Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T01:16:31.762Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Friendship, politics, and Augustine's consolidation of the self

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

FRANK VANDER VALK
FRANK VANDER VALK
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Empire State College, 111 West Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY12866 e-mail: Frank.Vandervalk@esc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Friendship plays a central role in Augustine's thought. It also played a crucial role in structuring the political and social world of the ancient Greeks. Augustine's treatment of friendship, especially in his Confessions, retains some of the terminology that was central to the Greek account, but it simultaneously transforms friendship, and with it the relationship between individual and community. Augustine's formulation of the inner life is reflected in his transformation of friendship, which loses its inherently social character and political dimension even as it sets the stage for the introduction of political thinking based on the primacy of the individual.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 125 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alford, C. F. (1991) The Self in Social Theory: A Psychoanalytic Account of Its Construction in Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, and Rousseau (New Haven CT: Yale University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, (1926) Nicomachean Ethics, H. Rackham (tr.), Loeb Classical Library: Aristotle XIX (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Aristotle, (1947) ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, W. D. Ross (tr.), in Richard, McKeon (ed.) Introduction to Aristotle (New York NY: Random House), 300–543.Google Scholar
Augustine, (1953) Augustine: Earlier Writings, John H. S. Burleigh (tr.), The Library of Christian Classics, VI (Philadelphia PA: Westminster).Google Scholar
Augustine, (1958) City of God, Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, & Daniel Honan (trs), Bourke, Vernon J. (ed.) (New York NY: Doubleday, Image Books).Google Scholar
Augustine, (1999) Confessions of St Augustine, Edward B. Pusey (tr.) (New York NY: Random House).Google Scholar
Aurelius, Marcus (1960) The Meditations, George Long (tr.) (Garden City NY: Doubleday, Dolphin).Google Scholar
Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1996) Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, rev. edn (Berkeley CA: University of California Press).Google Scholar
Burt, R. X. (1999) Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans).Google Scholar
Cicero, (1967) On Friendship, Frank O. Copley (tr.) (Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press).Google Scholar
Derrida, J. (1997) Politics of Friendship, George Collins (tr.) (London: Verso).Google Scholar
Epicurus, (1994) The Epicurus Reader, Brad Inwood & L. P. Gerson (eds & trs) (Indianapolis IN: Hackett).Google Scholar
Epictetus, (1925) The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, The Manual, and Fragments, 2 vols, W. A. Oldfather (tr.), Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Konstan, D. (1997) Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Harrelson, W. (1951) ‘The idea of agape in the New Testament’, The Journal of Religion, 31, 169–82.Google Scholar
Hartle, A. (1983) The Modern Self in Rousseau's Confessions: A Reply to St Augustine (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press).Google Scholar
Hutter, H. (1978) Politics as Friendship: The Origins of Classical Notions of Politics in the Theory and Practice of Friendship (Waterloo ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press).Google Scholar
MacDonald, P. S. (2003) History of the Concept of Mind: Speculations about Soul, Mind, and Spirit from Homer to Hume (Burlington VT: Ashgate).Google Scholar
Martel, J. R. (2001) Love is a Sweet Chain: Desire, Autonomy, and Friendship in Liberal Political Theory (New York NY: Routledge).Google Scholar
Millgram, E. (1987) ‘Aristotle on making other selves’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 17, 361–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, A. O. (1992) ‘De Anima and its recent interpreters’, in Martha, Nussbaum & Rorty, A. O. (eds) Essays on Aristotle's De Anima (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Scorza, J. (2004) ‘Liberal citizenship and civic friendship’, Political Theory, 32, 85–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, P. (2001) ‘Aristotle's idea of the self’, The Journal of Value Inquiry, 35, 309–324.Google Scholar
Sophocles, (1957) ‘Philoctetes’, David Grene (tr.), in Grene, David & Lattimore, Richard (eds) The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles II (Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press), 190–254.Google Scholar
Stern-Gillet, S. (1995) Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship (Albany NY: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Tessitore, A. (1996) Reading Aristotle's Ethics: Virtue, Rhetoric, and Political Philosophy (Albany NY: State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Toner, J. (2001) Love and Friendship (Milwaukee WI: Marquette University Press).Google Scholar
Von Heyking, J. (2001) Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World (Columbia MO: University of Missouri Press).Google Scholar
Wadell, P. (2002) Becoming Friends: Worship, Justice, and the Practice of Christian Friendship (Grand Rapids MI: Brazos Press).Google Scholar
White, C. (1992) Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Yack, B. (1993) The Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Political Thought (Berkeley CA: University of California Press).Google Scholar