Anteros: on Friendship Between Rivals and Rivalry Between Friends
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Columbia University Academic Commons Anteros: On Friendship Between Rivals and Rivalry Between Friends Dror Post Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Dror Post All rights reserved Abstract Anteros: On Friendship Between Rivals and Rivalry Between Friends Dror Post This dissertation is about friendship and rivalry and, particularly, about the connection between them. The main argument of the dissertation is that friendship, philia, and rivalry, eris, are interconnected and that the failure to recognize this interconnection leads to violence and destruction. More specifically, I argue that every philia, friendship, contains elements of eris, of difference and disagreement, and that the failure to provide a space for these elements within the philia relationship results in the collapse of the friendship. Similarly, I argue that every eris, rivalry, contains elements of philia, of similarity and communality, and that the failure to recognize these elements leads to violent and destructive results. I use the term ‘philia’ here in a broad sense that includes different interpersonal relations like love, friendship, cooperation, solidarity, sympathy, etc., which are endowed with some gravity force that draws individuals close to each other and links them together. Likewise, I use the term ‘eris’ here in a wide-ranging sense that includes various interpersonal relations like hate, rivalry, hostility antipathy, etc., which are endowed with a sort of repulsive force that draws individuals away from each other and divides them.
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