The following is a transcript of this video.
Hello everyone, today’s video is about how to let go of someone. The ability to let go is one of the most essential skills in life. A healthy relationship can be healing and help you realize your fullest potential. A dysfunctional relationship, on the other hand, can cause significant personal harm and essentially waste your life.
Many people don’t realize the extent to which faulty beliefs prevent us from letting go and hold us back. In this video, I’ll share philosophical insights from Aristotle, David Hume, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
I hope these insights encourage reflection and help you form new, deserving relationships that benefit you in the long run. I’m Dr. Sijin Yan, a philosophical counselor. For philosophical insights on living well, consider subscribing to this channel. Let’s get started!
Aristotle: Criteria to Evaluate a Relationship
The first step is to build a strong intellectual foundation to discern whether the relationship is worth it. Here’s how Aristotle sets criteria for assessing a relationship. In Nicomachean Ethics, he outlines the three types of friendship: those based on utility, pleasure, and virtue.
Just a note: Aristotle, like many other ancient Greek philosophers, prioritized friendship in his life. We, on the other hand, orient our lives around family and work. We’re in the midst of what Richard Reeves calls a friendship recession. Despite this, Aristotle’s insights remain incredibly valuable because he provides a timeless framework for all meaningful relationships.
So for Aristotle, friendships of utility are formed when individuals engage with one another based on mutual needs. Consider the relationship between a tenant and a landlord.
The landlord provides a place to live, and the tenant provides monthly rent. Their interaction might be limited to lease agreements and maintenance requests.
They usually don’t have strong personal bonds but maintain the relationship for very practical purposes.
Aristotle notes that this type of friendship is highly unstable as the dynamics of their relationship can shift as their needs evolve.
Further, it is not even pleasurable because both of them may not enjoy each other’s company.
Friendships of pleasure are much closer to the best form of friendship.
These relationships are based on the pleasure derived from the other’s company. It can arise from shared activities, hobbies, or other sources of enjoyment. For instance, people might become friends because they like the same musician.
They might travel together to the same music festivals and concerts together.
This type of friendship will be much more lasting than friendships of utility, but they may also change as people’s sources of pleasure evolve over time.
The last type of friendship is friendship of virtue.
This is when each person loves each other for each other’s own sake. It is based on mutual admiration of each other’s characters and a shared pursuit of a good life.
Such relationships take time to develop as they require mutual understanding and trust. They are the most stable and enduring form of personal bonds since they are rooted in true understanding of who you are as a person and shared values rather than transient benefits or pleasures.
This is the highest form of friendship according to Aristotle. For both parties in this relationship, one receives the deepest respect and appreciation of who you are.
Let me illustrate how Aristotle’s perspective can help people break free from, or at least refuse, relationships that cause them excessive harm.
Consider the case of Sara, who has been enduring long-term narcissistic abuse from one of her parents.
Despite the prolonged suffering, she finds it difficult to say no to her parent, because she believes in the adage ‘blood is thicker than water.’
The underlying assumption is that if a relationship is defined by blood ties, then it is always stronger and superior to others, then it should be prioritized at all times.
However, applying Aristotle’s view to family dynamics, we understand that relationships based merely on obligation and tradition are inherently fragile. The adage ‘blood is thicker than water’ is a popular yet flawed cultural notion, as it generalizes and unrealistically appraises the quality of all familial bonds.
Sartre: You Are Freer Than You Think
Another obstacle people encounter when struggling to let go of someone is the belief that they have no other choice. They might think, ‘I could never be alone.’ Essentially, they let the dysfunctional relationship define them.
According to French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, as human beings, we must confront aspects of our existence that are unchangeable and uncontrollable. He calls it the givens of our situation. This includes our past choices, elements of our social identity, our biology, and other immutable facts of our lives.
While we cannot alter these givens, we do have the freedom to interpret what these facts mean for us and to make choices about the future.
Human beings possess radical freedom, which means that they have room to choose freely in any situation and are responsible for their choices.
Even if one’s past relationships may feel limiting or oppressive, one still possesses the freedom to form new relationships outside of that environment.
We can either consider ourselves hopeless or actively choose to form new friendships and redefine who is part of our lives.
Hume and Why You Shouldn’t Force People to Change
Third, Hume and Why You Shouldn’t Force People to Change
When we interact with others, we often hold an idealized image of them — a mental blueprint of the qualities, behaviors, and attributes we believe our friends, family members, or partners should have. Some of these ideals are entirely justified, while others are not.
In the context of dysfunctional relationships, there’s a phenomenon known as a healing fantasy. This occurs when we think, “If only this person would change this or that behavior, our relationship would be perfect.” This belief is one of the major reasons people struggle to accept that someone may not be right for them. They convince themselves that they will work hard to change this person.
The Scottish philosopher David Hume is famous for his claim that you cannot deduce an “ought” from an “is.” In Treatise of Human Nature, he said,
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.
Building on Hume’s argument, it becomes evident that the leap from “is” to “ought” involves more than mere observation—it requires an injection of personal or social values. This gap between descriptive and prescriptive statements, often called Hume’s is-ought problem, highlights a fundamental challenge in everyday ethical decision-making.
In relationships, this means that just because “this is good” doesn’t necessarily mean “others must conform to this ideal.” For example, you might say, “According to Aristotle, the best friendship looks like this, so I should try all means to make my friends, partner, and family members emulate friends of virtue.” However, you cannot force others to change.
Philosopher Elliot Cohen refers to this way of thinking in human relationships as “fascistic inference” because it prompts one to impose their own will and desires on others, essentially dictating how other people should think, feel, or act based on one’s own beliefs and preferences.
Let’s say you yearn for a genuine and mutually respectful relationship with someone in your immediate family. While this is a completely relatable and justified desire, a fundamental aspect of the human experience is that there’s no guarantee our aspirations will be realized. Often, when our yearnings and well-intentioned efforts are thwarted, we find ourselves overwhelmed by intense emotions of anger, resentment, and frustration, wondering why the other person “just doesn’t get it.” In despair, we may even fall into self-doubt and self-criticism.
Many of us wish to mend dysfunctional relationships with people we care deeply about. However, letting go of someone also requires us to relinquish the stubborn, sometimes undemocratic desire to change the other person.
Conclusion
So here are the three philosophical insights from Aristotle, Sartre, and Hume on the challenging yet liberating process of letting go. I hope they can provide you with a strong framework for understanding and navigating the complexities of relationships. For more information, you can check out the reading list down below in the description box. If you like this video, please give it a thumb up and subscribe. Thank you so much for watching!