Abstract

The article that follows will defend a thesis that I consider to be extremely simple and even extremely proven: if I am not capable of authentic philoauthy, I will never be able to truly love any other human being; friendship with other people is based on an adequate love of self. I trust that the development of this principle, as I propose it in these pages, will have some merit, at least for thinking in a renewed way about a question as old as philosophy itself. Problematizing an Aristotelian thesis, I emphasize that, at least in the present culture, love and friendship with oneself is not something that could be assumed to be spontaneous; it is rather a point of arrival, a horizon to be reached, just as virtue itself is. We come to take care of ourselves from a first experience of love, a reality that is not always given in affective terms, but that can be discovered as a metaphysical and religious conviction. Once assumed and healed, philoauthy can be deployed in political friendship, particularly within the family and intermediate communities. In practice, however, we go out to meet others, loving ourselves little and badly, which inevitably produces conflict, wounds and the learning that is proper to love. But when there is a predisposition to dialogue and good will, everything leads to a gain, the often painful and magnificent experience of learning to live.