O problema da amizade nos Ensaios de Montaigne: sobre “Da Amizade” (I,28).

Abstract

This dissertation aims to discuss the philosophical status of the concept of friendship on Montaigne´s work, presented in the chapter Of Friendship (I, 28). The central problem is the distinction of the conception of friendship by our author when compared to the other interpretations existing in his time, since, according to Michel Montaigne, friendship is an experience and not a pure concept. More than that: Friendship is an immeasurable affection, because it is the greatest feeling that the man can desire. Our arguments try to state that, for Montaigne, the friendship is the place of a meeting of the self, because the identity of the self is affirmed by itself. Thus, the friendship is the place of the experience of the self: which is, it is nor in the solitude, neither in the pure return to himself, that Montaigne finds the solidity of a true life, the real existence of the self, but in the singularity with the other. In the same way, we present that, Of friendship, as an experience of the self marked by the otherness, will exist always the other is constitutive of the identity of the self. The friendship is the highest degree of perfection of human relations. The author seeks the inspection which supports the relational judgment will follow from the experience of the self towards experience of the collective and of public opinion. The idea of humanity stands above the idea of homeland, and states the friendship even higher, which he dedicates to the human genus. La Boétie is the guardian of its purest image. The essayist points out the unique and unequalled aspect of the friendship. He describes characteristics that can only be experienced by humans who know how to live with reciprocity, to the point that their souls unite in such a way that there is no longer a dividing line between them, and they become a soul in two bodies. Montaigne carries out a calm surveillance on affections, which are exacerbated in the examples of excesses he refuses: the only excess admitted is the friendship with La Boétie. Tensioning the idea of Aristotle, for whom the friendship is mediated by the virtú, he describes a friendship which is difficult to be found. Whereas Aristotle sees in the friendship paradigmatic social relations, Montaigne considers that it expresses an absolutely single and rare property. Thus, the friendship cannot be considered the model of a perfect social or political relationship, as it was the case of La Boétie himself.