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Professor: Let me start it presently. Agriana is going to give a presentation today. Before that, I want to correct my miss quotation from the short poem by Dorothy Parker that I mentioned last week. You’ll remember it when I finish reading you the authentic version which reads “Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song; A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania.” That’s what I was trying to remember. As I mentioned Maria of Roumalnia was the queen of that country of that time, so you get the idea that the speaker is a little confused in our mind. You remember the contexts when the article was talking about love which can have various virtues without at the moment discussing all the draw backs. Alright. Today Agriana is gonna take a ??? to start now and you mind being dropped it all? Agriana: No, not at all. P: That’s ??? the rest of you, that’s what I meant. A: Ok, so we’ve read two chapters from ‘the Pursuit of Love’. We read the chapter on sexual love and the chapter on love and society. So first, I would like to make some comments on the chapter of sexual love. You didn’t go very deep into the concept of sexual love in the religious aspect. So I would like to elaborate a little bit on how this involve… P: Entirely fitting, but for next week you’ll be reading a chapter called Religious Love. A: Yes. P: It doesn’t matter. In fact, maybe it’s better for you to try out your own ideas before you read that chapter. A: So first of all, Aristotle derived the term philia from Plato’s eros and he redefined love as something that is more dependent on reason than on passion. P: What than on passion? A: more dependent on reason than on passion P: But what is the idea philia referred to? A: more like friendship P: friendship? That’s the big difference. Steward : it actually means friendship in Greek. P: Steward, say it again. S: It actually means friendship exactly in Greek. P: Yes, exactly, right. As in ?? friendly so the relationship not as royal passion one at all. But there are some people who have passion for ?? That’s, you see, a complication. A: But my point here is that philia gave rise to agape in Christian philosophy and in this concept erotic love is repressed and what he emphasizes is the union of the souls. P: Ok, I think this point I surely dropped for more in my mini-lectures that I hope you help me keep short. In the trilogy in nature of love talking about Christian love there are several pages on Christian love. I distinguish among four different concepts that applied. All of the words coming from the Greek, not all the ideas did but the words did. The words are love as eros. Now I explain that to you. Love as philia, love as nomous and love as agape, agape you’ve already accounted in this book. I say love as but the truth is that the media of all system of thoughts was inherently ??and that the idea of ?? of these different properties of love or ingredients of love than became part of the controversy that erupted in the reformation and the ?? between the Catholicism and Protestantism, that is never been overcome because they became more and more ?? different sects. But the idea of their being one kind of Christianity. I don’t think anyone can affirm anymore. There may be??efforts to communicate; there may be a sense of identity as Christians. But still they are different sects and that’s related to the question of the ?? among those foreign ingredients of midi-evil love which is still existed as ingredients in Catholicsiology. Follow me? Alright, the first one eros. Eros as Agriana just pointed out is a potanic idea and it refers to the way in which the human souls always driving to improve itself, can make itself better. Why? Because Plato thought that that’s in the nature of universe, everything wants to be better. Nobody wants something that is inferior. Give it a choice between something that’s good, something that’s best. Everybody wants what’s best. At that, the ?? not only in driving what sorts of mobiles and food at home, but also in terms of the nature of the thoughts---the soul. The soul always wants to improve itself to make itself better and better and better. It’s driving for perfection and that’s few thing to everything in universe, according to Plato, and most evident and most interesting in human beings. Why? Because human beings created an image of God and God is perfect. God not only is perfect but it’s part of the tradition, of Christian tradition, that God is perfection and also the God, since he is perfect, loves himself. Now that sounds as if there are some kind of solipsism more, some kind of selfishness being rapped up in yourself or narcissism my guess. You remember the great ?? Narcissus who fall in love with his own image. The idea is if God is spiritually perfect and consequently are falling in love with himself or being in that love or fall in that love cause that separate concept, you remember my analysis but love for perfection is a matter of station of the pure, spiritual purity, is true in God in the way that is not true in anybody else. And that’s what we strive for in loving God. Domitry, you wanna say something? Domitry: Yeah, you said that according to Plato, “love is the pursuit of perfection”. How could the perfect be in pursuit in perfection or…. P: That’s a very big problem in Plato on the potanic view which was not uncommon at that time. The Gods didn’t love because they were perfect. For love is the seek for something better than yourself, something outside yourself which will make you better but if you are already perfect, there is no place for it be love so traditional view was that the Gods did not love because they were already perfect. The mythological thought is in the thought of mythological character of the God called Eros who is the God of love, the son of Aphrodite, the Goddess of love. And the point about Eros is that he is always wayward he is very in perfect. He is individual who shoot his arrows of desire wherever he feel sight, he is a kind of role, a kind of gigolo, in my even think of him as a kind of divan who were simply freezes his own caused the people to fall in love, not because he makes them better, but because that is in his nature. Right? Alright. Now Plato picks it up and says this typifies the way in which only imperfect person could love, and love in the sense of striving to attain something that is better rather than what one is or worse than what one is. The Gods being perfect, they are different for Eros and they don’t love, they are the object of love, models, inferior, imperfect creature likes us want to emulate the Gods to be like them. Right? 2000 years later, Nietzsche says in one place, if the Gods are perfect, how can I not want to be one of them myself? I want another words to be God and then ?? picks it up and says that the futility of the human race is that all the men and women, all the people want to be perfect. But there is only one creature, in today, who can be perfect. That is God. ?? it’s 20th century. And Nietzsche concludes that god does not exist and therefore the human search to be God which developed religious person will call blessedness. That’s search, according to ??, is futile and so humanity is futile. That ?? going far beyond Nietzsche and Nietzsche playing upon this idea of imperfect creatures searching to be like the perfect ones but the only perfect ones being the Gods or God. Domitry, again, do you want to say something? D: Yeah, I can see the ?? but certainly he didn’t mean that you can’t get much?? P: The real question is whether you can truly emulate God because God belongs to different domain. He is inherently perfect, we’re inherently imperfect; he is in modal, we’re modal. All sorts of ways in which God is infinite in his goodness, his wisdom, his power and we are ???? and the fact that you want to be like that doesn’t change the nature of the human condition. That’s the problem, we don’t have to go through this too much detail to try to resolve it. I wanted to make this little bypass to explain the concept in ??? Christianity which is the concept of Eros. The great thinker who interprets the Christian religion in terms of Eros is St Augustine, I never allowed discussion of him in the first volume of the trilogy, the whole first volume in trilogy. The part of the Christianity which is over 200 pages works at the analysis into the foreign ingredients. The question of whether they can be ?? or not so ??in detail go back to the first volume of the love trilogy. St Augustine’s idea comes to directly out of Plato, he was originally a pagan, growing up to be a paganist. And then he heard the word of God, had revelation thought of, and converted to Christianity. His mother was a Christian. His father was a pagan. And this conflict within him, he finally became not only a Christian but also very perlific righter, and the ??, and ambitious, and finally he was satisfied,?? as a saint. So St Augustine is one of the purest of the Catholics faith. His dominant idea is that all human beings, all Christians are defined in terms of their erotic love of a spiritual thought, the search to approximate the perfection of God. That was a big emphasis in him. Now, and it came out Plato. Aristotle deals with problem that ?? in a very late