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Specification:
Click the link below to read the article and then answer the questions:
Young people are hanging out less — it may be harming their mental health
Aristotle argued that friendship is essential for the good life. In the ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, he wrote: “For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods”.
In his ‘A Treatise of Human Nature’ Hume writes of falling into philosophically induced melancholy, only to find his doubts and darkness dispelled by spending time with friends. “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I wou’d return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”
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Why is friendship essential to the good life?
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How do findings outlined in the article show the importance of spending time with friends?
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How does the philosopher, in particular, benefit from friendship?
Jack Robertson, Queen Elizabeth’s School
