L’amicizia, tra Aristotele e Derrida

Abstract

Aristotle recalls how friendship can be for the like or for the unlike. In any case, however, we should not forget that it is intimately linked to conflict, to Polemos. To truly understand people and events, indeed, we should always consider the pair Philía and Polemos. Philosophy itself, after all, stems from such a pair. And it characterizes, for example, the relationship between psychotherapist and patient. The word “therapy”, in Greek, refers to “courtship”; and the therapeutic relationship is a very particular form of courtship aimed at opening up new worlds and possibilities to the patient. The other, in any case, is often “perturbing” for us, as if awakening the stranger within ourselves. This is also the case in love: the other who is outside us resonates within us, we almost feel the beating of his or her heart. What if something similar also characterizes the experience of religious faith?