Do you really love philosophy?

Orbie · July 31, 2014, 2:51am

1956 during the revolution.

Arminius · July 31, 2014, 2:56am

Thanks. And when did you fall in love with the philosophy?

Peter_Kropotkin · July 31, 2014, 3:12am

UMMM, I don’t believe love is the correct answer.
I have been wrestling with philosophy for 40 years and this wrestling is
not about love but about understanding. I believe philosophy is not about love
but about the struggle for understanding. Love is peaceful, sunny walks on the beach,
flowers and a string quartet whereas philosophy is violent, competitive, forceful.
music by The Who. Philosophy is not love but doing battle.

Nietzsche: it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions, but you must have the courage for an
attack upon your convictions.

Kropotkin

zinnat · July 31, 2014, 3:18am

Arminius:

[size=150]Do you really love philosophy?[/size]

Do I really love philosophy? Love? No, I don’t love philosophy, but I like philosophy. Probably I like philosophy even very much, but I don’t love philosophy.

But what about you? Do you really love philosophy?

Notice that the accentuation is on the word “love”!

One can love the next related and other next, but not the philosophy. Maybe I’ve merely mentioned a problem that belongs to the contrastive linguistics, because the English verb “love” is not exactly the same as e.g. the German verb “lieben”, and the English substantive “love” is not exactly the same as e.g. the German substantive “Liebe”, but even if it is so, it would also be a philosophical problem. The term “love” can refer to people, things, and everything else, but it doesn’t do it to the same extent or with the same intensity in all languages. What do you think, if someone says “I love stones” instead of “I like stones”? If “love” and “like” become the same or almost the same - I think that’s the current semantic development of these two words -, then is is quite a loss of language and philosophy.

So again: Do you really love philosophy?

size=70[/size]

I do not think that the term love is appropriate in the case of philosophy, at least in the english language.
One can like or even dislike (like modern day scientists) philosophy. But, it cannot be the termed either as love or hate.

As far as i am concerned, i would say that i like philosophy but i do not love it.

Though, i am nowhere near to be an expert in english language but I think that we are missing one point about love.
Besides verb, love sometimes is also used as an idiom also.

Like in the sentence, I just love rock music, love is also a phrase to lay emphasis the intensity of the liking. Theoritically, love should not used for non living things, but used here intentionally as a idiom to show how extreme the liking is.

with love,
sanjay

zinnat · July 31, 2014, 3:20am

That is true in the most of the cases.

with love,
sanjay

Mr_Reasonable · July 31, 2014, 5:27am

If I’m listening to pink floyd, it’s either “time” or “lost for words”.

Arminius · July 31, 2014, 2:46pm

That is the right relationship to philosophy. As I said:

Yes. But what about Eija-Riitta Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer then?

Orbie · July 31, 2014, 3:17pm

I’ve never remembered a time when i wasn’t.

Arminius · July 31, 2014, 9:27pm

So you have been loving the philosophy since you can think, haven’t you?

Arminius · July 31, 2014, 9:27pm

If you like (or even „love“?) the philosophy, you may probably also like (or even „love“?) the arts, for example, the poetry, the visual arts, and especially the music.

Here some art examples I like very much:

A) Poetry:

„Ich bin ein Teil von jener Kraft, // Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft. // … Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint! // Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht, // ist wert, daß es zugrunde geht; // Drum besser wärs, daß nichts entstünde. // So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde, // Zerstörung, kurz das Böse nennt, // Mein eigentliches Element.“ - Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe,[i] Faust /i, 1790 / 1808, S. 64-67.
[size=70]Translation:[/size]
„I am Part of that Power which would // The Evil ever do, and ever does the Good. // … I am the Spirit that denies! // And rightly too; for all that doth begin // Should rightly to destruction run; // 'Twere better then that nothing were begun. // Thus everything that you call Sin, // Destruction - in a word, as Evil represent- // That is my own, real element. “ - Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe, Faust (I), 1790 / 1808, p. 64-67.

B) Visual arts:

Caspar D. Friedrich, Kreidefelsen auf Rügen, 1818, & Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer, 1818.

C) Music:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA0gF41LOKg[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9TmQQQGddQ[/youtube]
Ludwig v. Beethoven, 5. Sinfonie, 1800-1808. The Doors (Morrison, Manzarek, Krieger, Densmore), The End, 1967.

Do you like the arts, or do you even love the arts? And what about the philosophy? Do you like the philosophy, or do you even love the philosophy? It is certainly no quibble, no logomachy, no hair-splitting, because even here in this thread there are conflicting statements:

Pro LOVE - for example:

PRO LIKE - for example:

The distinction between „love“ and „like “ seems to be important, meaningful.

Arminius · August 2, 2014, 8:09pm

Welcome, Pharaoh!

pharaoh:

There are two different factors, here, which should be considered.

The power of like or love.

