Living Alone Together

Abstract

If we look at definitions of the human in the mainstream of European thought, we are led to a curious conclusion: the dimension, the fact of living with others, is not generally conceived as being necessary. This thesis, however, is not presented in so many words. Rather, it is a presupposition which remains unformulated and for that very reason, its author has no occasion to build a case. We accept it all the more readily. Moreover, this thesis forms the common denomi nator of theories which, in other respects, are in opposition. Whatever side we take in such debates, we perforce accept a definition of man as and nonsocial. Still it would be an error to say that this asocial vision corresponds to all the concepts of humanity present in the Western psychological tradition. This vision is dominant, to be sure, but it is not the only one. We can enumerate the solitary tendencies of classical philosophy and Christian religion, but both have social tendencies also. Even if autarchy remains the ideal of the wise, Greek philosophers believed also that man is a animal, that he must live with his fellow men, that he flourishes in the city-state. The tension between the two claims is often resolved by accepting several lifestyles, all praiseworthy, even if they can still be hierarchized: a practical or active life, accessible to the common man and spent in society, and a contemplative, life, suitable especially for the wise. But even while acknowledging the primary fact of human plurality, Greek philosophers do not see, as a general rule, the various you different from the /, yet nonetheless necessary for its completeness. The difference of position between self and other is not thematized. The natural sympathy existing among men is that of like for like. The self needs others, not because each particular subject is incomplete without them, but in order to display virtue (Aristotle, Eudemean Ethics 1245 b: For us, the good implies a relation ship to the other). Friendship also is a merit rather than a need. Cicero is still more explicit: Nature gave us friendship as an aid to virtue. ... It was her hope that since virtue when cannot arrive at the highest kind of life, it might do so when joined and shared with a companion