespeare knew all about friendship, so

I defer to his wisdom. Consider, for example, his portrayal ofthe friend-

ship of Brutus and Cassius. It is absolutely reciprocal, but while Brutus

is an altogether morally motivated man"self-sufficient" in the Aristo-

teliansenseCassiusis far from flawless. The latter entertains personal

ambitions; he is resentful, jealous, and suspicious. But these character

flaws sharpen his political intuition, whereas the virtuous Brutus remains

politically naive. Their difference in this regard leads to repeated conflicts

between these two "best friends," in all of which Cassius is politically

right. He knows only toowellasShakespeare shows in the great alter-

cation

scenethat

if he gives in to Brutus, their common cause will be

lost. ButforCassius friendship stands higherthanvictory, eventhevictory

of that cause. It is precisely because the Brutus/Cassius friendship is not

archetypical

of

prate

philia,

butratheranattachmentwhichmerely approxi-

mates thearchetypeonlyone of the friends (Brutus) being an absolutely

moral

personthat

Cassius's decisions in all

conftictual

situations will be

made on purely moral

rather

than prudential grounds. The friendship of

the "noble" Brutus, which he possesses, is the highest good that Cassius

desires; and

for

the sake of this friendship, for the sake ofBrutus'sappro-

bation, he is ready to give up

everythinghis

cause and his life included.

At least, this is how Shakespeare, whose wisdom is deeper than the "love

of wisdom," sees their friendship.


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14 Agnes Heller

What mainly constitutesquality in Aristotle's model ofprote philia is

the perfect goodness of both friends. But if each friend were a man of

perfect goodness, their attachment to one another would not entail any

conflicts requiring virtuous choices.

In

the case of friends like Brutus and

Cassius, their friendship is continually being tested and reaffirmedbythe

possibility and the actuality of virtuous choice.

The

Aristotelian archetype

is,inamodern setting, tantamount to Nietzschean close friendship. Each

partybecomes what heisamong otherthings, the best friend of his best

friendbyfollowing

his own destiny.

2

Now let me proceed to the categoryofquantity.One cannot have many

friends,and prote

philia

archetypicallyoccurs between twofriends.Onecan

have perhaps three or four close friends, simultaneously or successively.

The more close friends one has, the less one's chance of having a "first

friendship." This absolute friendship is by definition intensive, not exten-

sivethere

are not many "firsts" or "bests." Hegel speaks of theintensive

infinitudeof a work of art, an expression that also itsfirstfriendship, the

resources of which cannot be exhausted.Extensive infinitude,by contrast,

entails the pursuit of more and new knowledge, more and new experi-

encewithmoreanddifferent menandthings. Afteroneexperience should

come the next. (Don Giovanni is the hero of

extensive

infinitude.) In the

case of intensive infinitude, one continually rechooses the same man, the

same relationship.

The

more often one repeats that choice, the more of an

inexhaustible resourcethe otherbecomes.Icannot repeat it often enough:

in first friendship one desires what one possesses. Exhausting someone

or something that one possesses is as impossible in this relationship as

embracing everyone or everything that one does not possess. Intensive in-

fin itude means that one is everything; extensive infinitude means that all

is everything.

The unity of possession and desire is beautiful. When you exclaim,

How

beautiful this landscapeis "

or when

you enjoy the beauty of

a

piece

of music, you possess what you desire. The unity of possession and desire

rendersintensive infinitudeas theinfinitude of beauty. Becauseit isin first

friendship that one absolutely and simultaneously possesses and desires

another, it isthebeautiful relationshipparexcellence. Amongalover's de-

sires,the

desire

to

know

(for

Aristotle,

perhaps the

most important of

all

of

our desires) takes pride of place,forovers desire to know each other. The


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Beauty of Friendship

15

unity of possession and desire, where possession is founded on free reci-

procity and desire includes the desire to know the other, the friend, is the

truth offriendshipthat truth whichincludesboth the good and the

beau-

tiful. If every man were my first friend (which is impossible), the world

wouldberedeemed; ifI knewmy friendentirely (which is alsoimpossible),

I would know all ofhumankind. The wonderful, excitingexcursion intothe

labyrinth of each other's soul, as if it were the greatest, utterly inexhaust-

ible work of art, is the greatest adventure,

and

one

from whichinstrumen-

talization is

absent.The

microcosm

is themacrocosm.Thismuch,at

least,

needed

to

be

said

about Aristotle's second category of friendship,quantity.

