ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the tensions between self and other in friendship, exemplified by Aristotle's claim that friends are "other selves". In Aristotle's work, he frequently claims that friends are "other selves". But this idea is not restricted to Aristotle. A survey of the literature on friendship reveals that it is often described as a union, or explained in terms that imply that friends share identity. Shared identity is most plausible in very close friendships, as compared to mere casual acquaintances. This suggests compatibility with a roughly Aristotelian strategy for making sense of friendship. The parts/whole account of friendship offers several ways to differentiate friendship from other sorts of personal relationships, especially those that are intuitively unfriendly. In a certain sense, enemies may end up with coordinated interests. In friendship, one takes on a friend's different talents, interests, and concerns without sacrificing one's own. Friends become identical with the friendship by identifying as both parts of, and as, the whole.