dialogue, Plato raises the problem but he doesn’t do anything about it. The problem is that if love is perfection, it’s the best condition one can imagine, meaning by that the love is the highest form of the good, beautiful which Christianity interpreted as God divinity. Then Plato says how is it possible that loving that should not be a perfection in itself. So the whole question of love consisting for a search for perfection but love not being perfect is raised in that dialogue of Plato’s. But he doesn’t resolve it. Aristotle does resolve it. Aristotle says, it is because love is perfection that anybody who searches for the best also experience and embody the nature of love. So that’s what makes sharp change from Plato. Aristotle didn’t write very much about the ?? of loves. There is hardly and discussion of sexual love or love between friends, marching together as Plato in their search for the good. But he does have a very important chapter in his book “??” on the nature of friendship. And he defines friendship as a kind of love, but it’s a kind that at its best when you have two virtual ???? that is two people of world inherently good, morally good, and that will be he thinks among those who are fully developed in their rationality so that this gets back to the point Agriana was making about love for Aristotle being a form of reason. To that extent, emotions, passion, all of which are throbbing Plato. Plato was a really, almost romantic poet. He was a great writer or a literal writer on the search for the good. You know, bring back what he called the devine madness in which you lose your reason. Because you transported it into a different ground and you can see 19 century romanticism learning a great deal from Plato. Aristotle you know, didn’t get much of that. But you get a very very interesting analysis about different kinds of friendship. I don’t wanna get into it right now. This is a chapter on Aristotle in the first volume, and a long chapter on Plato. The One kind that I want to emphasize is the idea of phialia being friendship among people who are alike in their virtual search for the good and who live together in the community. So Aristotle is almost a political theorist when he talks about love. That love is the way of unifying the city state and being managed properly by the people who are capable being friends and who know to speak right and wrong. It’s almost the constitutional view about the nature of love. And in fact, Aristotle did write constitutions for large number of city states through a degree empire. That’s philia. Medi-Christianity appropriates sad and in the first years of Christianity 1st century, 2nd century AD, there were little societies who communes as we’re calling since like the communes like the 1960 in which many women would live together in a loving friendship. One problem is what did love involve? Do you have to subjugate all your physical desires, your sexual desires? Was this free love among Christians? A lot of them seem to have border around that even turn into that they can consider it radical and thousands of thousands of them were murdered by those who thought that wasn’t good Christianity. They roared crusaders against the ?? and against the Catholers and other people. On the grounds that they desecrated the Christian religion. They were thought too frontly to each other. But then they rather is to like in a notary monastery or a Christian commune. Subjugated concreted sexual desires and live together as brother and sister or as intimate friends within Christ The idea of Philia, therefore was being a polite bagan and continue as an important element in Christian ideas about the nature of love, religious love. Duros? Duros: So, is that the reason why monasteries are all man man, do they originally curse P: I think ?? of that. the conflict was to separate the senses in order to cheap ?? believers purify. At the same time, the church of course recognize it won’t be any future generation??something of that sort went on. And so they made a big thing about the santevy, the sacrament to marriage. So in marriage what you could not do outside was not only free and recommended, it was part of the beauty of marriage. Which is I always think is very great normally particularly nowadays when marriage is crumbling all round. Why can’t you do outside of marriage what you are encouraged to do inside of marriage? This is something we can combat. Philia, that is the second ingredient of the Catholic ?? in ??. The third ingredient doesn’t come from great philosophy it comes from the other parents of Christianity which is Judaism. In the old testament there is the idea of God’s law and man being ordained to be willing to submit to God’s law. Not doing it grudgingly but doing it with the good will, doing it lovingly. And that love will show itself in living up to Gods, commandant in God’s lord. So that’s was the third ingredient. The fourth ingredient is agape. Agape is God who agape is God’s love and God is the finest love. And that involves what I called in chapter in first volume the divine bestow. God bestows love upon the world, first in creating it out of nothing. No reason why that had to be world. No reason why that had be human beings. This was the bestow of the God’s goodness in creating this beautiful world as it used to be. And allowing people to enjoy life as they sometimes still do try to do. Second bestow occurs when Gods see how we can feeble morally and spiritually people are, how sinful they are. He nevertheless?? wiping them off ??. He send his own son and meaning of the son and the son was recognized as far as the second person that is called. Now, for me, all of these language is very hard to understand that I’m not sure that it is really understandable. What sense is Christ something like a son and if Christ the second person of God what is the meaning of person anymore? One thinks the pagan image of Janis with the faces, you know, pointing in different directions, two face creature. But it is more complicated than that. And then the third person is the Holy Ghost which sometimes is now called the Holy Spirit. Now the point about the Holy Spirit is that itself is defined in terms of Gods agape, itself is the purity of his bestow upon the world. However, we interpret the three persons the God is since Catholicism is ??, and of course later, prices ??that sex would not be in Judaism wisdom. The second bestow of goodness upon the world occurs when he sends his own son. For God has sent his own son to save the world. Save the world from what? From its own sinfulness. So Christ dies as a way of taking away the sins of humanity. One can always say how does that happen? Why just because Christ dies? How the sins taken away? How can you erase reality? What occurs is infinitely inerasable because that is what it is, that happened. That’s in existed you know so how can you erase it. All these is a mystery that before the ??? agree can not be fully understood to our feeble minds. But it’s a part of darkness. So I will try to make too much sense out of that. For me, the ?? was the third kind of the ?? when the sinners die they are all through the hell. The God tries his best to be most of all and the spell as many as possible. And that is a part of the function of Christ. And he intervenes with his mother, that can’t be a spiritual mother. God doesn’t have a wife. It’s the mother of Jesus who, in his person, Christ appears and then somehow she becomes more than just the same, kind of Goddess in fact. And people related can intervene with her to be spelled, to get favors, to have mercies perform and so will Christ. All of these being a third illustration of God’s infinite bestow upon the world. I prefer in the ?? of this sympathetically as I can because as I can say being a philosopher means trying to help people make their own ideas clear. It’s not going round with the kind of intellectual machedy cutting down all of the people who don’t agree with you. That’s why you get to be a professor, but it’s not the true spirit of philosophy. Why then do I pay so much attention to this? Because for me, it’s all magnificent mythology, it’s all a beautiful picture of the world. Beautiful not in sense of the world show to be beautiful but rather because to doing it is beautiful, the ?? artistic conceptual, artistic feet to think of the world in terms of this categories and in terms of these different ingredients. And I’m fascinated by that, but I’m also fascinated being ?? and not, you know, I’m not faithful to any one religion. I love them all. And then they are all different. And there are many more religious at all that I’m feel the same way about them. ?? to that. Later in the course we may get to that I’ll just briefly mention that’s what I mean by having the love of love or the love of loving everything. But that then becomes for me as a differ choice ?? who I mention to you and others becomes the basis of a humanistic. ?? Religion, very different from the established religions. But it’s the equivalent of other religion. ?? What I want to do is to stand Christianity on its head or if I’m right to stand on its feet by saying this ideas of Pasolo are simply expressions made for versions of something human beings do, not as God. All of love can be understood in terms of a system of ??, and