Philia is one of four ancient Greek words for love, and this specific word implies a love felt between friends. Thomas Jay Oord defines it as an intentional response to promote well-being when cooperating with or befriending others, and that it also gives humans authentic friendship (source). For Aristotle, the object of philia is “another oneself” because one must feel philia for oneself in order to feel the highest form of philia for another (source). CS Lewis describes it as the least biological, organic, instinctive, gregarious and necessary of loves. It is a type of love that is freely chosen. He believed this type of love to be almost ‘a lost art’ and that modern society ignores friendship, in comparison with examples we have from the past (source).
What do you think? Do you agree with CS Lewis? Do you think that modern society ignores true, authentic ‘philia’? And if so, how do you think that has impacted western, and/or global culture today?
Clogyrnach is a poetry form of 6 lines. The first two lines has 8 syllables each. Lines three and four have five syllables each. The last two lines have three syllables each. Lines one, two and six must rhyme, and lines three, four and five must rhyme.
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