28. What is Silence?
by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
?????During the first three parts of this course we have encountered a variety of different philosophical theories, proposed by philosophers attempting to solve a diversity of problems. This very diversity, compounded by the variety of approaches we have at our disposal, is one of the most serious threats to the health of the tree of philosophy. For if nothing can unify the diversity that naturally arises out of our human experience and out of our reflection upon it, then we are in danger of meeting the same fate as Nietzsche. As we saw in Lecture 23, Nietzsche uprooted the tree of philosophy in an attempt to awaken modern man from our self-satisfied slumber under the shade of Socrates' philosophical tree. But just as the first sign of impending death in an uprooted plant is that its leaves go limp, so also Nietzsche's attempt to philosophize without grounding his reasoning in an ultimate reality ended when his own experience went limp in the unceasing noise of insanity.
?????The person whose quest for wisdom ends in insanity has completely lost touch with the reality that makes the quest worthwhile. Fortunately, this tragic fate is not inevitable, provided we learn to respond to the diversity of thought and life by replacing the noise generated by the virtually endless choices at our disposal with a silence that can lend unity and purpose to our fragmented existence. For this reason, I shall begin this final part of our course by asking you to suggest some answers to the question, "What is silence?"
?????As you think about this question, let me remind you that the part of the tree of philosophy that best represents our need for a unifying principle in our thinking and a unifying power in our lives is the leaves. For when we look at a tree with no leaves, the distinction between its branches stands out clearly; yet when the same tree has a full set of leaves, the branches actually appear to be connected, as if the leaves have resolved the tension between the branches by holding them together in a higher unity. The leaves of a tree, more than any other part, give us the impression that the tree is a unit: especially when viewing a tree from a distance, the leaves lose their distinctness and blur into each other. Moreover, a tree is often more difficult to distinguish from other types of tree if it has no leaves. For botanists normally use a tree's leaf to identify and classify it in relation to other types of tree.
?????This analogy suggests one of the most important principles we will come across here in Part Four: just as a tree's leaves give the tree both its distinctiveness and its unity, so also the part of the tree of philosophy we shall now begin examining operates according to the principle of "unity in diversity". Since "unity" and "diversity" are opposites, this principle clearly requires us to think in terms of synthetic logic if we are to make any sense out of it. But before we begin looking at some examples of how this principle works, does anyone have any ideas about how we can define silence?
?????Student V. "Silence refers to an environment where there is no sound-or at least, very little."
?????I was hoping someone would give this kind of answer, because it gives me the opportunity to clarify the question I am really asking. Your answer is correct as far as it goes; but it defines silence in a merely superficial way. On the surface, silence is indeed just the absence of sound. Thus, for example, if several of you start talking while I am trying to give today's lecture, I might say "Silence please!"; this would mean something like "Please stop making those sounds!" However, the word "silence" normally suggests much more than this. For aren't there some kinds of sound that do not disturb our silence? And what about the popular song that talks about the "Sound of Silence"? If silence is the absence of sound, then how could silence itself have a sound? In any case, does anyone have a suggestion as to how we could go a little deeper into the meaning of silence? What is silence?
?????Student W. "No noise."
?????This is a more helpful definition, especially if we define "noise" as "disturbing sound". We can then see why some kinds of sound actually promote silence rather than disturbing it. For instance, those birds chirping away in the tree just outside the classroom window are probably making more sound than that made by two or three students talking to each other out of turn while I am lecturing. Yet I don't think any of us would say those birds are making noise, as long as they are not competing with me for your attention. In the same way, the background music in a film makes lots of sound; yet it can actually promote a sense of silence in the film if it is used in the right way. But if the music detracts our attention from the action happening on the screen, then it begins to function more like noise. Likewise, music can enhance the conversation between a group of friends; but if the same music is playing while one of them is trying to tune a guitar, it will probably function more like noise. What do these examples tell us about silence?
?????Student X. "It's quite subjective. What is silence for me might be noise for you."
?????That depends on what you mean by "subjective". So let's press your idea a bit deeper. When you say silence is "subjective", does this mean merely that different people experience silence in different ways (a rather obvious point), or does it also tell us something about where silence is actually located? In other words, what makes the difference between a person who can experience silence in a certain situation and another person who cannot?