then having got that train ?? into ??, having made the contrast then try to show the harmonization between the ?? and ??. And then after that there are other station the matter gets more and more complicated when you get to the ?? desperations in love and sex. My first acquaintance with the idea of agape, of God’s bestow came to me in a great work by?? whose name was Nygren, I didn’t remember what his first name was, Nygren, and the book is called “Agape and Eros” and its marvelous history of western Christian philosophy from the point of view of the two ways of thinking entering into the thought of Christians. That’s where I got the idea of Christian idea of ??. And then not being ?? Nygren, I want to see how this could be an expression of the mythologizing idealizing aspective human nature. Then how to explain what was to idealize or how imagination comes into it and so on. All that derives out of this early exploration for me. All right, so here we are the four concepts. Sorry this is so lengthy. Agriana, you have all the time you want very shortly. Four concepts of Eros, Philia, Nomos and Agape. The great genius of Catholic world was say Thomas Quantence in books more or rather call them books so monuments like ??? some higher summation of the ?? in the, I guess, 14th century when he lived. Right? Am I right? Wasn’t 13th. He formulated what became the basis of all subsequent Catholicism. And ?? that was the idea that God is all of these that all of these are Christian concepts and they are entirely compatible ?? them into each other. Right? All right. In the case of Rousseau that was jumping to reformation. Rousseau couldn’t believe all four of them. He thought that God was agape, for him that was the basis of Christianity. But eros means a thought of no matter what St Augustine said is selfish, it’s somebody wanted to get better. So given a choice between a less spiritual good, which is what human beings would have, and a better higher spiritual good, which is what divinity have God, then a lusty selfish man will try to make himself better so that he can get the best of these, nobody wants, ?? but that’s selfishness, according to Rousseau. He was originally in his life, in ?? and he lost his faiths in the Catholicism there. He read all through the rituals, self-adulation, all the very difficult hardship that was suppose to purify oneself of the longings of fresh, make one more and more spiritual. And, you know you suffer the problem manner. But he writes the more I did that, more I realize that how sinful I was because it is hard to do that. I couldn’t eliminate that. Why? Well, if I did eliminate that, if I did the job properly the way I being trained, I’ll become a saint. But for the wrong reasons and there is one night I’ll always remember from his description of those days he said, I concluded, “oh, devil, the devil, you make a saint yet, don’t you?” That was something infinitely sinful and evil in the very idea of anybody wanting to make himself into a saint. If you become one, it’s not because anything you do, it’s because of God’s grace. God’s grace is out flowing from his agape, his bestow of love and you are striving to get it, is no better than your striving to make a fortune or to make love to a very large number of women. All that is evil. The kind of spiritual evil is opposed among the material evils. On that paces, Rousseau began by separating eros out of Christianity. And the living up to laws he thought that was the reason why the Jews were finally dismissed by God and new religion had been created because you live up to laws inevitably out of obedience not our of love. So that to create nomos. Philia is a little better but not much because you can have a society of robbers or murders or sinetors. So just the friendship among people who are imperfect doesn’t yet bring one into the religious condition one wants. The only thing that world would be agape, but men can’t have agape, and therefore, life honors human nature is evil inherently and the Rousseau nowadays really seem to believe that. I don’t know if any of you listen to ??? companion on radio. Not a popular thing to you? To all of you? It’s on all the public broadcast stations at the same time Saturday at 6 o’clock. When I’m in newhamsher because where happened to be located, I picked up about 6 or 7 different public broadcasting stations. ?? Boston ?? you know, all of them. And at 6 o’clock they all play this thing because it is so popular and the master of ceremonies who is very famous but whose name, I forgot, what is his name? You don’t know? Many that, he has a monologue about life in his hometown which is fictional place somewhere in Minisoda called ?? and it’s where everybody is ?? and all being ?? they are all sure their own sinfulness that everything they do is ?? And since presumably he is a ??, and he is very comical, ?? good spirit nobody seems to think this is a kind of a ?? dating. But the point is that goes back to Fleuthos belief that human nature is inherently evil. He doesn’t give up power because God being infinitely good bestow his love upon the world and give rewards to those have faith in them not for their good deeds because we do good deeds skimming but rather because its God’s grace which can fall on anybody without person knowing about it. So you have very different conception from Saint Thomas Aqamsis. All right? And that results in splitting of the ??. So that’s the pages about, the creation of the?? and the splitting of the ??. When the first volume came out, I thought, you know, I was doing good philosophical job, my colleague, the American philosophers recognize the brilliance of my analysis and the storing would see how inside I was ?? storing of ideas. But I was afraid of the religious people would be horrified at my standing their religion on its head, chopping it up. For the sake of this argument that I was developing, I was completely wrong, the philosophers completely ignored. And religious people thought that was something of interest. And nowadays I think that’s still the case that it has a further reputation among where other books are totally neglected. But I think mainly by people taking religions seriously. They didn’t mind the fact that was outside the humanist. So I’m very happy to be in service of that extent. Though I’m sorry that philosophy is gone often in its own way we manner. Agriana, have you forgotten everything that you wanted to say? Not really. ?? haven’t to ?? you. So let’s go back. You’re saying about eros, philia. Agriana: Yes. You’ve already talked about what I was going to say about how ?? mean the distinction between the body of soul based on Plato ?? the views of the world. And he praised the thought and stained the body. So Christianity takes this and it’s right to Christian?? morals and the deride of the concept of sin. From ?? the body. I just wanna to mention that because this is the reason why sometimes sexuality is treated as sort of a taboo topic. It wasn’t mentioned on that chapter, so I just want to mention that. Professor: This was developing. Does anyone want to say anything about that? Duros. D: I think why sexuality is set taboo by Christians is because it was a pagan, they wanna to, you know, make pagans. It is wrong to have pagans?? to have, I mean, ?? you know sex, and you know, loving of the woman was part of the whole pagan religious. So Christians in their effort to try to you know shut paganism make sex a taboo and made the woman inferior to man. Professor: I think that may have been a second idea because even if you ?? sex doesn’t make woman inferior. There were Goddesses, ?? Goddesses among ancient people. Maybe that was thought competitive was one God that Christianity believe in. But they can just easily said that sex is bad because of the man as well as because of the woman. In terms of the history of different versions of Christianity, Catholicism is always being much friendly to sexuality than Protestantism until the 20th century. I think last hundreds of years maybe that was the part of the influence of 19th century Romanticism which we haven’t got to yet. Really. And the analysis of the origin of 19 century romanticism out of Christian religion haven’t touched on. I don’t think I going much in this book that there are hundreds of pages on that in second volume bury out that today. We’ll come back to it. But in recent times, there have been ??? sex that say God’s love and the nature of our Christianity try to emulate god and to establish a loving communion with other people. So their ideas of philia. But they don’t say the way that they did in 17th century or 16th century that sex itself is bad. They say that’s maybe a way of loving other people and therefore emulating god. Why is end in Catholicism which has ties with pagan religion in many ways? Sex was not ruled out being ??? the enjoyment of sex. It had been controlled by the church. It had occurred in marriage. It had recertified. But in itself, it was simply a way of propagating the raise want to be wrong with that. In accordance with God’s laws. So you get this interesting reversal that Protestantism was reaction at that time often ?? action against that. Until recently many Prisons believe sex a quit happy with the idea. Many pricen sex I mean. The visions ?? We’re all happy with the idea of