Notion Of Friendship Research Articles

Critical Friendship After the Pandemic

Are critique and the “art of governing” antithetical? The aim of this article is to examine this tension that was laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic by introducing “critical friendship” as a conceptual framework for a constructive interdisciplinary engagement with science in a post-pandemic era. It does so by drawing on several works and insights: (i) Michel Foucault’s notion of “critical attitude” as well as his assessment of philosophy as providing a “diagnosis of the present;” (ii) Bruno Latour and colleagues’ idea of a “critical zone” or what I call a horizontal epistemology of critique; (iii) Aristotle’s notion of friendship as being necessary for the “common good;” and finally (iv) Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the messianic character of friendship in the constitution of progressive democracies. Whereas critical theory has been described as either “explanatory-diagnostic” or “emancipatory-utopian,” a critical friendship approach aims to be both diagnostic and emancipatory in an age of uncertainty and democratic backsliding.

Predator Comparison

Comparison is predation: a violent severing, a forced fusion, a deadly contest of forces. Or this, at least, seems to be the specter that haunts Comparative Literature. The fraught legacies of Comparative Literature often impel methodological reflection into binaries of bad versus good comparison. This also leads us frequently to connect, maybe too closely, a certain way of doing comparison and its potential political value. This essay starts a reflection on the ethical dilemmas and rhetorical habits of comparison by analyzing one metaphor of good comparison, tied to the concept of friendship, and comparing it with an approach to comparison that embraces predatory structures instead. To think through the trope of friendship, the essay draws on R. Radhakrishnan work in ‘Why Compare?’ with Jacques Derrida's notion of friendship from Politics of Friendship via Gayatri Spivak's Death of a Discipline. For a model for thinking comparison with and through predation, the essay draws on the work of Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro with its focus on predatory relationalities among Amerindian cultures of the Amazon. The essay suggests that we need to leave behind ‘safe’ comparative models as well as critique the tropes that drive reflections on comparison.

Friendship in Befriending? Older Service Users’ Notions of Friendship in a Befriending Scheme

ABSTRACT Social isolation and feelings of loneliness are main reasons that befriending services are approached by older adults. The promise of an individually matched volunteer, a befriender, paying them regular visits, offers hope of increased social interaction, meaningfulness, and connectedness in everyday life. The current consensus in qualitative research literature is that loneliness and isolation may be alleviated by such home visits. Still, the actual mechanisms of successful befriending have not been identified. In this small-scale qualitative study, we highlight older befriendees’ notions of friendship in befriending. Drawing on in-depth interviews with seven Norwegian befriendees over the age of 80 years, we suggest that having a befriender visit regularly spurs a new bond and supports befriendees’ notions of a relationship consistent with a traditional understanding of friendship. Our findings illustrate how the older befriendees identify and portray notions of friendship in terms of bonding, compatibility and meaningful activities, commitment, appreciation, and insecurities. Understanding how a formalized volunteer service is recognized and valued as a friendship may contribute to a better starting point for improving befriending services. Furthermore, it can improve our understanding of the significance of friendship in old age.

Attack of the critics

AbstractThis paper presents a case study of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s delegitimisation discourse on the European Union in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We focused on how the EU and its member states were depicted metaphorically in PM Orbán’s weekly radio interviews. Relying on the discourse dynamics approach, we identified the metaphorical expressions the PM used to legitimise the crisis management of the Hungarian government and delegitimise critical comment from international voices in the context of the European Union. Our results showed that supranational bodies were depicted as authority figures and this image was reinforced by the use of particular verbal motifs. Rhetorical ambiguity was also found regarding Western Europe, whereas the notion of friendship was propagated when referring to the relationship between Hungary and the Visegrád countries Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia.

