Political friendship: Gardens, bees and Patrick Hayden

Abstract

There is no doubt in my mind that my friend and colleague Patrick Hayden is a beeresearcher; in this short note I am going to make my case by concentrating on one example: his excellent article on political friendship (Hayden, 2015: 745−764). For sure, in that essay Patrick does not emulate ant-researchers and limit himself to relate thoughts and ideas about friendship exposed by others, nor does he imitate spider-writers and propose a conception of political friendship that neglects 2500 years of thinking about the relationship. Rather, like the Baconian bee, he combines expertise with ingenuity. To begin with, he offers an overview of the terrain that he intends to explore as well as an account of the weather conditions; he notes that recent times have witnessed a warming up of interest in two ideas that have a long history in the western tradition, namely the concepts of ‘friendship’ and ‘recognition’. He points out that there has been ‘little cross-fertilisation’ of the two themes in [international] political theory, and that his aim is ‘to contribute to the project of building conceptual bridges between theories of political friendship and theories of recognition’ (p. 746). As a second step, in search of the nectar of friendship and recognition, Patrick flies over large fields and meadows; he explores Cicero’s hortus, Aquinas’ orchard, Montaigne’s secret backyard, Kant’s landscaping grounds, Hegel’s national park; in all these places, and others, he finds the tendency of describing friendship as a relationship of self and other: