The Fraternization of Friendship and Politics: Derrida, Montaigne and Aristotle

“O my friends, there is no friend”. Jacques Derrida uses this aphorism attributed to Aristotle by Montaigne as a motif throughout his book, Politics of Friendship. One of the aspects Derrida addresses is the androcentrism or phallologocentrism of Western political writings on friendship. I will use the works by Montaigne and Aristotle as examples of the classical canon, which Derrida is critiquing, and summarise Derrida’s analysis in which he uses the concept of ‘fraternization’ to demonstrate his claims. I will end by arguing that Derrida can be a friend (or is at least not an enemy) to feminism.