Jennifer Hart Weed has a fine essay on being in love with philosophy at Comment. She stresses that when we love philosophy it loves us in return:
In a lengthy discussion of God's love in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas argues that love is recognizing the good in someone else and desiring that good. More specifically, when you love a person you desire the good for that person. If this is correct, then to love philosophy would be to desire the goodness that is in it. This goodness could include moral goodness, such as ethics, as well as intellectual goodness, such as wisdom and truth. A lover of philosophy is someone who desires goodness and is passionately committed to knowing the good and to doing the good. Understood in this way, then, we can ask whether any human being has ever loved philosophy and what has philosophy offered in return? If we love philosophy, will she love us back?
She loves you back by showing you the truth about yourself and the people around you. She loves you back by helping you to develop your God-given ability to reason and to think. The pursuit of philosophy is intrinsically valuable because of the transformative nature of philosophy as a way of life. As philosophy pointed out to Boethius, human beings alone are rational animals. If human beings do not exercise and develop their rational capacities, they sink below their God-given potentials and purposes to the level of the brute animals (Consolation Book IV, chapter 3). In loving philosophy, we are loved in return because she makes us better human beings, and she points us to the ultimate good, God, whom we should love with all our being.
Read the whole thing, especially the titles of the four works she recommends at the end. Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy is short and filled with wonderful insights. She also lists her four favorite philosophers among whom is Eleanore Stump. Dr. Stump, coincidentally for those of you living in the Lancaster Co. area of Pennsylvania, will be speaking at F&M College on February 9th at 4:30 in Spahr auditorium. Her theme is "Love By All Accounts."
RLC
