PHILOSOPHICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONSTRUCTING THE "FRIEND-ENEMY" DICHOTOMY

Abstract

The article offers a philosophical and anthropological analysis of the construction of the «friend-enemy» dichotomy as a fundamental way of human being-in-society, rooted in the nature of interpersonal recognition, the phenomenon of the Other, and the need for ontological security. It is substantiated that this dichotomy is not merely a political or social construct but has deep anthropological foundations that go back to the very nature of human identity, the ability to distinguish, and the need for security. The study examines the anthropology of friendship as the highest spiritual reality of personal existence, where the recognition of the Other is a free act rather than coercion. It is demonstrated that the political construction of the «friend» often reduces this complex reality to a community of values, interests, or existential experience, which creates risks of manipulation. The problem of the Other is analyzed as a necessary prerequisite for the «friend-enemy» dichotomy, since it is in encountering the alien, that which does not coincide with one’s «I», that the need for «us/them» identification arises. Different philosophical strategies towards the Other (assimilation, confrontation, ethical responsibility) are shown to produce different versions of the dichotomy.
Special attention is paid to the origins of the dichotomy in early Greek philosophy, where Heraclitus and Democritus laid the foundation for understanding the enemy as a threat to the cosmos, the polis, and the inner order of the soul, making the dichotomy not only social but also ontological. The article analyzes the model proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which the social contract transforms natural enemies into civil friends through subordination to the general will, while preserving the dichotomy in a new form: the internal enemy (one who does not recognize the general will) and the external enemy (one who threatens society from outside) become necessary for consolidating friendship within. Carl Schmitt’s theory is systematized as the most radical justification of the «friend-enemy» dichotomy as a criterion of the political, based on an anthropology where man is defined not through reason but through the ability to distinguish. The sovereign decision concerning the enemy and the friend, especially in a state of exception, is revealed as an existential act not subject to complete rationalization.
The state of exception, examined through the examples of K. Marx, C. Schmitt, and G. Agamben, is shown to lay bare the «friend-enemy» dichotomy in its most intense form, where an anthropological reduction to the basic «us-them» opposition occurs – a phenomenon clearly manifested in contemporary Ukraine. The article identifies levels of identification of the «friend» in political discourse: through common interests, common values, and through the prism of existential experience (the phenomenon of the «community of memory» and «brotherhood in arms»). It is concluded that the construction of the «friend-enemy» dichotomy always takes place at the intersection of anthropological constants (the need for security, recognition, identity, belonging) and political decisions that actualize these constants in the form of public distinctions. Understanding this makes it possible to take a critical view of attempts at political manipulation of this dichotomy without diminishing its profound anthropological significance. The prospects for further research are outlined, namely the analysis of specific mechanisms for constructing the enemy in contemporary political discourses (hybrid warfare, information security, populism) through the prism of the philosophical and anthropological foundations examined.