?????Student X. "It must be something inside the person. Yes, I think that's what I meant by 'subjective'! Real silence is inner silence."
?????Good! This is precisely the point of my original question: What is inner silence? What can we do to cultivate within ourselves a disposition that enables us to experience silence when other people are being disturbed by the sounds all around us? How can what is noise to other people become like music to our ears? Is this just a basic difference between different people's personalities, or is there anything we can do to improve our capacity for hearing the sound of silence?
?????Student Y. "I find that getting away from everyone and being alone for awhile often gives me an inner peace that helps me cope with the disturbances that come from my relationships with other people."
?????The kind of experience you are referring to is sometimes called "solitude". I too enjoy being by myself sometimes; and I agree that it can foster the development of a sense of inner silence. But the strange thing about solitude is that some people don't like it; they are too afraid of becoming lonely. What's the difference, then, between "being alone" and "being lonely"?
?????Student Z. "Some people can be alone for long periods of time without feeling lonely at all; others will feel lonely even when they are with a group of friends."
?????So what is it that makes these two types of people so different?
?????Student Z. "The lonely person seems to have something missing inside. Could we call it silence?"
?????That's a good suggestion, although we should be aware that we are now reasoning in a circle: solitude helps us develop inner silence; inner silence helps us experience solitude without feeling lonely. So this still doesn't help us very much if we happen to be lonely and/or lack inner silence right now. Nevertheless, it is a good suggestion because it emphasizes the close connection between solitude and silence. Solitude and silence normally go together: either we have both or we have neither. In fact, experiencing one without the other is usually a sign of mental and/or spiritual disintegration: silence without solitude breeds dread; solitude without silence breeds insanity. In Lecture 34 we will look more closely at the paradoxical insights we can gain from these all-too-common human experiences.
?????People who spend much of their time in solitude and silence are sometimes called "contemplatives". Contemplatives in virtually every major religious tradition have worked hard to explain what silence and solitude are and how we can go about nurturing the potential for such experiences. In ancient China, Lao Tzu is a good example of such a contemplative. His poetic account of how to follow the "Tao" that "cannot be expressed" is full of practical advice-though often couched in terms of synthetic logic-as to how we can live a life of humility, solitude, and silence, even amidst the apparent busyness of everyday life. The Buddha would, of course, be another good example. And numerous others could be cited from Hinduism, Islam, and various other religions.
?????The Jewish and Christian religious traditions also have a long line of such contemplatives. One of the most influential Christian contemplatives in the twentieth century was Thomas Merton, whose writings inspired many to deepen their own inner experiences. An extended quote from his little book, Thoughts in Solitude, can help us understand how solitude and silence work together in our experience of the reality religious people call "God":
As soon as you are really alone you are with God.
???Some people live for God, some people live with God, some live in God.
???Those who live for God, live with other people and live in the activities of their community. Their life is what they do.
???Those who live with God also live for Him, but they do not live in what they do for Him, they live in what they are before Him. Their life is to reflect Him by their own simplicity and by the perfection of His being reflected in their poverty.
???Those who live in God do not live with other men or in themselves still less in what they do, for He does all things in them.
???Sitting under this tree I can live for God, or with Him, or in Him....
???To live with Him it is necessary to refrain constantly from speech and to moderate our desires of communication with men, even about God.
???Yet it is not hard to commune with other men and with Him, as long as we find them in Him.
???Solitary life-essentially the most simple. Common life prepares for it in so far as we find God in the simplicity of common life-then seek Him more and find Him better in the greater simplicity of solitude.
???But if our community life is intensely complicated-(through our own fault)-we are likely to become even more complicated in solitude.
???Do not flee to solitude from the community. Find God first in the community, then He will lead you to solitude.
???A man cannot understand the true value of silence unless he has a real respect for the validity of language: for the reality which is expressible in language is found, face to face and without any medium, in silence. Nor would we find this reality in itself, that is to say in its own silence, unless we were first brought there by language.
The final paragraph is reminiscent of Wittgenstein's idea of language as a "ladder" that must be thrown away when we begin to see things as they "manifest themselves" to us (see Figure VI.1). Similarly, this passage explains that we must learn to be with people before we gain benefit from being alone. Solitude and silence benefit us only to the extent that we have already met the reality that holds together the diversity of our lives in an underlying unity.