Friendship and Politics: Historical Discourses and Trans-political Prospects

Friendship is such a unique relationship among human beings that even philosophers have considered it as a vital factor in the social life of humans. Aristotle is one such philosopher who has given a significant amount of space to friendship among the mortals. Friendship is relational in nature and thereby calls for various discourses between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. In this regard, McDowell’s idea of ‘second nature’ is significant since it adds that extra responsibility, willingness and rational capacity enabling us to live in communion. However, friendship has a peculiar relation with politics as in this world one cannot deny that there will be enemies as well as friends. In this respect, Derrida situates Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political as an evolution in the politics of friendship either in the form of ‘dissolution’ or in the form of ‘upheaval’. I have tried to analyse Derrida’s views in the background of the contrast between the ‘dying sage’ and the ‘living fool’ where the discourses change between friendship and politics. Friendship and politics are not alien to Indian philosophy as well. The relationships between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, between Karṇa and Duryodhana in the Mahābhārata could be analysed from various angles. Friendship has a trans-political character which has been addressed in the paper by showing the hermeneutic of solidarity after Gadamer. This paves way for a reappraisal of the Aristotelian conception of friendship. I think that the discourses between friendship and politics bring about new insights regarding the notion of friendship itself, and it is important to recognise that difference and reciprocity may exist together without distressing the relationship and at the same time with the (dis)closure of the self.

Friendship: A moral virtue

In my paper, I would like to compose a comparative analysis between Aristotle and Immanuel Kant's notion of friendship as a moral virtue. Among the virtues discussed by Aristotle, friendship is one of the most important virtues. It is a relationship between two men who have affection for each other and who recognize each other's affection. There are different kinds of friendships - one is based on utility, the other two are either based on pleasant company or based on mutual respect. With emphasis on universal law and duty for duty's sake, Kant gives less importance on friendship as a special relationship. Although both Kant and Aristotle highlight the mutual knowing involved in friendship as a virtue of the highest form of friendship, Kant's emphasis lies not on knowing another person but on being known by another person, since it is in being known by another person that we become connected to someone else. In contrast, Aristotle's interest lies in knowing another person rather than in being known by another person, since it only through knows another person that we can come to know ourselves.

Makna Persahabatan Sebuah Tinjauan Dari Perspektif Filsafat

This article is meant to be a philosophical reflection on the meaning of friendship. As evident from its sub-titles, the article is divided into four parts. First, it deals with the notion of friendship, in which the genuine friendship, or in Aristotle’s term called the perfect form of friendship, is distinguished from the egoistic or the imperfect forms. Referring to Aristotle’s account of friendship, the perfect form of friendship is a friendship in which each friend values the other for their own particular qualities, for their own sake, for their virtuous character and not for the pleasure or utilities they can provide. The imperfect forms of friendship usually do not last long, because the tie of friendship will get loose and finally dissolved when it does not bring either pleasure or utilities each friend wants. Second, following Aristotle, I try to explain why friendship is considered important for human happiness. Third, the element of right and duty that get involved in the personal relation of friendship is being addressed. Finally, due to the increasing importance of online communication nowadays, especially during this pandemic corona virus outbreak, I would like also to address the opportunities and challenges of online friendship or the relation of friendship mediated by social media. In this regard, the opportunity to foster online friendship is bigger under the model of moral friendship according to Kant and Kierkegaard in which universal love is emphasized, and Nietzsche’s model in which the agonistic nature of friendship is highly valued, than under the Aristotle’s model.

Of Masters and Servants: Hybrid Power in Theodore Laskaris’ 'Response to Mouzalon' and in the 'Tale of Livistros and Rodamne'

The present paper examines two Byzantine texts from the middle of the thirteenth century, ostensibly unrelated to each other: a political essay written by a young emperor and an anonymous love romance. The analysis is conducted through the concept of hybrid power, a notion initially developed by postcolonial criticism. It is shown that in the two texts authority (that of the Byzantine emperor and that of Eros as emperor) is constructed as hybrid and thus as an impossibility, though in the case of the political essay this impossibility remains unresolved, while in the romance it is actually resolved. The pronounced similarities between the two texts on the level of political ideology (e.g. the notion of friendship between master and servant, the performance of power relations, shared key concepts) informing the hybrid form of authority and its relation to its servants is a clear indication that they belong to the same socio-cultural and intellectual environment, namely the Laskarid imperial court in Nicaea around 1250.

