Abstract

Dissertation published in fulfillment of DPhil awarded June 1999 from the Sub Faculty of Philosophy, using a revised critical apparatus and author’s translation of Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics, examining Aristotle’s use of the term “philos”, its Homeric and dramatic meanings and evolutions, and how he arrives in the middle books of the EN to call the friend another self. Key questions raised are the possibility of altruism among friends, the tripartite classification of friends, and the possibility of friendship with the gods.