Abstract:
In this thesis, I examine friendship as a multi-faceted phenomenon and finally present a "sacred face" of friendship. Drawing mainly on the works of Aristotle and Montaigne, I identify several features commonly associated with friendship including: goodwill, affection, the particularity of the friend, and the certainty of the friend's affection. Combining these features, I give an account of the activity of giving a gift of affection. This gift need not take on any particular form, but can be present in the way something is done for the friend. Using Mircea Eliade's account of sacred experience, I build on to this notion of giving a gift the concept of sacred experience to make it a ritual.Gift-giving as a ritual is an interruption in the lives of friends. This interruption marks a new way of experiencing the world, and the friends are responsible for that way of being in the world. Through gift-giving the friends experience the world together as an "us," and through the gift of affection they can return to that way of being.By using Claudia Card's account of responsibility, I detail how gift-giving is both a spontaneous taking of responsibility as well as a caretaking form of responsibility. By becoming twofold responsible for the friendship, the friends experience the world as an "us;" as a composite entity where their selves mingle. The being an "us" by way of giving the gift of affection is at the heart of the sacred face of friendship.
