Today, friendship, love and sexuality are mostly viewed as private, personal and informal relations. In the mediaeval and early modern period, just like in ancient times, this was different. The classical philosophy of friendship (Aristotle) included both friendship and love in the concept of philia. It was also linked to an argument about the virtues needed to become an excellent member of the city state. Thus, close relations were not only thought to be a matter of pleasant gatherings in privacy, but just as much a matter of ethics and politics.What, then, happened to the classical ideas of close relations when they were transmitted to philosophers, clerical and monastic thinkers, state officials or other people in the medieval and early modern period? To what extent did friendship transcend the distinctions between private and public that then existed? How were close relations shaped in practice? Did dialogues with close friends help to contribute to the process of subject-formation in the Renaissance and Enlightenment? To what degree did institutions of power or individual thinkers find it necessary to caution against friendship or love and sexuality?

For friendship, love and sexuality, it touches upon changes in the distinctions between private and public, in subject-formation and legal practices, as well as the varying cultural, existential and ethical importance of close relations in history.

Applies Aristotle's argument - that citizenship is like friendship - to the liberal and democratic societies of the present day.

What is friendship? Is it ethically important? Does it exist outside ethics? Is it a potential distraction from the love of God or from moral responsibility? How might it nourish our spiritual lives? How should we make sense of the moral responsibilities we often take ourselves to have to our friends? Does friendship have anything to do with politics? Understanding Friendship answers these questions by painting a picture of friendship as a vibrant expression of Christian love that can enrich individual lives even as in various ways it can also prove socially, culturally, politically, and spiritually significant. Through a wide-ranging, erudite, yet accessible exploration of theological and philosophical traditions, Understanding Friendship examines what friendship is while showing how its distinctive moral status can be supported by multiple approaches to Christian ethics. Understanding Friendship ultimately reveals friendship's place in a fruitful understanding of Christian spirituality.

Based on a decade of direct diplomatic engagement with the United Nations, a decade of teaching on international relations, and another decade of research and teaching on Islamic and comparative peace studies, this book offers a friendship-related academic framework that examines shared moral concepts, philosophical paradigms, and political experiences that can develop and expand multidisciplinary conversations between the Christian West and the Muslim East. By advancing multicultural and interreligious discourses on friendship, this book helps promote actual friendships among diverse cultures and peoples. This is not a monologue. It provides a model of conversations among scholars and political actors who come from diverse international and interreligious backgrounds. The word “Islamic” should not mislead the reader to suspect that this edited volume delves only into religious discourses. Rather, it provides a forum for conversations within and between religious and philosophical perspectives. It sparks friendship conversations thematically and through disciplinary and cultural diversity. The result of the work of many prominent international scholars and diplomats over many years, it conveys at least one message clearly: friendship matters for not only our happiness but also for our survival.

These collected essays demonstrate that compelling and illuminating discussions of love and friendship do not fall to psychologists alone, but rightly belong among the major thinkers in the history of political philosophy.

A comprehensive and up-to-date exploration of ancient Greek ethical thought, investigating the figures, movements, and themes of this branch of philosophy.