Friends

In the study of Philosophy there are many different philosophers, which touch on very similar concepts but have different opinions about what the actual definition of it may be. In this paper I will compare and contrast how ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and German philosopher Arthur Schopenhaur view the term “friendship”. Both of these philosophers put up very strong points about how they believe a friendship should be. Aristotle was born in 384 BC. He was a student of the famous Greek philosopher Plato and a teacher to Alexander the Great. Arthur Schopenhaur was born in 1788. He went to a university and his professors focused on studying Plato. From reading these philosophers works one would find that Aristotle searches to find the good in people, even if they are “bad”, while Schopenhaur believes that all people have bad qualities, but they should not be putout for everyone to see. One might say Schopenhaur focuses more on the negative aspects of people. While most of Aristotle and Schopenhaur’s ideas with extremely different they were able to share the same ideas on a few simple concepts of friendship. Both philosophers believed that individuals are only capable of having a limited number of “real” friends. A real friend is one who is there for the other no matter what the circumstance. Also both great philosophers believe that people with similar personalities and interests tend to be drawn together. Schopenhaur quotes that “People of similar nature, on the other hand, immediately come to feel a kind of general agreement; and if they are cast very much in the of same mold, complete harmony or even unison will flow from their intercourse”(Schopenhaur, The Eagles Solitude, p. 249). One disagreement between these philosophers is the types of friend’s people have. Aristotle believes that there are three different types of friends. The first type of friend is a utility friend. A utility friend is when two individuals are friends for a particular purpose.