?????Another example from the Christian tradition comes in a popular book entitled Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster. This book was written for ordinary Christian believers, so some of the language might be difficult for some non-Christians to appreciate; nevertheless, I believe it contains insights that can benefit anyone. The book describes twelve distinct "disciplines" (arranged, significantly enough, as a perfect 12CR!), each working together to promote the kind of inner disposition we have been discussing today. Chapter 7, on the close relationship between solitude and silence, is especially relevant to today's discussion. In that chapter Foster distinguishes in a helpful way between solitude and loneliness (CD 84): "Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment. Solitude is not first a place but a state of mind and heart." In the same way we could add that "noise" is inner chaos, while "silence" is "inner peace". But such inner peace and fulfillment cannot be attained merely by fighting against their opposites (chaos and loneliness). Rather, Foster argues, they develop slowly as a result of continuous self-discipline. Thus, after quoting the old proverb, "the man who opens his mouth, closes his eyes!", Foster explains (86): "The purpose of silence and solitude is to be able to see and hear. Control rather than no noise is the key to silence."
?????Those who emphasize such contemplative control over our inner disposition are sometimes called "mystics". Mystics are those who experience a power that unifies the diversity of their everyday experiences, and in response, change their way of life accordingly. For the mystic, silence is not just a convenient tool used to reduce the level of stress in a busy life, or even to develop the skill of having insights; rather, in its deepest sense it is a way of life. Thus, the mystic "vision" (SF 9) sees all of life as a "a supreme gift for which the most appropriate posture is the giving of thanks.... To acknowledge life as a supreme gift is to sense that the underlying mystery ... is nevertheless benevolent. To receive it as a mystery is to respect the beauty of its pathos." We have no right to possess a gift, but must patiently wait for it to be given, and then accept or reject it when and as it comes. The disciplines of a mystical way of life are intended to prepare us to receive the mysterious gifts of silence and solitude when they do come.
?????This mystical vision can also help us understand the nature of insights. We can prepare ourselves to receive insights; but cannot control exactly when or how they will come to us. All we can do is sit, as it were, under the tree, waiting for the fruit to drop into our open hands, just like the sage pictured on the cover of this book. The control that comes from spiritual discipline is not control over the mysterious reality that gives insights; rather, it is control over our own hands (and minds), which are usually too busy (filled with "noise") to receive what is being offered. The same point is made in The Giving Tree: because the boy's hands are always too full of his own selfish interests, he is unable to receive the love and happiness the tree offers him. This is why I have asked you to spend some time quietly meditating before you begin the process of actually writing your insight papers. During these times of silence we prepare our minds (as well as our hearts) for receiving insights. The most important insight might not come during the time of silence; but without that time of preparation, our attention would be too cluttered with other concerns to receive any real insights.
?????Once an insight "comes" to us, we should not, of course, merely let it sit there collecting dust. Rather, the proper response, as suggested in Lecture 18, is to criticize it. Such criticism does not require us to deny the validity of the original insight (though such a denial might be appropriate sometimes), but should always help us separate what can be known to be true from what is false or unknowable. A good philosopher always tries to balance the tasks of insight and criticism, so that the two work together: when new insights break through into old ways of thinking, we should not merely reject the old ways, but make an effort to synthesize the old and the new to form a consistent whole. The best insight papers are always those utilizing both of these complementary activities, as suggested by the map introduced in Figure VI.5.
?????Comparing that map with those given in Figures VIII.4 and IX.4, we find there are, in fact, two quite distinct types of philosophical "breakthrough". The first is the one I have described above: a mystery manifests itself through some insight (see Figure X.1a). But the mysterious origin of the insight is only fully apparent when we try to comprehend it with
?/span>(a)
Mystery??????????? ???/span>(b) Paradox
Figure X.1: The Two Kinds of Breakthrough
our critical powers. The second type of breakthrough is exemplified by Nietzsche's "transvaluation of values", whereby we reach out to the transcendent reality by using our own powers of reason and/or will (see Figure 22.1b). But doing this gives rise to paradoxical statements that shatter our usual, analytic ways of thinking. Hence, "mystery" is the best word to describe what happens when our synthetic powers enable us to experience the wonder of silence, while "paradox" is the best word to describe what happens when we use our analytic powers in hopes of comprehending that mystery. These two types of breakthrough are like two sides of a leaf, as closely intertwined in our experience as analytic and synthetic logic are in our thinking: they work together as complementary aspects of a single process. The process of having an insight typically begins as a silent intuition breaking into our thoughts; it will remain a mystery unless we criticize it. When a criticized insight becomes an established tradition, our continued wonder may produce reasoning that leads to an even deeper, paradoxical insight. If we simply hold this paradox in silence, the entire process begins again! In each of the remaining three weeks we will artificially separate this process by focusing first on "paradox", then on "mystery". In so doing we must not forget that the opposite form of breakthrough is always operating in a covert, cyclical fashion.
