This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

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what is a friend a single soul dwelling in two bodies? That was Aristotle's view.

Gourvid Owl's vision was a touch less romantic.

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.

Has friendship anything to do with philosophy?

Mark Vernon should know he's written a book on the philosophy of friendship.

Mark Vernon, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you very much, it's very good to talk to you.

Now the topic we're focusing on today is Friendship.

What do you understand by Friendship?

It's a good question. It's one that philosophers never quite solved, but I have a sort of thumbnail idea of it by comparing it with other sorts of love. If you think of, say, the love shed in families, that would be the love that longs to care and be cared for.

And if you think of the love between lovers that would be the love that longs to have and to be had.

If you believe in it, if you think of divine love, that might be a kind of sustaining love. So friendship, I think, is the love that longs to know and to be known by somebody else. That seems to me to be the heart of friendship and perhaps differentiates it from other sorts.

The characteristic of friends is to talk, and that would seem to support the idea that at the heart of friendship is knowing someone and getting to be known.

Within a friendship there has to be more than just knowing or wanting to know someone.

You have to like them. There must be many other aspects of friendship.

Yeah, of course you're right. I mean the virtues if you like that serve knowing someone well for

example a certain kind of loyalty which is would be related to trust to open up to

somebody you have to trust them and if they betray that trust by being

disloyal that's obviously gonna to stump friendship.

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