Philosophy Now Forum

Aristotle notices that we try to avoid our benefactors because we are reminded that we owe them a debt. While benefactors look for the company of the benefected because they expect from them some reward for their good deeds.

This would mean that friendship is an exchange of services and a deal.

Can a friend be someone whose mere benevolent presence gives you an opportunity to speak ?

How is friendship an exchange of services? It seems to me that it is actually has nothing to do with that. You don't expect that from someone who is your friend.

Would you expect anything at all from a friend ?
And if so what would it be ?

I'm breaking my philo fast this Sunday to provide you with some pearls of wisdom
My benevolent present to you:

A friend is someone I would hope would try to understand what I mean; and that what I say is meant for the best, even if it sounds crazy
Friends should be able to talk things through and pass to a better understanding...even if they don't necessarily agree.

I found a few German words (complete with pic of one cat flying over the other - sorry I can't work out how to download...)
' Wenn du verrückte Freunde hast, hast du alles, was man braucht'
If you have crazy friends you have everything you need
( debatable ! )

and then,
'Ich sage was ICH denk und nicht was DU hören willst'
I say what I think and not what you want to hear

As a friend of PN Now, I can contribute what I think to anyone at all - whether or nor I like them ( and v.v ). Also, they can correct my way of thinking, if they can...and if I can think of them as 'friends' and not 'foes'. These categories are not helpful in philosophy...I think.
Give and take, rather than attack and bait - but then again...

duszek wrote:Aristotle notices that we try to avoid our benefactors because we are reminded that we owe them a debt. While benefactors look for the company of the benefected because they expect from them some reward for their good deeds.

This would mean that friendship is an exchange of services and a deal.

This is only part of the story. I used to be confused upon learning about certain interesting phenomena about psychology regarding power and values, etc.

One of the first was a book I read, called "The Projection Principle" by George Weinberg [http://www.amazon.ca/The-Projection-Pri ... 031200057X]which demonstrates that people actually value what they project with more significance than what they receive. If I recall, the author introduced how people often value more of what they are able to invest into another and trivialize those whom they receive from under normal circumstances. This is because if you get what you need even without the asking, this is an expected factor that appeals to you to which you can become immune to if done regularly. On the other hand, when you invest heavily in another person, the depth of that investment creates internal value to you as it represents something you hope to achieve by doing so.

In another way of thinking, imagine that you are presently hungry. This drive motivates you to act in ways to get it. But as soon as you receive what you've determined to get, you consume it and no longer are hungry. Thus oddly, we are driven to act more towards those things which are less likely to be rewarded as often while dismissive of what is received by default (unless it is lost)!

This is also demonstrated by the Skinner box experiments involving rats. Each group's rats had to learn to push a button in order for the potential of a pellet of food to be dropped. In the control group, these rats received a pellet every time they pushed the button and so only pushed it when they were presently hungry. In the experimental group, the pellets were purposely designed not to drop at all times nor to any predictable number of pushes. There the lack of certainty of obtaining the goal of food made these rats act compulsive as they constantly pushed the button as a gambler or drug addict might whether presently hungry or not. I've found so many things that this experiment relates to. And here this relates too since the compulsive behavior leads one more to act in ways that favor those things that do not appeal favorably for them for the wanting. It suggests that we value those who resist our friendship with more force than those we know will always be there for us.

So the key to assuring good friendships might be to both be provisional but with less predictability of each other. Each must desire in the other what is lacking in themselves in an equally powerful way. But if they find it too easy to each get what they want, or if one is too provisionally appealing while the other is not, this can end the relationship. On the last factor, for clarity, the one who is overly provisional will value the other friend while the other will actually lose interest if they themselves have stopped investing or have perceived nothing of value to bother investing in the other.

Another whole area of study within psychology relates to motivation through power differentials with the above as an underlying mechanism. I defer to Robert Greene's "48 Laws of Power" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power] that often suggests less palpable actions to achieving sincere success in relationships. I was somewhat shocked at first upon initially reading some of the 'laws' he suggests until I read into his explanations. Greene also wrote a followup on "The Art of Seduction" which I have but haven't read yet among many reading projects I haven't got to!

duszek wrote:Aristotle notices that we try to avoid our benefactors because we are reminded that we owe them a debt. While benefactors look for the company of the benefected because they expect from them some reward for their good deeds.

This would mean that friendship is an exchange of services and a deal.

Aristotle has a binary way to see it, and are a bit wrong about his initial claim when saying "we try to avoid our benefactors because we are reminded that we owe them a debt", only some would do so, those who are poor, may have lost their fortune or such.

marjoram_blues wrote:I'm breaking my philo fast this Sunday to provide you with some pearls of wisdom
My benevolent present to you:

I appreciate benevolent presents, thank you.

A friend is someone I would hope would try to understand what I mean; and that what I say is meant for the best, even if it sounds crazy
Friends should be able to talk things through and pass to a better understanding...even if they don't necessarily agree.

Can we see a present in this ?
I can see a big one: the benefector gets a present of intimacy, some people pay a psychotherapist to get this feeling.

I found a few German words (complete with pic of one cat flying over the other - sorry I can't work out how to download...)
' Wenn du verrückte Freunde hast, hast du alles, was man braucht'
If you have crazy friends you have everything you need
( debatable ! )

This is a present of excitement. Some people cannot get enough of it and suffer from boredom.

and then,
'Ich sage was ICH denk und nicht was DU hören willst'
I say what I think and not what you want to hear

As a friend of PN Now, I can contribute what I think to anyone at all - whether or nor I like them ( and v.v ). Also, they can correct my way of thinking, if they can...and if I can think of them as 'friends' and not 'foes'. These categories are not helpful in philosophy...I think.
Give and take, rather than attack and bait - but then again...

The last bit is a present of helping to find objectivity and "truth".
Not everyone is interested in this though, so one needs to be careful and not to give it to the wrong people.

Thank you Scott.

I would add: we prefer to create something ourselves, even if it is the happiness of another person, than to just receive something passively.

If we receive we enjoy perhaps our prestige but we don´t feel as powerful as when we make things happen actively.
It´s more adventure to make things happen.