sex. And in Catholicism until recently also, often there was a kind of Puritanism of Catholic thought in irony for instance. Any you know the great work of ?? He grew up in Catholic society. He thought sex was sort of the way what ??had. And he reacted. And for that, he was condemned. In fact his books were occasionally banned. Maybe they still are in Ireland for a long time, you could read you ?? what have a lot of sex in it in Ireland. And even could be sold in the United States about 12 years so after it was written. It was ceased by the emigrations people. ?? Matry, ou wanna say something? M: Yeah, said that in terms of Plato and there two key dialogues it is said ?? and I find this is very strange because in describing love, he makes his maid for the soul, the soul ??two horses and that, do you against my mentioning this? Professor: No, if Agriana doesn’t. M: One of the horse is noble, well-bred, well-mannered, follows ?? the other one ?? wild and has its own ??in nature. And the cherity was supposed to be the reason. And I think something still the wild supposed to be, I don’t know what it’s called M: So, in the ?? when you come upon somebody. So first of all, the idea of the soul was wandering around true beauty and true God and then he fell down from its body. So now when you see somebody who has some reflection of that true are there, are you try to spent some time to remember this beautiful world that you ?? . But the point about sex is that ?? when you come to person. Plato thinks that ?? forget about what beautiful in truth but grab them, jump up onto them. And this a very base and for the part of the man you should try to control this, beat him, keep him in check, something like this. P: Ok. ?? say about that? Continue. A: You define sexual love in terms of three concepts, about the libidinal, the erotic and the romantic. The libidinal is the animal part, the erotic is more the imaginational part. And here ?? because at some point you say that look at the erotic we can enjoy the presence of someone from whom we don’t have libidinal desire. So I wanna to ask you is this means that erotism has two aspects. The aspects of when the one loved doesn’t involved, and you can see someone from whom you have no libidinal desire. And the other aspect is when the erotic comes together with the libidinal and romantic to give rise to the meaning of life as you say and this only happens in the beloved, so P: Right. The analysis you referring to is between the libidinal the ironic and romantic. You can say get to the romantic yet. Like all of my analysis, these are conceptual tools in terms of me as a thinker. I think myself as a craftsman or carpenter in a shop and suddenly he needs something dumb crabs too little good. I don’t play any importance on the concepts themselves they’re just tools to help clarify some job that I want. And that I think is relevant to what you saying about there being two kinds wanting which eros is combined with libidinal, and which is purifying separated from libidinal. In the sense one might saying that all three of them happen or can happen simultaneously. You could have a relationship which is libidinal, erotic and romantic, and also spiritual love. So that one having made the artificial distinction. I don’t want to be a slave to it. Just that would give me a certain inside which I can then walk around in order to show the complexity of human nature. Also I’m sure that they occurred in any kind of purity. Is there such a thing as a libidinal interest? Devoid of other things like the erotic ??The point about Floyd is that Floyd came from the scientific tradition, which you all recognize. That’s called reductionism that is if you can author your noting you should explain it. BS: is you take just an idea break down to single set of P: analyze of rock bottom basis BS: exactly. P: Then you can find out all the reasonable ?? BS: everything about it can be drive from those that set of principles. P: Right. Now that’s an attitude that has entreated all my life. And I finally came to ?? with it in the book of my feeling of imagination. Well, I try to express my doubts about there being making any sense, what it would be like to get to the rock bottom out of anything. Maybe there is no rock bottom. You know, who said the world can be understood, can be reduced to any principle that one ?? through know everything or anything. In fact, the search for the meaning of everything, right? And stream theroy comes into this because maybe just as a matter of fact or maybe just fundamental in their concept ?? so the theory of everything. That they want to find out rock bottom solution to the nature of the physical universe. But there may be not any rock bottom. Maybe we don’t know what we are looking for. Maybe we will never be able to find it doesn’t mean that we couldn’t pick up some interesting ?? and theories on the way. And that’s the scientists to determine. But often scientists are fooled by their own propaganda that is ?? which is to say we enrich the very interesting conclusion here and if we only contain given enough funds allowed to continue, maybe 10,000; 15,000 years, we’ll get to the bottom of everything. We will find out what everything is like. It’s accelerating some people pay for that acceleration. But otherwise, maybe simply being mistake in scientific theory that is rock bottom. Floyd did that. In 19th century, people were very optimistic about the hard sciences, physics, ??. And his idea was to create psychology on the model of that, to make psychology into a hard science and to reduce all of the psychological appearances to some rock bottom ideas. And one idea that can through all Floydian structure. If you’re interested I apologize for the all I know. I’m so limited. Look at the third volume of the trilogy. I have a 70 pages chapter on Floyd as a philosopher and philosopher of love. One of the elements, there is quite a number of these elements, is the idea of libido. And that’s well why I use the word libidinal to separate myself from Floyd. I also talking about things similar to what he does when he talks like ?? His idea is that libido is a fear for false which get from ?? And as he admits, and it’s just sheer energy. It explains the nature of passion why because people are libidinal attract to each other. It mindless. It’s not civilized on the contrary can be very dangerous to the civilization when for reasons. So for libidinal love people do foolish things and danger the species. Who knows, you know, example? But without it one would be able to explain human feelings ??. Or human are capable of loving. Now the reason I mention this is because I want to make sure Agriana was right in her presentation of my analysis. It is ?? separate thing which is the libidinal. That would be like saying there is a rock bottom energy which is libido Floyd reduces love to. Right? It’s useful concept. It’s a tool. It enables me to set up the contrasts. It enables me to make the analysis. Because in the process I think I can illuminate different aspects of human nature, libidinal, erotic will get to their romantic. But if somebody said why can’t they all drag? I’ll say, “that’s fine. Looks and try that out.” And I make a few couple of paragraphs on that. I don’t know how far I can go or maybe stirring and stirring around that in any places. Or some men says, you know, this so ?? each other and certainly can find extreme examples. A man who for reasons of his own libidinal impulse breaks a woman can’t just say wrong. You know, it’s a part of love. We all believe in love. This is my contribution to the course. In ?? , you know about that at least, right? The great ?? of many people say with ?? He is ?? takes ?? side at one point, begin ?? and he says, “Look, what are you doing? Don’t you realize you seduce all of these women? And then you are abandoning them? And some of them are in misery. They are not all flirts. They really treat love seriously and they fall in love with you, and you just ditch them. You do a great deal of harm.” Right? To which ?? applies, in Italian all translated, but you can ?? that, he says, “Ma, il tutto amoete ”. You get the idea? “But, it’s all love.” Right? The point is that love can do a great deal of harm. And if you are refused to say it’s just love, you then are be ?? to say that the libidinal at its worse can do a great deal of harm and can be evil. And just because you ever libidinal interests, which in man in particular involves physical aggressiveness because those are based on ?? and then you feel well, you know, and just doing what I mean to do. That’s no justification. That’s wrong, that’s evil. The greatest evil in rape is not in entering the body of not willing woman, it’s violating her will, it’s violating her being by not doing what she not wants you to do even you can convince yourself that she really wants, that was coming up in rape cases where the defense of the rapper tries to convince the court the woman really wanted it. That’s a male miss both women in great majority who raped don’t want it. And crime which doesn’t ?? law courts such a ?? crime is violating her will, violating her personal, violating her ??but of course that’s too much for the law courts talking about her body being invaded without against her choice, without her complaints, not consensual