As

for

histhirdcategory,space,I have alreadybriefly mentionedthat first

friendship means dose

friendshipliterally,

not metaphorically, close.

Best friends desire to be together all the time, or at least to meet fre-

quently.

They

miss each

other when

absent; they

love to

live together. This

means

thatprote jriiilia

knows much suffering

andneed.

One suffers if the

other isabsent;desire becomesunquenchable ifthe otherisfaraway. Such

suffering does not stem from within, from the relationship itself (where

beauty and happiness coalesce), but from the external world. If one of the

best friends dies before the other, the loss cannot compare with any other

loss.Atthe beginning of his book, Derrida makes mention of Montaigne's

suffering over the loss ofhisonly, best, close friend. Nothing and no one

can remedy this loss. No other friend can replace the best friend in the

waythatanew lover can replace even the best lover. Mourning belongs to

dose friendship. Engaging in afirstfriendship includes exposing oneself

to a

fifty/fifty

risk

of suffering inconsolablegrief.

This

is

where the

Platonic

theme of seeking immortality

enterspra te philia.

Friendship is mortal, for man is mortal. But best friend does not die

with best friend;

first

friendship requires the dead friend's survival in the

soul of the living one, as the other or better part of his soul. Our best

friends live on in our souls

as

long

as welive,which

is still

mortality,

but of

a

prolonged kind.

Yet

friends

are

not satisfied

with a

prolonged mortality

they wish their friendship to be immortalized. Storytelling is immortaliz-

ing.

Thefriend mourns, engaging in whatFreudcalled thework

of mourn-

ing.

Inremembering, describing,andnarratingthe storyof the friendship,

the survivor mourns his friend even as he immortalizes their friendship.

In telling this story of happiness, ofanunhealed wound that speaks of


12/18

16

Agnes Heller

fullness, the

remaining

part of

a

soul preserves the whole. Aristophanes

again? Plato again? To a certain degree, but in such a new orchestration

that itcanno longerbe traced back toPlato's narrative.

One reason for this novelty is that Aristotle's normative description of

protephUiais not embedded in

a

more general cosmic vision

or

metaphysi-

caltheory.Everyfriend remains in the memory of the friendwhomourns

him. Recollection is meant

prosaicallyone

remembers a common life.

Lifeisandremains immanent, justas theabsolutedoesin the recollection

of

a

single person, a friend, the surviving and suffering half of

the

soul.

One person recollectsfortwo.

The categories of

ime

and

space

continually overlap and overdetermine

oneanother.Since

friendship is

a

freely

chosen

relationship,

there

is

a

time

in the life ofeachfriend prior to their fateful first encounter, before the

"miracle'' of mutual recognition occurs, during which space is irrelevant.

Where either ofthe friends lived before they met, whether in the same

house

or a

thousand miles

apart,

is of no importance.

In

Nietzsche's meta-

phor offriendshiptwovessels crossing each other's path in the middle

ofan oceanthe"after" is symmetrical with the "before.'' Although this

figure captures a certain kind of friendship (e.g., the one between Nietz-

sche and Wagner), it is not Aristotelianprotc

philia,

in which the "before"

and the "after" are asymmetrical. There is a "before"forboth friends but

an

"after"

foronly one

of

themthe

"after" of mourning, when

space

again

becomes irrelevant. The survivor can mourn in the same spot where the

friends met or he can take his misfortune to the remotest spot on earth.

