Affectionate regard, friendship, and goodwill, usually between equals.
Affectionate regard, friendship, and goodwill, usually between equals — a dispassionate, virtuous love covering friendship, family bonds, and loyalty to one's community.
Lacks the desire of eros; more reciprocal and virtue-based than storge's instinctive family bond; partial and reciprocal, unlike agape's universal, non-reciprocal giving.
φιλία (philía), from φίλος (phílos, “dear, friend”).
From φίλος (“dear, beloved”) + abstract-noun suffix.
Central to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics Book VIII, where philia ranges over friendships of utility, pleasure, and (highest) virtue, requiring equality and reciprocity.
One of five genuinely attested Ancient Greek love terms. See the note on the popular “8 loves” framework.