sex. But it’s the idea of the consensuality and it’s to struction that seems to me to be the basic thing about the evil love--rape? BS: So physical violence is an exactly the same kind thing, robbery or anything?? P: No, violence you mean non-consensual harm done to another person. No, I mean this as a lot violence in football. And people are not ?? person for that. That’s part of the game. You’re in that risk. So non-consensual violence. BS: Can the other types of love have this?? maybe ?? to them? P: I think so. I think the analysis is made in such a broad way. Because I want to what is, you know, it’s like somebody ?? let’s see would pick up within. That’s I want to be a big ?? But I don’t think that might works this on my mind. Works in such a way that can have necessary insufficient conditions so that there will be no overlap. Mathematics can do that. Logic is based on that. And much of other philosophy which I don’t subscribe to is based on logic. But the word that I see is a fluid mess, is a, well, the subtitle is of the book feeling in the imagination is the vibrate flux of our existence. Human life and reality is a flux. But it can be vibrant because ?? that is what the book is written about. So that you are right. There will be more than just what is the call of these concepts and they can overlap in all sorts of various ways. Agriana. A: I had another question about the erotic before born P: Agriana, would you have say erotic? We had started on libidinal. What you mean by erotic? How do you interpret my ??working at my book. A: I interpreted as the use of imagination to exhort the beloved or to appreciate the beautiful of things. That is the interpretation. P: A imagination comes into it. But I give the analogy which is opening in enormous kind of forms with gravity. Gravity is concept that Newton use that is still thought as being one of the laws in nature but the whole 21st century is getting far beyond the reliance upon that concept of gravity. What Newton observed was the apple falling on the sand, the body seemed to get attracted. The apple not aiming for him, but aiming for the earth that objects in a height are pulled to the earth. But it’s a mystical sort of thing. You don’t see it. Have you ever seen gravity? No. It’s a force, and yet without it you can say that you can’t explain how the planets go around the sun, how the sun stays where it is, or all the movement in the heavens. Gravity, therefore, is very important law of nature for him. Now, what interests me is that it’s a mysterious thing. No matter how much scientist may grass it up. It’s a great mystery about why should things pulling each other, why should these fields of forces somehow be interrelated in a dynamic way of the sort, gravitational sort of way. And then I think about people. I mean a man and a woman. They gravitate to each other. And sometimes dramatically, well this so far be before your time. There was a cartoon in my childhood, called “Chillow ??”, and that sound is “bin” something were striking his mind or something I get to know, “bin”. You get the idea vibrations like that. Well, that’s the way people often do relate to each other. Not always, but sometimes man is walking down the street, then at least ?? and also illogically is striking him “bin”, and this is love. This is the roof, you know, no explanation, no accounting for such things, but that’s such a force that has to live in it. And it’s more than just sexual libido which is a biological thing related to reproduction of species and involve certain changes in the body. This is suddenly a feeling that this is my girl, this is the one for me. And it’s very hard to know how it happens and why it happens, could be because she looks like his mother, Floyd tended that way, or could be she doesn’t look like his mother, as he is reacting against his mother. So it’s always subjected to kind of interpretation. But people do get attracted to one and another. It usually does end up being falling in love or being that dramatic, you know, “bin”. But rather can be friendship for, you know somehow I can communicate with that person or we have something in common or I feel for him, you know, and it varies. Feeling can be strong sometimes weak at other times, can be disappointed. This leads to disappointment can lead to ecstasies. So for me, the erotic is this sort of gravitational phenomenon in relation to somebody else. But having said that I can see how this would also apply not just to other persons but to other things. A work of art, a work of carpentry, you know just the shape of that all, you know the smoothness surface of a table. A sort of gravitate towards that. This is what you like somehow comes down to whole system of likings, which seems to be very different from love. But this eros is only erotic, I mean is the only one of the elements in love. But it’s the part of love that it explains our attachments to various things. It can be result of the passage of time. People having lived together a long time become very attached, they get used to each other, they get ??, they become a habit for each other. The line in my fair lady, I become a custom to her face. Her ups and downs, her smiles of ?? that seems to have nothing to do with libido. But it looks as if you know, break the habit. Why do you call this love? But there is something in the attachment to another person which is a part of love and the attachment can come in this desire way that is comparable to gravities that I call “the erotic”. A: I guess that’s just the…. I don’t know if I really understand what you’re saying by that P: I don’t know what I do, either. A: that habituation really, is it a formal love? Because I guess even nowadays, people seem to think more about that than in the past all there is one person met for me. But now there is, you know, a lot of people that divorce and do such things. It seems that just because you’re getting used to someone, doesn’t mean that love is really there. P: Why could say instead of gravitating to your willing only? You gravitate to many people. I mean the universe is infinite, those often all directions. Why does it have to be limited …. A: you’re saying about getting a custom to someone, is that being a part of the erotic? That’s hard to see it’s a part of love. P: Well, what’s the way people thought about love? The lie comes ?? or badly, comes from the musical “my fair lady”. It doesn’t exist in the same way in Jorge ?? play which you will do reading , ??that’s right. And, in the case the difference between the play and musical is that, at the end of musical there is a kind of romance and love develops between them. And maybe, who knows, I even don’t get married they don’t, nothing like that happens, many of versions. But it’s much more romantic than the play was. So that just for the erotic attachment doesn’t mean it’s gonna be love of romantic thought or marital thought, but it’s a kind of love. If you’re gravitating towards somebody that’s not hostility, hostility goes in the opposite direction. Or and it’s not indifference which means you are even feel anything to the other person, not even notice other person. But I don’t want to, you know, create these artificial principalities I just want to make a concept which itself is analyzable more, refine concepts that to ?? help the thing better. I think in various places in that book in particular, I say that of course there will be subdivisions and ?? that everything will be alike. But that is a new idea of fact phenomenon related to love. That people might not even able to think about these clearly without this kind of analysis. In my hope is to help them to make these difficult ideas a little more clear. B: I think a question at the moment. Part of thing, the love like a gravitation some suppose you’re for a long time. It’s not P: Let’s get onto the romantic. There is more relevant you say, I think. About the imagination, I think that is belonging to eros. But it isn’t not enough for that defines eros. Erotic, I shouldn’t say eros, I mean the erotic. I was very careful to call these with these ??forms, not to get confused what Plato said, what Floyd said. When the book came out, they got a very favorable review by someone who isn’t a philosopher, and a literal philosopher in literature you know. She said her review before her review came out. And I was horrified that she said ??distinctions between libido, eros and romance. And so I quickly wrote to say, “no, no, libido is Floyd, eros is Plato, I am talking about I called libidinal, the erotic indicate I’m saying something different. And when the review was published, she had it right. So again, here I keeping saying eros by meaning the erotic. And imagination I think it is important. Does anybody want to say anything about that? There is a chapter on imagination in “Feeling and Imagination”. But I’d better not get into that. How about romance? A: Before we went to romance, I want to ask you a question about the erotic. You say that without the erotic there will be no civilization and no discretion of it. And it wasn’t clear to me why you’re …. P: Well, I often see, nowadays not as much but you all know, all of the graffiti that appears in public places. I live in the BackBay, and the part of the mass avenues, part south of boisom Street, I mean. They did a