Magius,
If I can get more than a moment free in the next day I’ll PM you.
Hey Natty,
Goethe wrote in his Elective Affinities:
If you only love one person with all your heart, everybody seems lovable.
You’re a sweetheart, Natty!
Hi Ben,
Do you remember when Shakespeare’s Romeo cried?
Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet.
And then we have Keat’s well known complaint in his Lamia:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
And now, quite serious again, I wanted to mention that I find the passions of life and philosophy to be closely related. By chance, have you read Robert Solomon’s, The Passions; Emotions and the Meaning of Life? Solomon; a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, writes:
“Our passions have been too long relegated to mere footnotes in philosophy and parentheses in psychology, as if they were intrusions and interruptions-sometimes welcome distractions but usually embarrassing if not treacherous subversions of lives that ought to be conceived in “higher” terms. Our passions constitute our lives. It’s our passions and our passions alone, that provide our lives with meaning.”
Romeo needn’t have worried. He could be passionate about his Juliet and his Philosophy. Ben, I’d bet you are as passionate about philosophy as I am. The very name “philosophy” already tells us this thing is about a passion. In my case, philosophy is also romantic. No, of course not candles and soft music romantic; it’s more, to freeze while shaving in the morning when you catch your eyes staring back into your eyes. I’ve stood for long moments with my razor suspended, until the chill in my spine has subsided.
I’m taking a chance here because I’ve never asked another person about this. Maybe everyone already does it, or maybe I’m just plain weird. Whatever the case, I would ask you, anyone actually, to try it at least once. Yes, I know people look at “themselves” in the mirror all the time. But I suspect most people are only asking, “What do I look like to other people?” I’m asking you to pick out your eyes in the mirror, look directly into yourself and ask, “What do I look like to myself?”, or at least, “Do I know you?”
Sartre wrote, "An emotion is a transformation of the world." This is the context of my romanticism. Philosophy is all about my most intense emotions: my place in the world, my relationship with others,…my introspective self. These reasoned emotions transform my world. Poor Keats, he seems to have missed out on the charms of philosophy.
Well, I’ll be merciful and stop now, I don’t want to hijack a perfectly good thread. I just wanted to mention that for me, the passion for life and for philosophy are close cousins.
Michael