Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle

Reissued in 1997 with corrections and a new Afterword this book fully explores for the first time an idea common to Plato and Aristotle which unites their treatments-- otherwise very different--of love and friendship. The idea is that although persons are separate their lives need not be. One person''s life may overflow into another''s and as such helping another person is a way of serving oneself. The author shows how their view of love and friendship within not only personal relationships but also the household and even the city-state promises to resolve the old dichotomy between egoism and altruism.