lot of resurfacing of concrete side walks. And I was horrified that everybody to put his or her initials sometimes with hearts and face. And it got me to thinking, you know, what’s happening there? They’re using their imagination to mad think of time, who knows, 20 years, I don’t know how big imagination they have 50 years. When people are gonna see that and it little means something to them because people don’t know what it were who’s going on in those days, or who JTLW are. Nobody will know. They themselves probably will fall out of love in two months. And they will regret it and they don’t mean anything to them later on, maybe they will come back with their children and say, “this is …..” you know. In the Shakespeare, for instance, in the as you like it that play. There is the young man who falls in love with ??and he feels worthless and tired away by his love. And he takes out on the trees, he talk about the innocent trees comes their initials in the trees and hearts probably. And sort of desecrates, beauty of this natural entities my love very much. But there is somebody captured you and engraved on your forehead LW Loves CECM or something, something has nothing to do with you. So you could go through the world advertising this love that he has. And why should the trees be? Forced into that condition, of course they can’t help it. They are not mobile, they are staybile. People who just often do more they get away with. It’s a negative imagination. This doesn’t mean anything. It’s like an author express himself in his painting. It’s an expression of him, but also takes imagination to make a living painting. So this expresses what the young lovers feel, and have enough imagination of thinking mad at somebody else, but they don’t have enough imagination to realize how ridiculous makes them. And how ferity to everybody else to have to be confronted with this. It’s a kind of exhibitionism which, if it was parts of body would be criminal. Possibly is criminal today in the side wall. But it takes imagination that’s all I meant. A: I guess that is very strong statement to say that without the erotic there will be no civilization? P: Yeah, I think so, because the erotic is a way of , I mean, civilization is a way of creating objects that expresses the interests of the creators for the enjoyment and glorification of other people also care about so that the person prints to build the Taj Mahal, you know the story of that one that you tell. A: builted for his wife Professor: this white? Truly of love. G: I don’t really know much about this story actually. P: Who died, and he was so grief-stricken. He wanted to make some kind of tomb or temple, but he also wanted to be an expression of her goodness and beauty and the great love that they had for each other. And that’s part of the accounted on maybe not logical but that’s the account. And so we made this magnificent Muslim style, what is it? must be Muslim ?? Indian style ?? It’s not a tomb, not a muslin but it’s a beautiful building that expresses what he felt for that woman and that has the civilization. I mean, we stand there if we go there, and watch it look at with all, they becomes turist attraction. It makes life more interesting. Think over millions of people who spent money and time just to just go to see the Taj Maha. Well that’s what civilization like. It’s without imagination, without the erotic, it wouldn’t occur. A: I feel that’s so much more civilization than just those things so I just don’t think that statement P: the graffiti are kind of a vulgarization of civilization. They do it in public, they do, so everybody would see. All the subway cars which used to in New York, but particular you don’t see it so often nowadays. But you probably see them in movies or heard of it. The cars covered with graffiti well, those graffiti are kind of ?? very curve, elaborate designs, possibly with the initials of people they know but nobody else could know. They do it as an expression of their feelings of their love or even maybe the love of their wife in New York for all to see. That’s maybe a vulgarization but it’s still a vulgarization of civilization, civilization progresses that way. And the parts that we cherish as great works of art usually come out of that. Duros: The way I interpreted it was not much civilization organized, but it reduced culture and as study which is accentually civilization calls like if there wasn’t the erotic, everything will just be cold and there will be no beauty you know the way I featured just grow you know doing stuff. And there will be no pleasure art or any sorts of expression of human feelings. That’s what how I see Professor: You are going to be reading about certain aspect of Floyd philosophy for the next time. And my quizzes is?? I don’t think I go to this. But suddenly it occurs me from what Duros was saying. It was telling you about it. Floyd drop a couple of articles on the?? the psychology of art and he apologizes that I am not a philosopher does the psychologist but I have ideas about the psychological development. That goes into the being of our. So it starts out with the fact the artist is the biological entity like everyone else. And that he wants and it’s always from the man’s point of view that what Floyd is like. He wants what everybody wants. What everybody wants? What does all men want? They want money, they want power, they want the love of women. Money, power and the love of women, right? The artist, Floyd says, usually somebody who has a defect. Most people, you want money want power, you go to school, you?? Accountant, you work a way up the higher rock of business and then you end up in CEO, and you get more money than you know what do with, lots of power and lot of women. The women flirt around those who have money and power. That’s a normal, healthy, ordinary way of going about things according to Floyd. But if you are a little different to whatever reason, you are just can’t be on that level. But if you are not and if you can compete, then that’s the end of it, then you are misfit, you become sick or a loser in life. If however you are not only different in that respect also you can do something that no one else can do. You have a knack for instance, for drawing, for instance, so you have perfect pitch, you have a certain kind of ?? in your body as well as this could apply to the athletes as well but it’s talking about artists. And if you then are recognized for that, and it’s developing you, then you start making things that nobody else can make. Right? And, if you do it well enough, people will pay attention to what you’ve done and they will give you money. If you are a good artist, like Picaso, you’ll get so much money, you will have power with it. And with the money and the power, there will be the women who serve at your feet. The way they did with great artist for instance in the 19th century this show pan other heroes because they were such great musicians and even nowadays they are the rock singers that women through over. They are the musical stars, they’re similar to what in the 20th century. But they can have all the groupies and all the appurtenances of the great wealth in power. Floyd’s solution is that what the artist can get directly, he gets indirectly. That is you can go out of business, but he gets it indirectly because by pursuing his knack, he creates things for which people will reward him. Now the reason this is related to what Duros was saying I think is because there is always this love Floyd is talking about. The love of money, the love of power, the love of women. And if you can get it directly, you might get it indirectly. But those of people who creates civilization. Civilization itself on Floyd’s view is indirect accumulation of the love that everybody wants. There is a book of his called, one of the I think greatest books everybody should be forced to read before graduating from college like the Republic everyone should be reading. And that is “civilization and this contents” I strongly recommended you. It’s only about 800 pages long. And in it, he says that civilization arises out of the love of beauty but then it separates one from the satisfaction in love and sex that one really wants. So the conflict between civilization of sexuality that’s the issue that Floyd talks about. I don’t agree with the basic argument but that doesn’t matter. My point is that whatever the outcome of civilization is, it originates in the kind of love and that’s what I try to explain through the erotic and through the idea of imagination. So that’s ?? OK. It must be getting long. Shall we take a break now? Or shall we talk about romantic? A: We can talk about the…. P: What do you … Tell me what does class want, take a break or talk about romantic? Ok, let’s go on to the romantic. There is libidinal, erotic and romantic. A: The romantic. The way we ?? the romantic is what unifies the libidinal with the erotic. But it also needs a sense of perpetual of continuous love. And here give the example of the moon, the moon cycle how the lovers identify the moon cycle and the he experience of the moon with something that is constant. And they want to associate with the love. P: Is there anyone to say something about romantic? I think ??is talking about romantic last time when you are talking about falling in love. There