Friendships in marketing: a taxonomy and future research directions

The concept of friendship remains important from societal, academic, and practitioner perspectives. We find that there is a proliferation of research in the marketing discipline on the utilization and applicability of the concept of friendship, but the literature is fragmented. By fragmentation, we refer to the fact that the notion of friendship is tapped in multiple, independent research streams. As a result, there is a lack of an organized and holistic view of friendship-related research in the marketing domain. Drawing on an extensive literature review of 130 papers in more than 30 peer-reviewed scholarly journals across a 37-years time span (1980–2017), this paper synthesizes the extant friendship research in the domain of marketing through a taxonomy, which categorizes the different types of friendship conceptualizations based on two underlying characteristics, or dimensions, the formation of friendship, and consumption timeline. The proposed taxonomy shows the differences as well as the interrelationships between the different publications, giving a systematic view of the research landscape. We suggest future research avenues as well, for further research in the area of marketing-related friendships and highlight why the research is relevant from a real-world perspective.

That's what friends are for: Emotional solidarity, friendship and social interactions between first-generation immigrants and their visiting friends

Abstract This paper explores the social interactions between immigrant-hosts and visiting friends (VFs). Through a qualitative approach, the study considers the personal meanings attached to VF visits by first-generation Filipino immigrant households in New Zealand (the hosts) and their respective VFs from the Philippines (the guests). The notion of friendship is largely absent from tourism scholarship, a surprise since tourism revolves around social interactions. Friendship is a special relationship to which people attach great importance. This study contributes to knowledge by utilising the theory of emotional solidarity in a specific cultural context to interpret host-guest interactions oriented around friendship. Emotional solidarity is applied and adapted to situations where travel supports the maintenance of friendship over great distances. Within the growing VFR travel literature, this study is the first to explore the perspectives of both the hosts and visiting friends with respect to social interactions that underpin friendship.

Aristóteles e Kant: paralelismos na relação entre Ética, Direito, Justiça e Hermenêutica

This work aims to compare Aristotelian and Kantian traditions on the relationship between ethics, law, justice and hermeneutics. This research is theoretical, qualitative and uses bibliographic content analysis as a methodological procedure. Its main premise, inspired by Adela Cortina and A.W. Muller, is the following: Aristotle and Kant’s philosophies display a combination between deontological and teleological elements. The writing assumes a problem-type imaginary situation conceived by Julio de Almeida as a methodological device used in the test of the following hypotheses: (1) Kant’s philosophy, just like Aristotle’s, displays a hermeneutic sense of situational appropriateness and a moral justification of law; and (2) there is a functional parallelism between Aristotle’s notion of friendship and Kant’s categorical imperative. We concluded our working hypotheses were confirmed. Keywords: Deontologism, Teleologism, sense of appropriateness, moral foundation of law, categorical imperative, friendship.

Rethinking monogamy's nature: From the truth of non/monogamy to a dyke ethics of “antimonogamy”

ABSTRACTFollowing Lynne Huffer's work on queer feminism, this abridged essay centers the figure of the lesbian in order to develop a dyke ethics that engenders nuanced thinking about both monogamy and embodiment. The essay reads Alison Bechdel's comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, to elaborate a “dyke ethics of anti-monogamy.” Grounded in notions of friendship, community, and social justice, this ethics decenters the sexual dyad in a way that polyamory does not. It also insists upon a theoretical and ethical disposition of respect for the simultaneously political and embodied nature of desire. In so doing, it offers first a way of re-thinking the story of monogamy's nature as a naturecultural tale about mononormative desire and further places that desire in a field of relationality that renders its significance as a feature of humanness and an object of scientific inquiry strange.

