Greek thought lacked a pure relational concept, subsuming reciprocity under friendship

Evidence

What this brings out is that the Greeks have no pure relational concept. It escapes them that love is the side of a relationship existing in the subject. As a reciprocal relationship one categorizes it under friendship (philia). … The unique value-relation which is based on love and counterlove is not taken into account by Plato. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 581

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the essay’s relational framing — how love (and by extension, indifference) is constituted in the subject, echoing Simmel’s social-interactionist view of the city as a web of relations. — connects to: Antiquity lacked both full objectivity and full subjectivity in thought — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 697; Culture names the forms, not the content, of social relationships — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 882; Bantu personhood rejects Cartesian cogito in favor of relational compassion

Related

• Antiquity lacked both full objectivity and full subjectivity in thought (similarity 0.80)
• Modern love is irreducibly bound to a unique individual, unlike Plato’s (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Antiquity lacked both full objectivity and full subjectivity in thought #corroborates (0.50) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 697
• Culture names the forms, not the content, of social relationships #corroborates (0.40) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 882
• Bantu personhood rejects Cartesian cogito in favor of relational compassion #complicates (0.35)