The friend remains with him, inhiminhis memory and in his soul, as

thebetterpartof his soul.Itis inspace that thefriends

remain

united.The

"after" is the time of recollection and narrative; it is the tim e of the past,

for

there

is no future after

the

death of

a

friend.

The

time of the past is the

time of the narrative.

Protephiliablooms here for the second time. All representative stories

of friendship

are

beautiful not because they

are

beautifully written, but be-

cause they are the stories, the recollections, of a true friendship (whether

narrated in an essay,

a

poem,

a

private letter, or perhaps only in the mem-

ory ofalonely man). Nostalgia is one ofthenames for this beauty. The

past is beautiful, and

friendshipas

mourning, as a story, as the showing

of an openwoundis arepresentative kind of beauty.

Aristotle says many things about friendship's "before." Erotic attraction


13/18


can occur in

an

instant, but

friendship

takes time to develop.

Like

wine, it

getsbetter,tastesbetter,as the years go

by. Yet

(to

speak in

the

Aristotelian

tradition, ifnolonger with Aristotle) friends normally also accord signifi-

canceto themoment o f theirfirstmeeting,theirinitial enchantment. This

is not yet friendship but something like falling in love. Friendship, after

all, develops out of love. Love may not yet be friendship, but first friend-

ship is always love. How else could it be desire? Friendship without erotic

attraction (though not in the sense of sexual attraction) is just camarade-

rie,which has very little

to

do withfirst

friendship.

Theabsolutebeauty ofpratephiliais thus to befoundin Aristotle'snarra-

tive,

to which all narratives

about

first

friendship

recur.But

if Aristotle

was

the

one

who

said,

I

love

Plato,

but

I love Truth

more,"

then

he

was also

the

one who did not put friendship at the top of the ladder. He was prepared

to abandon his

friendbut

for

what?

For the sake of Truth. But when he

speaks of nonphilosophers, his fellow citizens, even themegalopsychos,the

best of men, he does not cast them in terms of such a choice. True, he

ranks theoretic life higher than practical life, and friendship is discussed

intheframework of practical life.Butnowhere does Aristotlesay thatmen

living a theoretic life cannot seek to form the ties of friendship. What he

does say is that friends must be similar and that

first

friendship, at least,

is most likely to develop between similars, such as between men of

simi-

lar spiritual interests. But they need not think similarly about the same

things. They can perhaps be better friends if their attitudes toward things

are

much alike (assuming

that both are

righteous

and

neither suffers from

emotional or spiritual deficiency), but they should entertain some

differ-

ent opinions as well. How could friends have interesting conversations if

theyshared thesame opinions about everything? And conversationplaysa

crucial role in theencounterandintercourse between friends in Aristotle's

model. Here, there is no obligatory choice between friendship and truth.

And what

is

truth?

What is Aristotle's truth?

I think that Aristotle's choice was between two beauties. He believed

that the beauty of a game called

philosophyhis

game, which he called a

true

onewas

more beautiful, more worthy, than another beautiful thing,

namely,

friendship.

That is, Aristotle's choice was between two kinds of

friendships: the friendship of wisdom and the friendship ofawise man.

Sincefirstfriendship isanabsolute relationship, onecan have only asingle

first friendone cannot have two, simultaneous absolute relationships.


14/18

18 Agnes Heller

[EitherTruth

or

Plato had to b e Aristotle's best friend.) An absolute rela-

tionship with Truth would entail the unity of possession and desire, and it

would b e o f intensive infinitude, but it would a lso be an absolute friend-

ship withoutriskbecausethere would be an absolute certainty that I (or

Aristotle) would die first. Aristotle's choice ofTruthover Plato, the choice

of a friendship that could not outlive him, was the choice o fabeauty that

could be intensively interpreted but that need not be recollected. Was not

Aristotle's choice (whether or not we agree with it) the greatest challenge

to Plato? What did Plato actually do in h is dialogues? Did he not recollect

the character and the work of his old master and great friend, Socrates?