Shopping for Shoes: Teaching Students to Apply and Interpret Mathematics in the Real World

This article reports the findings of classroom research exploring the potential of posing challenging mathematical problems situated in real-world financial contexts to activate mathematical knowledge, skills and reasoning. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 mathematical literacy assessment framework (OECD, 2013) provided theoretical framing for the study, which examined the use of a “financial dilemma” titled Shopping for shoes in a Year 5/6 composite class in a suburban Australian primary school. The social and mathematical dimensions of the task, together with a particular lesson structure, successfully engaged 10 to 12-year-old students in exploring mathematics through a financial problem-solving experience. The findings reveal that students’ notions of friendship and fairness guided the way they formulated the problem and employed mathematics. Strategies intended to encourage students to interpret the alignment and reasonableness of their social and mathematical thinking against the problem context were critical to the lesson.

Between friendship and justice: on Lincoln’s political thought

ABSTRACTReading Aristotle and applying his notion of philia, or political friendship, across 26 centuries sheds significant light into Abraham Lincoln’s career. It is precisely in Lincoln’s embodiment of the Aristotelian notion of friendship that we come to understand his unique greatness. Perhaps he alone of all Americans proved capable of such extraordinary feats as leading the Republican party to victory in 1860, holding the Union together through the secession crisis and four long years of bloody civil war, ending slavery without white backlash, and offering reconciliation with the incredible magnanimity expressed in the ringing phrases of the Second Inaugural address. The basis of Lincoln’s preternatural political genius proved to be his ability to comprehend all sides, a comprehension that can only come from a profound belief in the importance of friendship. Americans, Lincoln argued throughout a terrible war as he had his entire life, were not enemies but friends who shared a commitment to nature and nature’s law as expressed in the Declaration.

“If only you were a boy…”: Friendship and sexual identity in Mireille Best's Hymne aux Murènes

ABSTRACTWhile much French fiction devoted to lesbians focuses on romantic relationships, Mireille Best's (1943–2005) first novel, Hymne aux Murènes (Hymn to the Moray Eels) (1986), depicts a wide variety of relationships between the lesbian protagonist, Mila, and the other young women staying in a sanatorium of sorts for the treatment of an unnamed illness. In this all-female environment, Best depicts relationships between Mila and Paule, a closeted lesbian employee of the sanatorium; between Mila and young women like Josette and Lilli, who are somewhat attracted to Mila but, for the most part, do not act on this attraction; and between very close heterosexual friends (Nicoli and Nicola). In so doing, Best expands the reader's notion of friendship between women and blurs the lines between lesbians and heterosexuals, guiding the reader toward a more complex understanding of female friendship in general and lesbian friendship in particular. Throughout the novel, several characters express frustration about Mila's gender identity by saying, “If only you were a boy…” While Mila remains romantically frustrated, she develops close friendships with several young women, and Best thus conveys optimism about lesbians' ability to form friendships during adolescence and early adulthood, a time of life when, according to her characters, the boundaries between heterosexuality and lesbianism seem less rigid than they might be later in life. In this essay, I focus primarily on Best's first novel, but I include brief reflections on an earlier short story that echoes the presentation of lesbians and friendship found in the novel.

Thinking Friendship With and Against Hannah Arendt

ABSTRACTThis essay interrogates Hannah Arendt’s different notions of friendship, their weaknesses and strengths, with a view to establishing the basis for a more adequate discussion. After examining her conception of friendship first among the ancients, and then in “dark times”, the essay asks how are we to understand friendship among the moderns when times are not particularly dark. This requires a critical reading of her conception of private intimacy and social association in order to construct a more plural understanding of friendship, and of the criteria by which it can be judged, as it is differentially instituted within, and traverses, the private, civil and political realms.

