Abstract

This paper considers the impact that the practices of friendship might have on shaping philosophical activity in the twenty-first century. To consider what it means to practise philosophy necessitates understanding the effect that the structures of the contemporary university have on philosophical enquiry. Maintaining the historic sense of the university as a place where conversations take place which aim at deepening the understanding of one’s world is increasingly difficult in universities structured by the imperatives of the neoliberal economic policies of the last forty years. The model of friendship, because it is both personal and conversational, has the power to reinvigorate not just the practice of philosophy but also the understanding of the university as a place for deep learning.