are two principles that seem to me to be the ?? for romantic. One is ?? before that, the one the only it isn’t something you can have with everybody. Not at the same time. It’s having an attachment to at least well let’s say to one other person. And the second principle is having that intimate relationship forever. So the idea of forever or as the religion say or the poets say eternity whatever that means. Right? It’s built into the idea of romantic. And also that something unique in attachment to one and only person. Now this is also very abnormal snap because why one. I’ve thought a lot about that. And it occurs to me that if you can find just one who really will be totally satisfying whom you can love as much as you are capable, and who can love you as much as you capable. I think you won’t feel and eat for anything more. This was tested in the 1960s by the communes in which there would be sharing of bad fellows of wife swapping but also with people who were married. The idea of that why be exclusive. Well, I think most human beings at least seem to feel that one is enough. Because if it is an adequate one it will satisfy all your needs. And with democracy as I mentioned that democratization of love where one other person is expected to do everything. It is all purpose solution to life problems. Now, it’s a matter of fact maybe hard to hope every to find one person who can do all of that. And in the way that is not in consist with that most I think probably statistically most people have sought for love with more than one other person one other partner, whole cultures are built out of the idea polygamy for the man or polygene even not too many but some for women. Polygamy is man having many wives, women having many husbands. Or in the Largent societies that man will have two establishments one for his wives another for his mistresses. In France in 19th and probably still many ways it was common place that you marry woman a right woman but then you will also satisfy your sexual needs some other woman even having a second family, and even sometimes with wife knowing about it. Now this adultery was built into the matrimonial system but whether or not it’s organized adultery is not in common and even if man don’t ??or faithful to their wives in tradition embody saying “I love my wife but owe you kid.” You know that comes from the 1920s. “I love my wife but owe you kid.” meaning I was a part of me like to ??itself with you sexually, prostitute or girl friend or mistress, or some beautiful women, it’s always from the man’s point of view. Woman too, you know, I love my husband but there is all these beautiful boys lying around. There is that sentiment, which is very common. So why does it has to one and only? Well, if you can find just one then it’s perfect, just right, you know for most people that might be enough. Also get to the question of economics how many households can you support? And how do you keep the wives from getting jealous? Jealousy is very important phenomenon. Some people even try to find love in terms of jealousy about competitors. But then if there can be jealous then this multiple kind of arrangement isn’t going to be a very happy one. But that I think was part of what was going on in the 19th and 20th concepts of romantic love with the capital law, right? The romantic. The other principle of perpetuity is explained by the fact that you know one to put in all the energy to somebody who’s gonna ditch you the next day. Or you know you will be tired off, man in particular but also women are notoriously faceless. This idea of being permanent you know ?? on it but I’m always darling, right? That’s the dream but because it’s ??very humorsly sentical the next part of it is, you know it? I’ll always be truly darling in my fashion. Right? So that is an escape clause, enabling the person to the woman in particular to find what you want in love with other people. But that’s very common. At the same time, there is something beautiful about romantic. In the ?? roads of Carol. Do you that movie what the “??”, I’ll be showing it tomorrow from 2 to 5 in my film course, which is about philosophy of film. And what I just thought of is the scene in which the perfect man the actor comes off the screen sends into the movie audience. It’s a fantasy. And falls in love with Celia who is just plain ordinary married woman. And declares his truly romantic love for her, he’s pure, he’s absolutely innocent. He really believes that he feels it. At one point he separated this strange new world of the screen. And ends up being accosted by very pleasant woman who was a prostitute. And says, “ would you like to see where I work?” and he says, “Oh, yes. That’s interesting. I really like to see where you work. You look like such a fine person.” And so when they go to a ruffle and there he meets other girls and they all try to entice him. And he doesn’t respond. It’s not his character, it’s not the way was made in the movie. And they try to explain to him. And they finally, sorry I get the rough idea, and says, “Well, no. I have to tell you fine ladies I love Celia, and I couldn’t do what you are saying.” And they said, “Oh. We are not talking about love. You can love Celia. We’re talking about making love.” And then he does really seem to understand where he is what’s at stake. And he says, “Oh, you don’t understand. Celia is for me everything. She is all that I ever wanted. She is for me perfection. I wouldn’t wanna do any of those things with anybody else. And ??very likable young woman who is taking them there. Looks in amazement and says, “are there any men out there like that?” this is very funny ?? movie. I think that’s one of the best. Well, I think that’s the point. To get somebody who will be perfect and with whom you will be perfectly allied. Maybe really be realizable. That’s part of romantic. That’s why I tell that story. During ?? Wait a moment, this is a good point for me to close my eyes. Agriana, could you take a hetchout of how many have done today’s reading? P: That’s pretty good. Then possibly remember the ???as Catherine remark to ?? in Berlin? Catherine was very famous play writer. The screen place for the Mark Brothers movies and very successful on broad way. And ??Berlin the wrote the song always. I mention that. But you know what the song sounds like “I’ll be loving you always” very sentimental romantic song. “with the love true always”. Right? All right. The rhythm ?? says you should change that title or change that song, you ought to make it “I’ll be loving you Thurday.” It’s funny. Because it wouldn’t be romantic. Right? Ok, anything on romantic? A: Well, I wanna to mention how this relates to the ?? you mention, I mean the speech by Socrates’ and Aristotle’s. Well, in any case. Socrates is asked to define what love is, and he says that it is the, it means the perpetual perception of the good. P: Right. A: And it also emphasize that has to be perpetual… P: Yeah. And that’s what Christianity picks up out of Platonism. Because God is perpetually good. And has the sense of perpetual perception of good. Without Platonism great philosophy, it won’t be any Christianity, wouldn’t got any religion of that sort. Judaism comes into it because of Bible but those great concepts really very special. They outer than the Christian generates. What we mean by the Christian religion, we mean the religion of the western world. And great philosophy is the beginning of the western world. All right, we now could take a break or we can go on for another half hour. We don’t have to stay for the full three hours ‘cos in principle calls last for 15 minutes time’s rest. So you tell me what you would like. I’m having a good time. I may fainted any moment. You wanna a drink or you wanna go out? Anyone? Then should we continue? All right. Anybody wants to say something about that chapter on sexual love? Shall we go on to the one stage of love? Eh, loving society? A: Yes. In this chapter of loving society you define different kinds of relationships and how love is different in mutual relationships. And, first of all, I will like to say that you talk a lot about friendship and you mention that you disagree with Aristotle’s notion of friendship occurring only between two virtual human beings. P: True friendship. Because he talks about other kinds A: Yeah. P: Do I go into them? A: No. But you just mention that you don’t agree with this notion because that would be disregarding the capacity of love to treat someone better than he is. And I want to mention that I don’t agree with this. You give the example of being friends with a criminal for example and sort of disregarding the faults of that person and still being able to achieve. P: Yeah. Do you think you can be friends with a criminal? A: I think that’s having more or less a thing the same value of some else is very important for friendship to P: If you can quantify values, I mean, is anybody that you have the same values with? We usually share values in some aspects with others and if you feel friendly you ignore that. For instance, at a very low level, in my case, I find it very easily to be friendly with people I talk with for a couple of minutes on the bus or on the streets. There is a kind of insipient friendliness usually doesn’t amount to anything. And it’s because we have different