love hunt by theodoritsis/ flickr.com/ Creative Commons
On an idle moment on Valentine’s Day, I found Great Philosophers who Failed at Love by Andrew Shaffer on my bookshelf. It was calling out to be read. The succinct accounts of individual philosophers revealed a broad range of amorous behavior. One of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous unrequited loves was Lou Salomé. When she rejected him and got engaged to another man, Nietzsche refused to contact her because he thought it was useless communicating with someone that did “not understand awe and respect” (118). Søren Kierkegaard’s personality was always characterized by heaviness. He pursued the girl he loved until she accepted his second marriage proposal. But his depressive personality did not change and he chose to break off the engagement so that his much younger fiancé did not have to be burdened with him, claiming “she really did not know me” (106).
Immanuel Kant believed that sexual activity was only ethical within a marriage, because the ends were procreation and not pleasure, and man and wife were legally bound to treat only each other as equal objects of desire. Jean Paul Sartre was involved in an open but sustained, fifty-one-year relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Neither wished to marry. Both were frequently involved with other people, to the extent that sometimes Beauvoir and Sartre would be involved with the same woman and would compare notes about their experiences with her. Sartre theorized that jealousy was not a fair controller of one’s conduct.
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates draws out a hierarchy of love. The young and inexperienced loved the beautiful body of a particular love object. With further learning and wisdom, this physical love for beauty in one body became a love for beauty in all bodies. Then love transcended the body and set itself on the soul. And finally, it became a love of the ideal of Beauty itself, in its invisible form.
So does a philosopher fail at love, or does love fail her/him? In the case of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Kant, it seems that they were unable to fit love into their personal and academic philosophies. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard tried, but were left only with theory at the end. But in Sartre’s case, it is unclear if one could even call him a “failure.” Socrates, too, had several lovers and admirers during his lifetime, but love of people was never his primary concern. So Sartre and Socrates also attempted to fit love into their philosophies, but instead of simply writing it down, they lived it, too. However, they only experienced romantic and sexual love to the extent that it fit their systems. But doesn’t everyone, philosopher or not, do that to some extent? Or does loving really mean letting go of what one’s mind believes? Or, to put it more in context, does loving mean failing your ideals instead of living up to them?
We will need a still broader spectrum of philosophies and philosophers to figure it out.