Is not Plato's entire work a work of mourning for his friend? That is why

he told the stories hedidwhythe stories are beautiful And did not Aris-

totle who becam e th e first friend of Truth instead o f rem aining the first

friend of Plato (who, for his part, rem ained the first friend of Socrates)

choose another philosophical style that enabled him to celebrate his be-

loved beauty, masked as Truth, as true knowledge? H e put an en d to th e

conflating of friendship and know ledge, myth and certainty, life and truth,

description and recollection, in philosophy. Aristotle began to speak o f the

world, the cosm os, Being, appearance, logos, language, and all the rest-

without speaking of

a

friend. (My dear friend, there are no other friends.

My dear Truth, there are no other truths.) And perhaps it was precisely th is

process of disentanglement that enabled Aristotle to speak of friendship.

I am convinced that it is no longer necessary to choose between these

tw o beautiesfriendship and truth. In our own century, the marriage

bew een theoretical and practical philosophy arranged by Plato and not en -

tirely annulled by Aristotle is already past the p oint of divorce. Since w e are

no longer held at gunpoint by the traditional cry of "truth or friendship,''

if anyone now claims to prefertruthandchoosesitoverhis friend, w e

are justified in questioning his authenticity. We can also be sure that his

friendship

is (or was) notprote

philia.

Yet the m ore m od em life unfolds, the m ore likely it becom es that differ-

ences,som etim es grave differences of opinion and judgm ent, will develop

between even the best of friends. Truthfulness requires us to speak of

such differences freely, and friendship requires the perseverance o f mutual

absolute trust. One need not choose between justice and friendship, for

friendship not only allows justice but also encourages it. Friendly love

(philia), however, does not it self know justice. First friendship, as an abso-


15/18

Beauty of Friendship

19

lute emotional disposition, is beyond justice, which is (also) why friend-

ship is beautiful.

Let me now call again on my star witness, ShakespearetheShake-

speare not

of

Julius Caesarbut of

Hamlet.

AlthoughHamletcan likewise

be read as a drama of friendship, loyalty, and betrayal, loyalty and be-

trayalas ethical/moral

conceptshave

no direct bearing on my topic. In

fact, the drama of friendship inHamletbelongs to Derrida's story, not to

mine.I havechosentofocuson thepseudo-Aristotelian sentence referring

to the

conflict

between friendship with

Truth

and friendship with Plato,

whereas Derrida chose tofollowthe adventures of the pseudo-Aristotelian

exclamation My dearfriends, there is no friend." But, like Nietzsche's

ves-

sels,these master sentences can cross paths somewhere in the middle of

the ocean of our tradition. Derrida also discusses Montaigne's touching

essay on friendship.

1

That Shakespeare wasareader ofMontaigneis well-

known; thatHamlet as a dramaof friendship, belabors Montaigne's theme

is too obvious to have gone unnoticed. Although I have never studied the

finer points of Shakespeare criticism, I am sure that this topic has been

frequently tackled, if not exhausted several times over. I am just

a

simple

friend of Shakespeare; he is my first friend, andI am

his.

He remains true

andclose tome;he willnever betraym e. And he isamost reliable friend,

for, knowing everything about human character, he also knows

me

best.

Furthermore,Iwill neverstopreading his soul, interpreting him.

A friend (in the singular) and friends (in the plural) are strictly distin-

guishedbyMontaigne.My friendis the other half of my soul, my partner

in best friendship, whom

I

trust absolutely.My

friends

can betray m e (and

some of them usually

do);

myfriendscan become (as Montaigne said and

Nietzsche repeated) my enemies, my closest enemies. ConsiderHamlet.