Unpacking Cohort Social Ties: The Appropriateness of Perceived Social Capital to Graduate Early Career Performance in Construction Project Teams

ABSTRACTConstruction project teams require social capital. When present in appropriate forms, it creates the social cohesion through which individuals accept project goals as their own. It lets team members share knowledge when present and reveal when it is missing. In education, social learning helps students appreciate the need for social capital appropriate to team performance. In practice, social capital enables the project team learning that overcomes project-specific challenges. Despite this importance, little is known about how students perceive social capital or the compatibility of that understanding with construction project needs.To characterise this aspect of ‘graduateness,’ collective understanding of social capital was elicited from construction students in a Scottish university by free recall. Analysis was structured around four dimensions of social capital: cohesion, legitimacy & authenticity, sharing, and safety. Notions of friendship were found to dominate student understanding of their social capital even though this understanding derived from settings where the need for capital to support team performance is emphasized. The potential for misalignment between the capital that graduating students bring into practice with that required by project teams was apparent. The case for further investigation of this influence on early career development was established.

Friendship—a more excellent way towards global, regional, and local ecumenical partnership in mission

The notion of “partnership” has assumed a high profile in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, particularly in relation to its increasingly common usage with reference to relationships between educational institutions, non-government organizations, government bodies, ecumenical movements, business ventures, and an array of agencies seeking to address global, regional, and local development challenges. For the purpose of this article I will concentrate on the concept of partnership within the context of Christian organizational relationships, with particular reference to the global ecumenical movement and the notions of “partnership in mission.” One of the critical issues on which partnership in mission has consistently run aground is a strong underlying tension and largely unacknowledged stalemate between the respective positioning of donors and recipients within mission and ecumenical partnerships. This article therefore advocates the notion of friendship with particular reference to its relevance to the ecumenical journeys of partnership in mission globally, regionally, and locally. In particular, the principles articulated by Jesus’ characterization of friendship in John 15, incorporating such values as mutuality, trust, confidence, selflessness, and sacrifice, could breathe new life and vitality into the global, regional, and local ecumenical journey of partnership in mission.

Feminisms, Collaborations, Friendships: A Conversation

This conversation with Richa Nagar about feminist friendships and co-authorships emerged from a collaborative interview as a way to resist individualism, career-centric-orientations and academic-stardom; themes that are prominent in the interview itself. The conversation explores the process of collaborative writing, how it challenges hegemonic modes of knowledge production, and what types of relationships sustain such an engagement, based on Richa’s experiences in collectively writing Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism Through Seven Lives in India with the Sangtin Writers Collective. The conversation foregrounds the significance of deep relationality in defining situated solidarities, transnational feminist collaborations, and the meanings and possibilities of co-authorship, and sparked new conversations about each of our journeys as activists, intellectuals, and immigrants who lived multiple, and often bi-national, political lives. This conversation is chiefly an elaboration on the theme of feminist friendships, trust, and radical vulnerability that allows collective writing to navigate the hierarchies of knowledge production and the publication industry. The ideas about ‘co-authorship,’ 'collaboration,' and ‘friendship’ that Richa Nagar articulates throughout this interview allowed us to think about friendship as radical vulnerability and has unsettled our notion of friendship, feminist cooperation, and intimacy and made us acutely aware of the multifarious sites of power and creativity within academic and activist spaces alike, as well as our positions and relationships within these domains.

Gadamer on Friendship and Solidarity: The Increase in Being in Communal Human Life

This article discusses Gadamer’s conception of friendship as a part of his draft of a conception of practical philosophy. His starting point is Greek philosophy, specifically Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on friendship. He adds significant nuances to the understanding of friendship that were first laid down in his doctrine of philosophical hermeneutics. It allows him to place the notion of friendship in the context of modern philosophical debate and social criticism, and thus to make an original contribution to the discussion. Gadamer understands friendship as a necessarily reciprocal struc-ture. He emphasizes the fact that only reciprocity or a kind of relation to someone other than “me” can serve as a suffi-cient basis for the explanation of the possibility of a community, as opposed to neo-Kantian and a phenomenological adherence to self-consciousness. The notion of friendship is closely connected to the notion of solidarity. The first one is considered as a more universal and thus grounding type of interpersonal communication, whereas natural solidarity is a specific kind of bond that can grow into the true friendship. Furthermore, friendship is seen as an accession of being (Zuwachs an Sein) from a teleological point of view, i.e., the true friendship is a contribution to and the realization of life. The outcome of this practice cannot be differentiated from its process.