Even with endless social scripts around romance, we hardly know what it means to be a good friend. In episode 114 of Overthink, Ellie and David reflect on the highs and lows of friendship, from their own bond to Montaigne’s intimate connection to Étienne de La Boétie. From Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics to today’s loneliness epidemic, they question what friends do, how they hold each other accountable, and the deep ways in which our vices and virtues are shaped by our friends. Plus, in the bonus, they talk Ralph Waldo Emerson, intimacy, dyadic relationships, high school friends, and… pluralectics?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics
Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship”
Lydia Denworth, Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond
Elijah Milgram, “Aristotle on Making Other Selves”
Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship”
Lawrence Thomas, “The Character of Friendship”

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