The

Hamlet/Horatio

friendship is an absolute

relationshipfirst

friend-

ship,in the Aristotelian tradition. Hamlet's attachment to Horatio is his

sole absolute relationship. Although he loves Ophelia, who reciprocates

his love, then betrays

him,

Hamlethasno absolute faith in Ophelia; he de-

sires her, but he does not possess her in the sense that friends possess one

another.Rosencrantzand Guildenstern are Hamlet's friends (in the plu-

ral);

hetrustedthem but neverabsolutely,whichiswhy he

felt,

evenbefore

he could

have

known it, that they

had

betrayed

him.

Hamlet's friends thus

become his closest enemies, and he lets them be killed without remorse.

We learn that Laertes was Hamlet's friend in a traditional way, without


16/18

20 Agnes Heller

great

emotional involvement; it

is

only Hamlet's remorse

and

sense ofjus-

tice that make him want to recover this already lost friendship. Horatio

alone isanabsolute friend.

Hamlet isayoungman who haslosthisworld: nothing isrealanymore;

nothing can be grasped or understood. This devastating experience of the

loss of the worldis what makes Hamlet a modern hero. Without Horatio,

Hamlet would go mad, for Horatio is the only remaining reality, a reality

as solid as a

rock.

It is due to Horatio's (omni)presence that Hamlet can

gradually begin to recover bitsandpieces of his lost world.WhenHoratio,

who would never lie or pretend even for his bestfriend'ssake, corrobo-

rates Hamlet's conjecture about the guilt of the king, tw opeople share

this knowledge

and

thereby share the same world. Hamlet can still distin-

guish between reality and unreality, therefore, because he still has

a

hand

to grasp; he still has a home. There is still something absolute in Ham-

let's world where nothing else remains, neither its former metaphysical

certaintiestheafterlife, death, God,annihilationnoreven the comfort

of motherly love or the love of other women. First friendship, absolute

friendship, alone prevails.And thisis everything,thewhole.

IsHamletabeautifuldrama? Yesif"beautiful" stands for "great," "per-

fect,""deep,"and so on. But it is not beautiful as a Cezanne painting or

a Goethe poem is beautiful.Hamletis not so much beautiful as it is

un-

heimlich,

in the Heideggerian

senseterrifyingly

uncanny, confronting us

with the possibility of life in which being and appearance remain far apart

even at the very end of the play (unlikeKingLear

or,

to remain with Hei-

degger, Oedipus). Being does not stand hereas

aleiheia,

asunconcealment.

There is concealment throughout. Hamlet is dying. With his death, the

gap between appearance and being will remain and concealment will win

the day, for eternity. But Horatio is there.

The dying Hamlet turns to the only

true

man, to the one

remaining

wit-

ness of truth, and implores him to shed the light of unconcealment on his

case so that his homeless being is exhibited and can thus be seen through

its appearance. There will be noaleiheiafor Hamlet (unlike Oedipus) so

longashelives.Weknowhisstory onlyfromHoratio's account; it is Hora-

tio who immortalizes Hamlet. In all of Shakespeare's other tragedies, the

story we are told originates outside the drama, where the storyteller re-

mains. But here, and only here, the storyteller is the bestfriendof the

play's hero. Without the testimony of Horatio, Hamlet's

storyand

the


17/18

Beauty cf Friendship Zl

tragedyHamletwouldhave remained concealed by the appearance ofa

happy kingdom

devastatedby

a

young madman,

a ruthless murderer called

Hamlet. In the modern world, where being cannot be disclosed within

appearance to the regard of everyone who matters, your best friend may

remain your sole regardingwitnessatruthful witness who carries your

soul in his soul, with love. This is everything; whoever has a best friend

has everything.

