philosophy of friendship

Can a collection of love poems teach us something about the deepest forms of human connection? In the twenty-seventh essay of his first book, Michel de Montaigne presents twenty-nine sonnets by his deceased friend Estienne de La Boétie. This seemingly simple gesture — publishing another person’s poetry — opens a philosophical window onto questions that have occupied thinkers since antiquity: what is the nature of true friendship, and how does the soul relate to beauty and desire? A Paradox as a Starting Point There is a striking paradox at work here. Montaigne — the man who made himself the subject of all his essays — dedicates an entire chapter to the work of another. He steps back, falls deliberately silent about himself, and lets La Boétie’s sonnets speak. Yet this withdrawal is simultaneously the most intimate revelation Montaigne can offer us. By showing what he loved in his friend’s work, he reveals who he himself became through that friendship. The philosophical tradition Montaigne follows here is that of Renaissance humanism, with its deep roots in classical antiquity. Cicero’s writings on friendship, Aristotle’s treatment of philia in the Nicomachean Ethics, and Plutarch’s moral essays formed the intellectual foundation upon which Montaigne […]