Personalizing friendship: a contribution to friendship theory from Leonardo Polo’s transcendental anthropology

This paper examines the contribution of Leonardo Polo’s transcendental anthropology to contemporary friendship theory and moral education. It asks: What becomes of friendship when it is understood in light of transcendental anthropology? While contemporary theories explain friendship in terms of pleasure, utility, virtue, flourishing, self-knowledge, mutual growth, or gift, friendship remains insufficiently explored in relation to the personal act of being. Drawing on Polo’s distinction between human essence and human person, his account of transcendental love, and the notion of dualization, the paper proposes the concept of transcendentalized friendship love: friendship illuminated by transcendental love while remaining rooted in human essence. It argues that this perspective enriches contemporary friendship theory by explaining why friendship can endure vulnerability, dependence, and imperfection; clarifying the friend’s irreplaceability; grounding fidelity in the recognition of the person; and introducing the distinction between friendship basis (shared goods) and friendship horizon (focus of the relationship). Finally, the paper explores the educational implications of this proposal, arguing that moral education should foster the personalization of friendship through dialogic encounter, acceptance of vulnerability, personal giving, and shared growth. In this way, friendship becomes oriented not primarily toward shared goods (pleasure, utility, virtue) but toward the friend as person.