Thoreau's Essay on Friendship

Henry David Thoreau wrote the essay entitled "On Friendship." Thoreau was one of America's greatest naturalists and wrote on that and other subjects in nineteenth century. He was one of the New England writers, along with Ralph Waldo Emerson and others, who subscribed to aspects of the philosophy of Transcendentalism.

Friendship: The entire essay is a consideration of friendship and its meanings, and yet from the first it is assumed that the reader will have some concept of friendship as a relationship between two people that extends beyond acquaintance and that involves nobility.

Love: An emotional relationship such that it can drive one to distraction when considering the object of that love, and Thoreau says this is not commonly found in friendship. Love that might apply is love that lets us stand in true relation to a friend.

Understood relation: Also not friendship, for an understood relation involves demands and expectations, which friendship does not.

Thoreau begins by musing on the meaning of Friendship as something we all seem to grasp intuitively but whose parameters and deeper meanings we have not considered.

His method is logical and analytical. He first considers some of the effects Friendship has on the thinking of individuals and then uses his own logic to trace those meanings back to the "thing" that caused them, to Friendship.

He asks what it is that is commonly honored with the name of Friendsh

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e have that something as special as Friendship cannot be dissected and studied. Indeed, doing so could damage it, which is not the desired result at all. Thoreau echoes what we all have experienced in some degree, and once he makes us think about the issue in the terms he prescribes, we can see how what he has to say applies to our own experiences quite well. MY BELIEFS I agree with Thoreau that Friendship is one of those things that we may try to describe but that we will find to be elusive if we try to explain it fully. Our understanding will only go so far in explaining the meaning of Friendship. INTEGRATION WITH COURSE MATERIALS Thoreau's analysis points to limitations in any study of human behavior, especially with reference to accepted beliefs or values and behaviors we respond to emotionally and not intellectually. PHASE I Elizabeth V. Spelman, professor of philosophy at Smith College, writes the essay "Theories of Race and Gender: The Erasure of Black Women." DEFINITIONS Feminist: Criticism and analysis from the point of view of one who supports the empowerment of women. Solipsism: Philosophic emphasis on the self as being all that exists. Sexism: Discrimination on the basis of gender. Racism

Category: Philosophy - T