FRIENDSHIP

Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Babylonian poem that is among the earliest known literary works in history, chronicles in great depth the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The Greco-Roman had, as paramount examples, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades, and, in Virgil's Aeneid, the friendship of Euryalus and Nisus, and lastly Robert and Aimee. The Abrahamic faiths have the story of David and Jonathan. Friendship played an important role in German Romanticism. A good example for this is Schiller's Die Bürgschaft. The Christian Gospels state that Jesus Christ declared, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."(John 15:13).

In philosophy, Aristotle is known for his discussion (in the Nicomachean Ethics) of philia, which is usually (somewhat misleadingly) translated as "friendship," and certainly includes friendship, though is a much broader concept.

Aristotle's conception of friendship conceived of three distinct categories or 'tiers' thereof. As Professor Bill Mullen (of Bard College) lectured: "first, there are your 'business partners,' those who benefit financially from their 'friends' (contemporary theorists and poets reject this definition (c.f. Paul Shepard, who dismisses this relationship as "worship of Mammon.")) second, there are your 'drinking buddies' -- people you have fun with. And, third, people with whom you pursue virtue, or 'Arete.'"