Abstract
Friendships have always been one of the most valuable assets in the lives of human beings, and friendships were of utmost importance to Spinoza. There are different kinds of friendship but for Spinoza genuine friendship can only occur among those who pursue the truth. In this paper I will (1) point out what Spinoza means by the truth, (2) show how friendships are possible even though there is tension in our lives between our desire to preserve ourselves and our desire to preserve others, (3) differentiate two kinds of friendship, and (4) see what if anything is missing from his account of friendship.
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Notes
This is not to say that he developed a friendship with Blyenbergh. In fact, Spinoza told Blyenbergh to desist from requesting further communication from him because he thought that Blyenbergh was not interested in the truth (Letters 21, 23, 27). For this paper I am using The Complete Works of Spinoza, Vol. 1, ed. & tr. by Edwin Curley (Princeton, 1985). I will use the following abbreviations: E for Ethics, Def for definition, Ax for axiom, P for proposition, D for demonstration, S for scholium, C for corollary, App for appendix, and TdIE for Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect followed by section numbers.
One may see a problem for Spinoza in bridging the gap between the egoism of Part 3 and the altruism developed in Part 4 of the Ethics, but I argue that he is able to do so.
This view is expressed by Kant in his “Lectures on Friendship” in Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship, ed. by Michael Pakaluk (Hackett, 1991), p. 212. He puts it this way: “I, from generosity, look after his happiness and he similarly looks after mind; I do not throw away my happiness, but surrender it to his keeping, and he in turn surrenders his into my hands; but this Idea is valuable only for reflection; in practical life such things do not occur.”
The fourth idea is the beginning of what Jeanette Bicknell refers to as the “expanded self.” See her “An Overlooked Aspect of Love in Spinoza’s Ethics” in Iyyun:The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 47, January, 1998, 46f. As far as I can tell her article is one of very few articles in English specifically on friendship in Spinoza.
Spinoza would agree with Aristotle when Aristotle says that each person wishes good mainly to himself, and the features of friendship extend from oneself to others. Aristotle believes that in order to be a friend one must first have self-love, and one must have this for its own sake. One is a friend to oneself and should love oneself most of all. See Nicomachean Ethics 1159a10, 1166a15, 1168b10.
Bicknell is mistaken when she says that self-determined love in Spinoza does not directly benefit the agent, 43.
H. F. Hallett in Benedict De Spinoza: The Elements of His Philosophy (London: Athlone Press, 1957), p. 102 points out that genuine friendship is not disguised selfishness whereby the other is subordinate to the self. Bicknell says that our own desires do not take precedence over those of anyone else, 50.
This seems to be in agreement with Cicero who says that friendship does not arise from our inadequacy but from our nature. See his De Amicitia 27.
Aristotle also says that love for a soulless being cannot be called friendship since there is no reciprocal love (Nicomachean Ethics 1155b30.
Matthew Kisner points out that what people have in common are some essential properties, such as the proportions that hold among the parts of the human anatomy which include the circulatory system, brains, etc. Particular essential properties, such as one’s fingerprints, are not shared. Non-essential properties, such as being in debt, are those which are brought about by external forces. See his”Spinoza’s Benevolence: The Rational Basis for Acting to the Benefit of Others,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 47, No. 4, October 2009, 553–554. Michael Della Rocca sees a problem with the notion of essence and focuses on similar ways that individuals are affected. See his “Egoism and the Imitation of Affects in Spinoza,” in Spinoza on Reason and the “Free Man” , ed. by Yirmiyahu Yovel and Gideon Segal (New York: Little Room Press, 2004), pp. 123–147.
Edwin Curley points out that when individuals share their knowledge with one another each finds that her knowledge increases. He bases this on Spinoza’s statement that when two individuals of the same nature are combined, i.e., when they follow reason, they compose an individual who is twice as powerful as each one singly (E4P18S). See his Behind the Geometrical Method (Princeton, 1988), p. 125.
Nicomachean Ethics 1157b35.
Nicomachean Ethics 1163a.
This seems different from Cicero who says that friendship does not follow from advantage but advantage follows from friendship (De Amicitia, 51). We cherish a friend without any special need or thought of advantage. Nancy Sherman makes the point that specific common interests are the product rather than the precondition of friendship. See her “Aristotle on the Shared Life,” in Friendship: A Philosophical Reader, ed. by Neera Kapur Badhwar (Ithica: Cornell, 1993), p. 98.
Nicomachean Ethics 1156a15.
Jon Wetlesen says that a free person should reduce her interactions with unfree persons to the extent necessary to maintain the harmony of society. See his The Sage and the Way (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1979), p. 267.
Aristotle says that equality and similarity is what holds people together (Nicomachean Ethics 1159b).
Both Spinoza and the Epicureans take pleasure to be the ultimate goal of one’s well-being, but Spinoza values others and their well-being insofar as they seek the truth. For the Epicureans others may be valued only insofar as they serve one’s own pleasure. See Matthew Evans, “Can Epicureans be Friends,” Ancient Philosophy, Fall, 2004, Vol. 24, No. 2, 407–424.
For further discussion of good and bad emotions see my “False Pleasures in Spinoza,” Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly, 57 (July 2008), 265–282.
Nicomachean Ethics 1171a15.
Genevieve Lloyd in Collective Imaginings (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 67 says that it becomes possible for citizens to perceive each other, whether governed or govern, in relations of friendship. Kierkegaard takes this to an extreme. He says that friendship (love) excludes no one. Love of a specific person only has meaning in the context of love of all human beings. See his “You Shall Love Your Neighbor,” in Other Selves, pp. 235–247. Aristotle says that it is possible to be friends to many people in a fellow-citizen’s way but not for their virtue or for themselves (Nicomachean Ethics 1171a20).
Wetlesen, p. 250.
Wetlesen, p. 251.
Hallett, pp. 101–102.
Lecture on Friendship, in Other Selves, p. 217.
Nicomachean Ethics, 1170b10-1171a15.
In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect [13–14] Spinoza says that the highest good is to arrive at the enjoyment of the knowledge of the mind with the whole of nature together with other individuals. We should endeavor that others acquire this along with us.
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Special thanks to a referee of Philosophia for comments on an earlier draft.
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Lucash, F. Spinoza on Friendship. Philosophia 40, 305–317 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9325-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9325-6