Teaching as a Primordial Act of Friendship

Abstract

The central claim of this article is that through the activity of teaching, most especially that associated with moral education, teachers and students can enter into a unique friendship. It will be argued that teaching embodies many of the essential characteristics traditionally associated with friendship. In both teacher/student relationships and in friendships there must be frankness, critical self-assessment and self-understanding, a sense of duty to seek the perfection of the soul, to care for the world, and to express love and respect for humanity. Against the view that teachers and students cannot or should not be friends, because friendship is of necessity a private, intimate, and highly individualized relationship, Hannah Arendt will be enlisted to conclude that friendship between teachers and student is neither intimate nor private but is rather a public and political relationship and that teaching is indeed a primordial act of friendship.