One

answer

toour question about

truth

is that truth dwells inthebetter

part of one's own soul. This is how Shakespeare answers the question in

Hamlet. Horatio is telling his bestfriend'sstory while placing that friend

in the draft of being where truth appears. What is the truth of Hamlet's

story? It is what Horatio presents as the truth about Hamlet. He loves

Hamlet, so bis truth is the truth of love; he is a just man, so his truth is

also the truth of justice. He does what the dying Hamlet asks him to do.

After Hamlet's death, Horatio takes on the greatest ofburdensthebur-

den of surviving

his

best friend.And the only thing that makes him carry

this burden foralittle longer is the need to tell Hamlet's story, truthfully,

ashis friendhas

asked

him todo:

O

God, Horatio, whatawounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind m e

Ifthoudidstever holdme in

thy

heart,

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And

in thisharsh world draw

thy

breathin pain,

To

tell my story.

4

Hamlet does not ask Horatio to clear his name or to apologize for him;

he asks that the truth be told about him so as not to let things. . . un-

known . . .livebehind"him. Hamlet wishes Horatiototell his storyasone

that brings

his characterand fate into the light ofday,which(Iam sorry to

repeat) is what Horatio, in the tragedy

Hamlet

does.

The fact that the dying Hamlet could ask Horatio to tell his story be-

com es, then, the only, yet absolute, confirmation of his life.For

what

does

Hamlet say to Horatio after the confirmation scene? Sincemy dear soul

was mistress of

her

choice / And could of men distinguish her election, /

S'hath sealed thee for

herself.

9

Having confirmed his sanity through

Horatio, Hamlet then confirms himself asa man, as awhole soul, through

Horatio's friendship. This friendship, and this

friendship

alone, invests


18/18

22 gnes HeUer

Hamlet's characterandtragic fate with beauty. And this isamodern kind

of beauty, as it is a modern kind of friendship. It is not the absolute rela-

tionship of "similars" describedby Aristotle but anabsolute relationship of

dissimilars,who are and remain best friends in and through dissimilarity.

One is stoic, the other a slave to his passions; one is guiltless, the other

guilty; one is

a

poor scholar, the other

a

prince, next in line to the throne.

Still, their relationship is

far

from

being the

erotic

attraction of

opposites"

that Plato describes. It isafriendship,whereby discrepancy and difference

in character enhance the beauty of the relationship. The source of that

beauty is the absoluteness of the choiceby whichthe relationship is main-

tainedandcherished in all situations, however unprecedentedandunfore-

seeable.

The

friendship of

Hamlet

and Horatio is absolutely beautiful; it is

Heimlichin anunheimlichworld.

To

make a hom e amidst

the.

uncanny, in

the uncanny, and to let both the home and the uncanny

be,

through this

beautyamodern beauty,atrozdcmbeautyis tolet truth shine through.

Hamletis not a beautiful drama. Or is it? Can we perhaps say that it is

beautiful in the friend's eye? But accepting this interpretation would be to

take back everything that has ever been said about friendship. Horatio re-

lates

a

terrible story, one that could hardly be more devastating or uglier.

There is no beauty here except in the story's being told, and by Horatio.

There is no beauty except in the friendship between thedeadheroandthe

living storyteller who resurrectshimthestoryteller who, we know, will

choose death, finishing his life after finishing his story. This is beautiful,

this momentary victory

over

the uncanny. Beauty is the celebration of this

momentary

victory.

The rest issilence.

i Jacques Derrida,

Politiques

de

I amitU

(Paris,1994); Politicsif Friendship trans . George

Collins (London and New York,1997).

a That Nietzsche also saw friendship in another light, or rather in several other lights, is

a different matter. What I hope to have made clear is my interpretation of quality in

friendship. Perhaps Kierkegaard is the only true follower of Aristotle.

3 SeeDerrida'sfirstchapter, Oligarchies: Naming, Enumerating, Counting, in

Politics 0

Friendship

1-25

esp.a.

4 ShakespeareHamlet

5.2.333-38.

5 Ibid., 3.2 .60 -62 .

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The Beauty of Friendship