?????Words like "mystery" and "paradox" can give the impression that the insights arising out of such breakthroughs are unclear. This is a complaint I have heard on a number of occasions from beginning philosophy students. Although it is, of course, entirely possible that my explanation of an idea is unclear, or that a given student's understanding of a clear explanation might be clouded in various ways, we should beware of thinking philosophical ideas themselves are necessarily unclear. On the contrary, once we recognize the difference between two kinds of clarity, we shall see that philosophical ideas are the clearest of all ideas!
?????Consider the difference between a cloudy day and a sunny day. On a cloudy day the sunlight is blocked, so the things we look at outside are not as distinct as they are on a sunny day. Even if you've never noticed that things look "duller" on a cloudy day, I'm sure you've noticed that the shadows of things (if any) are not very clearly visible, whereas they become crisp and sharp when the sun comes out. This is one type of clarity. But what about our ability to look at the sun itself? On a clear day the sun is difficult to look at-indeed, if we look at it for very long we could go blind! However, on a cloudy day we can look in the direction of the sun for a long time without difficulty. This second type of clarity is different from the first, because the clearer it is, the harder it is for us to see it! In other words, on a clear day, the source of light cannot be looked at, because it is too clear; yet the things it illuminates can be seen more clearly.
?????Philosophical clarity is often not like the things the sun enables us to see, but like the sun itself. For our deepest and most profound insights are the ones that appear to be the most clear, and whose certainty we are therefore the least likely to doubt. Yet if asked to express such insights in words, we are often unable to do so without great difficulty. For it is actually easier to describe a deep insight when it is not very clear in our mind. The true test of the clarity of a deep insight, therefore, is not how well we can express the insight itself, but how well we can use that insight to illuminate other aspects of our thought and experience. Take as an example the idea that the "recognition of ignorance" is the starting-point of all philosophy. My hope is that at some point during the first part of this course you were suddenly struck with the truth of this idea: whereas you probably did not understand it before taking this course, now (assuming it has become an insight for you) you are certain it can illuminate your understanding of what philosophy is. Yet if someone asks you at this point to explain just how it is possible for you to recognize your ignorance, you will probably remain speechless. On the one hand, you can see clearly the results of the insight; yet on the other hand, you are unable to state exactly what it is that enables you to have this gift of vision. My point here is that this is typical of philosophical ideas in general: they are so clear that their brightness often makes them unbearable to look at directly.
29. Finality and the Paradox of Beauty
?????Let me begin today by sharing a memorable experience I had when I was living in England. Shortly before dawn one crisp winter morning my young daughter woke up crying. It was my turn to do "night duty", so I dragged myself out of bed and did my best to comfort her. Before too long she was quiet again, and a bit later she was fast asleep. Usually on such occasions I was so tired that I had no trouble falling asleep again once my task was finished. This time, however, I left the room feeling wide awake. Even though it was still quite dark, I decided to sit in the living room instead of going back to bed. As I looked out the window of our cozy flat, I could see that the dark sky was beginning to lighten ever so slightly in the east. Everything was quiet, inside and out. Three stories below, just on the other side of the tree whose branches nearly touched the window of our flat, the main road into the city center had not yet begun to fill up with its daily traffic of noisy commuters. The beauty of the scene which then unfolded before my eyes was truly unforgettable. Beyond the leafless branches and over the housetops across the street emerged a deep purple glow gradually pushing the blackness to its home in the west. Before long the purples faded into deep red, and then brightened to a pastel orange. When the whole sky was ablaze in a strange mixture of reds, oranges, and yellows, a band of bright blue began to rise up as if from the depths of the sea. It was breathtaking. I could hardly move, much less think or speak.
