Smith, Graham (2011) Friendship and the Political:Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schmitt. Imprint Academic. ISBN 9781845402464
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Friendship and the Political: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schmitt This book reappraises the idea of friendship in contemporary political thought. Understood as a way of locating and theorising the bonds between person and person, friendship is shown to be a vital analytical, descriptive, and normative idea. After revisiting the role that friendship played in the thought of Plato and Aristotle, the book explores the possibilities for theorising friendship in modern times through an examination of three seminal thinkers: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Schmitt. Each of these thinkers entertains the potential of friendship – but their thought is also illustrative of some of the dangers and limitations of theorising friendship in modernity. The book concludes by arguing that friendship and the political are aspects of the same concern. This suggests a plural politics based around a recognition of a shared world of order and value.