The depth of like or love.
On the other hand, you have to either accept that there is something essentially different in love as an emotion, or believe that there is a continuum( for power, as well as depth of that emotion) starting from the left with “hatred”, passing through “indifference” on the middle(0), and moving still to “like” and then right up to the end which is “love”; each of which, being gradually expanded within that continuum; that is to say that love for example, is not a point on the continuum, instead a part, gradually starting from no particular point. On that basis, You could possibly find no two love which are of exactly the same power or the same depth (as there are no two actual quantities in the world which are exactly of the same size) . therefore, two people could say that they love something, whereas the amount of their love is not the same.
The depth of like, or love also needs to be carefully defined and examined. To briefly look at it,this involves the intricacy present in each love; somehow like the amount of “knowledge” you have of the inside of what is being loved. A mother normally loves her kid, but that love does, by no means, depend on what she knows of the baby; only that it is her own baby. It is no use to say that “it is only an instinctive reaction”, since the nature of love is instinctive altogether. Here is what I call a powerful emotion with a shallow depth. I once heard someone saying “I love onions”; where there is essentially not much in onions to be loved. At the same time you hear people saying they love philosophy (which has surely more than onions in it) just on the account that it sounds pompous (this is not of course, what they would confess, or even be aware of!). There are cases in which, when they are presented with the amount of attention and accuracy needed for examining philosophical thoughts, they no longer show that much interest! This is where they have acquired more knowledge of it.

First of all, a kid is normally loved not only by the mother, but also by the father. So you should say: Parents normally love their kid.

As i said: I don’t love philosophy, I like philosophy. So before I give you a “number from -100 to +100”, I would like to determine that scale a little bit, for example in this way:

-100 to -51) “I hate …”;
-50 to -1) “I dislike …”;
+1 to +50) “I like …”;
+51 to +100) “I love …”.

How much are you attracted towards philosophy (say, love philosophy)? My answer according to the scale: 40 to 50.
How deep are you interested in philosophy? My answer according to the scale: 90 to 100.

But again and again: I don’t love philosophy, I like philosophy. ALthough I like philosophy very much, I don’t love philosophy.

What about you?

pharaoh · August 4, 2014, 8:21am

Sorry for delay.

Thank you.

I wouldn’t have thought you’d take it literally. I just mentioned a mother, because she loves her baby even before it is born. Don’t you agree with me, that true or false, mothers are symbol of love for their children, unless a male chauvinistic drive rules it out?

At noon, +30
In the afternoon, +50
In the evening, +75
Around midnight, +90
Early morning -40
In between, there are lots of other figures.
This is approximately what has been the case during last three months, asked about earlier periods, I should think hard to remember! What I mean is that, feeling that a person has for something, is not all that rigid. It may go through alterations, as the time pass by, and different events happen in life.

Arminius · August 7, 2014, 9:40pm

Does this apply to only one of the two questions, or both?

Here are the two questions again:

How much are you attracted towards philosophy (say, love philosophy)?
How deep are you interested in philosophy?

d63 · August 7, 2014, 9:56pm

2 the point of self destruction: the neglect of the petty and mundane which sustains us all.

d63 · August 7, 2014, 9:56pm

2 the point of self destruction: the neglect of the petty and mundane which sustains us all.

Arminius · August 9, 2014, 12:07am

Would you mind explaining what you mean?

Orbie · August 9, 2014, 12:22am

No. Can’t remember all of my earlier thinking, but i can think of most of my remembrances.

Arcturus_Descending · August 12, 2014, 6:01pm

You can’t be in love with the Berlin Wall. It might have given/gives meaning to something in her life that she needs or desires to hold onto.
We use the word 'love" to express a multitude of things which other words might best describe.
I don’t think that my cat, Yoda, loves me as much as he is attached to me, needs me for his existence, and is used to have me around - or the other way around.
Your second image to me is more about a man who is wondering "Where did I go wrong with that damn woman or he might just as much be wondering “What do I want for supper?”. His look is not perplexing enough really not at all.

Arminius · August 12, 2014, 11:43pm

I do not anyway. But the Swedish Eija-Riitta Eklöf-Berliner-Mauer does! Do you think that she lies?

That image should merely represent “philosophy” or “thinking” and (I admit it) a bit suggest that one can’t love philosophy or thinking.

Arminius · August 13, 2014, 12:36am

I estimate that merely 20% of this forum members are really interested in philosophy, the other 80% are not really interested in philosophy or even don’t
know what philosophy is, they just want to have fun, or even to derail, to troll, to insult, … and so on. I guess, that if one asks for the emotional relationship to philosophy, the most of those 20% would say “I like phislosophy”, while the most of those 80% would say “I love philosophy”. That leads to the following questions:

1.) “Who are those 20% and 80%?”
2.) “What do they mean when they use the words ‘love’ and ‘like’?”
3.) “What is philosophy?”
4.) “Is it possible or even necessary that one loves philospohy in order to philosophise?”

That are smart questions, aren’t they? Am I similar to Sokrates, just because I like maieutics?

Note:
Dear 80%, I don’t want to insult you; you may be right (see question 4.); but if so, then you should prove or give evidence for your thesis that one can really love philosophy.