values. Very limited number of people I can really spend much time with, I get bored with them, they get bored with me. You know, I don’t anymore when I was young. But nowadays I don’t care about the football heroes or baseball players basketball, I never pay much attention to. I don’t drink beer; I’m not a regular guy in those ways. How could I expect those who are, which is most people, normal people, to be friends with me? And yet in a casual insipient way I find I can be friends with great many. It’s by disregarding all of the other values. That’s one thing I want to say. Second thing, if you think about Hollywood movies, the people in them are often either criminals or robbers and violent troubled. They fall in with somebody who might get them out of their troubles or they are throng together in a romantic pattern that I discuss, I think to the end of this book, which say both caught in so that they have the same interest lot of hostility. But because they are in it together, they have to escape by means of each other. And so they become friends. You can take dozens of examples. This is very common movie thing. Now, in that of them, their values are not alike. At the end they might, if they are difference sex, they might get married or they might become lovers or well you will be talking about this case take million. They will do either these things but they become sort of comrades together. And that seems to me to be built into the structure of friendship. That you come to accept the other person for what that the other person is, in other words, his idea of bestow even if that person is different from yourself. You share some values, but maybe not too many, not as many as is needed to fall in love to get married to live in a happy loving relationship ever after. Is that you don’t agree with? A: En, not exactly. I’m not saying that they need to be exactly the same. But I think that they at least some sorts of similarity between the concepts of good and bad. Because these are important for trust to exist. And I think that trust doesn’t exist between two people no true friendship can arise between P: What the truth you are saying? I can never be a friend with anybody who does to, you know, goes out a BBgun to shoot cats. How can you be friends with monsters of that sort? In some respects, surely is true. One can imagine being friends. On the other hand, the political monsters of modern history, people like Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Sadam Hussein, they were very friendly to people have friends who recognize they were. So that some people are able to overcome their power what they also do. A: But do you think those were true friends? ‘cos when someone has power, many people can pretend to be friends. P: I know. That’s true in any of them. That’s true in any kind of friendship, or in any kind of relationship. It doesn’t necessarily follow from the sharing of the moral sense you said. But I think a point, in Aristotle’s idea of true friendship, people are alike in virtue. So they can really respect each other. But it also means you can eliminate a number of friends you can have. You cannot have too many. B: You cannot have too many true friends. P: But that’s by definition. That’ the definition on word “true”. I’m a true friend of a man I meet casually, you know we talk briefly on everything. It’s a very limited. It’s not a true friend that I try to use him or trying to get him to please me in some way. I mean very narrow limits. It’s a kind of true friendship. It’s not as broad as it is with a kind of people in Aristotle is talking about when one is how many people do I like that, and really how much you get out of them. B: So, when you say true friends you just mean friends have no other sharing purposes. The true friend, true friendship you mean somebody who is friendly to someone for no, you know, other reason except for pleasure of conversing with sharing ideas, not?? P: But, you know. This is very interesting. I was just thinking about true friends I was talking because as I keep telling you I learn from being with you. I mean I’ll be able to use and I don’t believe in anything on the last world on any sort. I think of anything with last world being wholly on physiological the world is not the last world. No mathematical, it’s not like a mathematical problem so there is no solution. And what I just thought of was a man who was not much older than me, who was a young faculty member in Harvard when I was a graduate student. And he became a ??of mine. And I knew him for the rest of his life. He died three years ago. And I always thought of him and said about him. He’s maybe the only person who is never defeated any expectation of mine. He never betrayed me or let me down. I always think him as a true friend. Now wasn’t because we also conversed. There were limited things I could talk with him about. Things he didn’t talk to me about. It was a loving, a romantic relationship. You know, the way between lovers or husband and wife. There were definite limits. Not arbitrary impose, just the thing is so that I wouldn’t ask him that I ask my wife. But it seems to be, the definition seems to be his never having let me down. Now, was I using him? Or is it a testament to the true nature of the relationship from my point of view. He might say that ever let me down. He hasn’t done that. He never complaint to me. and I really never complaint to him. I never thought that there was anything I wanted to change. But the criterion I seem to use is that he never let me down. B: But you are saying that you can be true friend with somebody if he let you down. I mean, letting you down, you may have, your first concert and you really want your friend to be there. And he didn’t come, I don’t know, he was snored in Chicago. I mean he let you down. P: No, ?? if he forgot. If he said “I’ll be there tomorrow night.” and you know he met a lovely young lady and said well notice the ?? he couldn’t have let me down. But if he did so, what’s wrong with that. He never did let me down. Is that the saying that makes true friendship? B: now, I’m asking you somebody let you down, he can’t be a true friend of yours? P: Yeah, I think that’s an element, how a big element I am not clear. But let’s say do have a relationship with somebody who continually lets you down. So he’s not a true friend. B: Well, continually is different from once or twice. So I mean you’re saying that …. P: Well, everybody is only modal. Occasionally that I might let you down in some important way. But my image is that he didn’t let me down. But I have probe enough somebody ?? to remember this so that it couldn’t be too important to what I remember. B: Ok, so not letting you down in an important way. Ok, I was just trying to say what you mean by true friend. P: But I don’t know how far this gonna take in terms of the concept of true friendship. Agriana? Can you say something? B: Shall say something? You talk about the that somebody may be very flurrying in various ways, a number of things. However, you can just forgive that and love them something like this. So my question is I had this sense that the reason love is because some good in them that you wish to ?? has some ?? so my question is can somebody be….can somebody lack all virtue and can you still have this love you bestowed which you forgive the effect them they have absolutely no beauty? P: This limiting cases are always hard for me to imagine. Because I never accounted them in the world. Have you ever met anybody who had no virtue whatsoever? Or somebody who had nothing but ?? virtues? We’re all, you know, a little in between. We’re mixture. If the ?? is too great, we can the person. But a little ??? we can put up with them even humor and even enjoy. So we are all thinking in term of middle that point you get closer. Cos the world is alike. B: I guess my real question is that when you have one of these friend who he’s very brave, on the other hand, he is terribly ??the way, he is a Nazi, or any things. So considering that aspect love is a courage, an action, fight things in this way. P: But think of honor of the Hitler youth, a young fellow who is fanatic, who is totally dedicated to the cause. He knows that what is asked him to do is horrible to most people and it will cause pain to a great many. But for reasons of duty, he will be unswerving. And this is not only when he is in control but when he is at risk of his life. And he’s prepared, really prepared to die for that cause. Right? Can you be a friend with such a person? Even though you admire his bravery and fatality to cause. I’ll think probably not. So it’s a matter of degree. The more you are horrified by what he is turning into, the less likely you will be friend. Even though you admire some of his remaining virtues. But if you ask me how many or where we draw the line, I would say here I am wholly on my finger tips in the flux of existence, swerving all around me with deep part of the stream. And you ask me, you know? You get the idea? B: Yeah, this is not what I mean. My question is whether you can love anything but who part of person. Can you love any part of a person other than their virtue their excellence? Professor: Well, I think B: Cos you seem to say that you can forgive love completely. So … Last Modified 1/14/06 8:33 AM |
