Classic friendship and contemporary solidarity

Considered as a fundamental virtue in the classical political thought, “friendship” even outshined the other virtues like “justice”. However, the dawn of modernity and the consequent epistemological rupture after the renaissance caused to the eclipse of the concept. But the renewed reflection of the philosophers as Nietzsche on “friendship” has lead to its revival. The French thinker, Jacques Derrida and the German one, Jürgen Habermas are the main contemporary philosophers which reflect on the matter, though in different approaches; while one pessimistically deconstructs the narrations of “friendship” during the history of political philosophy, the other introduces “solidarity” as a modern alternative for it which simultaneously cares for private and public rights.