Philia (φιλία) — Friendship, reciprocal affection and goodwill. Derived from the verb philein (“to love,” “to hold dear”), the Greek word is broader than present-day “friendship”: it covers the bond between friends but also family ties and what unites citizens. Plato devotes the Lysis to the question, a dialogue that ends in aporia. Aristotle dedicates two of the ten books of the Nicomachean Ethics to it (VIII and IX), calling it “a virtue or something accompanied by virtue” and necessary for life. He distinguishes three kinds according to motive: friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure, and perfect friendship between good people, who wish each other’s good for the other’s own sake (VIII.3, 1156a–b). Only the last is stable, since it rests on character rather than passing advantage. The friend is, for him, “another self” (allos autos, IX.4 and 9), and political philia, the concord among citizens, holds the city together (VIII.1, 1155a). Epicurus made friendship one of the greatest goods for a happy life, and Cicero wrote De amicitia (c. 44 BCE). In the Christian tradition, Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 23, a. 1), defines charity (caritas) as a kind of friendship between man and God. Empedocles had already used philia as a cosmic force of union, opposed to strife. See also eudaimonia, arete, eros and agape; Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero and Thomas Aquinas.
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