My writing style is pretty weird, but I think I like it. I like the flow but the structure is all over the place. There are also some ambiguity in things I say, and plenty of things should be re worded.
Tag Archives: Ancient
Critique of Eros and The Ethics of Love
For millennia, people have loved. We’ve known it by many different names, and expressed it in many different ways; however the basic notion of love has been present in societies for an incredible length of time. But what love means and how we think about it has changed over the centuries, and varies with culture and society. In this essay, I will explore the notion of love, and explore whether love is a virtuous emotion or an untrustworthy passion, I will also explore the notions of love as an Aristotelian virtue, and the general problem of emotions and reason, and Kant’s practical and pathological love, in order to explore and critique notions of romantic love. To begin I must clarify what I mean by the word love and what I mean by virtue.
The ancient Greeks identified three different forms of love, eros, agape and philia. Whilst there are considerable things to be said about the word ‘love’, as Robert Solomon describes in “In the Beginning, The Word”, I will not take into consideration any sociological, or descriptive notions of what the word ‘love’ means in practice, but rather focus on the emotion, beliefs or feelings that we use the word love to convey, which for the ancient greeks was eros. For Robert Solomon, eros is defined by romantic love, and is distinguished from other kinds of love or affection, such as “… motherly, fatherly, brotherly, or sisterly love and friendship”(Solomon, 1988, p. 13). Whilst the other notions of love are just as important, I will be focusing mostly on eros. Agape is a more generalised love that one could feel for humanity or the divine or spiritual, whilst philia is more accurately translated as friendship, or as the feelings one feels for a friend.
Quote of the Week: Diogenes
Those who have virtue always in their mouths, and neglect it in practice, are like a harp, which emits a sound pleasing to others, while itself is insensible of the music. – Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher, who was one of the most well known and most controversial of the Cynics. Diogenes is also known as Diogenes the dog (Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Diogenēs ho Kunikos) which is the supposed origin of the term Cynic (Doglike).
One of the core ideas of Cynicism and of Diogenes is that philosophy is practical, and as a result, philosophical questions are ones that deal with the ‘everydayness’ of life, with the goal of these thought provoking questions being action. This is evident in Diogenes through his idea of Solvitur Ambulando, or, it is solved by walking (practical experiment). The quote above illustrates this core cynic idea, as the person who speaks of virtue applies none of them to their own life. Their failure to grasp the purpose of philosophy means they hear nothing where others hear music, they speak of virtues while others live by them, they miss the point, while others take action, they are reduced to mere objects, incapable of living a virtuous life for they do not grasp the connection between philosophy and life.
Place of the White Blog 