Aristotle was elite in almost every sense of the word. He was born in 384 BCE in the Greek kingdom of Macedon. His father was a court physician, and his mother was from a powerful family. He grew up in royal courts. When he was a teenager, he moved to Athens to study under Plato (who himself was the most famous student of Socrates). Aristotle studied there until around midlife, when he was asked by his home kingdom’s king, Philip II of Macedon, to tutor his son and rising political star: Alexander the Great. Aristotle educated Alexander and other royals. After ending his tutelage of Alexander, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own philosophical school, the Lyceum. When Alexander the Great died, political controversy erupted, and Athens sought to execute Aristotle. Aristotle famously said that he “would not let Athens sin twice against philosophy” by executing him like they did Socrates, so he fled the city. He died in 322 BCE, having led an adventurous life and written foundational texts in logic, rhetoric, biology, physics, psychology, politics, art criticism, and philosophy.

Here, you’ll be reading excerpts from Aristotle’s best-known work, the Nicomachean Ethics (Nicomachus was the name of both Aristotle’s father and son). The Nicomachean Ethics is divided into 10 “books” (or what we call chapters today). You’ll be reading parts of two of the chapters, Books VIII and IX, which analyze friendship. Whenever Aristotle thinks about friendship, he consistently refers to two things. First, he points to the purpose of the friendship. That is, he evaluates the success or failure of a friendship based on whether it achieves what the friends wanted their friendship to do. Second, Aristotle focuses on the effect that the friendship has on the shape of someone’s character and life overall. More specifically, he judges friendships based on how they make you feel, how they serve your social goals, and how they make you into a better person who can live a fuller life. The full text can be found here.

Before beginning, I need to caution you against two common misunderstandings of Aristotle’s terminology in these excerpts. First, when Aristotle refers to “happiness” (Greek: eudaimonia), he has in mind a person who has developed herself into a full human being by becoming a good person and an important member of her communities. Aristotle is not concerned only about short-term emotions. For him, calling someone “happy” (eudaimōn) marks the success of her life; the term points out that she is living like humans should. Second, when Aristotle talks about “love” and “friendship” in these excerpts, those words are referring to the same Greek word (philia). “Friendship” and “love” are applicable to relationships that range from casual and Platonic (such as with work colleagues) to intense and erotic (such as with confidants or romantic partners) to familial relationships. He is permissive and expansive with the term. But he’ll distinguish the types of friendships with some precision.