If Friendship Hurts, an Epicurean Deserts: A Reply to Andrew Mitchell


Συγγραφέας: William O. Stephens


William O. Stephens: If Friendship Hurts, an Epicurean Deserts: A Reply to Andrew Mitchell (pdf, 5 pages)
In “Friendship Amongst the Self-Sufficient: Epicurus” (this Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, June 2001), Andrew Mitchell explores the Epicurean view of the relationship between self-sufficiency and friendship by contrasting it with the views of Aristotle and the Stoics. Epicurus, Aristotle, and the Stoics do indeed have interestingly different views on friendship that are well worth comparing. Yet Mitchell’s characterization of Aristotelian friendship is misleading, his account of Stoic friendship is inaccurate, and his interpretation of Epicurean friendship is curiously imaginative but ultimately rather strange.