?????As I sat there in silence, on the boundary line between nighttime and daytime, time itself seemed to stand still amidst the changeless changes unfolding before me. Looking back, I would guess the transformation I beheld took an hour or more, though it might have been less than fifteen minutes for all I know. When I finally came to my senses, I decided I should try to capture this "moment" on film before it was too late. That way perhaps those who were now sleeping might later be able to share in the awesome scene I was witnessing. A camera can be an effective tool for artists, if it is used to distort a natural scene in such a way as to reveal an underlying beauty that would remain hidden to the naked eye. However, when we use the same machine in hopes of copying the beauty of a natural scene that is already manifested before our eyes, the result is often the very antithesis of artistic beauty. Unfortunately, the photo I took that morning probably illustrates the latter principle better than the former. (A mere copy of nature is bad enough, but a copy of the copy is even worse. Nevertheless, I have reproduced my photograph in black and white on the previous page, in hopes of sparking the reader's imagination to fill in the missing colors.)
?????Let's just imagine this photo is good enough to put you in touch with the beauty of the boundary-experience I had that morning. Why is it that we judge such a scene to be beautiful? What does the word "beauty" mean when we use it in a proposition such as "That sunrise is beautiful"? How are judgments of beauty related to other kinds of judgment? Answering such questions is the task of the area of philosophy called "aesthetics" (from the Greek word, aisthetikos, meaning "sense perception"). The leaves of experience that grow on this branch of the philosophical tree are so healthy, and so familiar to us all, that such questions are better dealt with in terms of ontology (the study of "being") than in terms of science. In other words, although we will never know enough to construct a science of beauty, we can experience enough to construct an ontology of beauty. And that is, in fact, what many philosophers have done when dealing with questions of aesthetics.
?????The aesthetic question asked most frequently in students' insight papers goes something like this: Is there an objective standard of beauty? or Is there a fixed set of guidelines we can use to test whether such a judgment is right or wrong? Students nearly always answer these questions in the negative. But philosophers-especially good philosophers-are not so quick to assume that aesthetic judgments are based on nothing more than mere personal opinions. Any attempt to construct an ontology of beauty would assume that beauty is something, and would seek first and foremost to discover the nature of that hidden essence. So let's look today at one example of how philosophers answer such questions.
?????Since I have already taken Kant's ideas as exemplary of "good" philosophy in several previous lectures, I shall again use his approach to illustrate how aesthetic questions can be answered. Although there are many other philosophers whose views on aesthetics would be worth considering here, Kant's views, as in so many other areas of philosophical inquiry, represent a major turning point in the history of aesthetics, and the issues he struggled with are still relevant to contemporary issues in aesthetics. Moreover, examining Kant's views on aesthetics will enable us to gain a more complete understanding of his overall system of Critical philosophy. In Lecture 8 we saw how Kant's first Critique defines a theoretical standpoint governed by the "faculty" (i.e., mental power) of "cognition" (or knowing). In Lecture 22 we saw how his second Critique defines a distinct practical standpoint governed by the power of "desire" (or willing). Let us now examine how Kant's third and final Critique, the Critique of Judgment (1790), defines a new standpoint governed by the power of feeling.
?????Because the first two powers adopt the opposite standpoints of theory and practice, Kant claimed a third standpoint is needed to form a bridge between these two. This third standpoint must be both free (as in our moral judgments) and yet based on a sensible object (as in our cognitive judgments). In its most general sense, this "third thing" in Kant's System always consists of experience itself; but in the third Critique his particular focus is on specific types of judgments, so I call this third, mediating standpoint the "judicial". The judicial standpoint focuses on the judgments we make about the kinds of experience we cannot interpret straightforwardly in terms of scientific knowledge or moral practice-in particular, the judgments that arise out of our power to feel "pleasure and pain". Thus, if we think of Kant's first two Critiques as viewing experience from the perspectives of the head and belly, respectively, then we can think of the third Critique as viewing experience from the perspective of the heart, the physical organ ordinary associated with our feelings. Like the moral judgments that correspond to the belly (see Lecture 22), so also aesthetic judgments, according to Kant, are always noncognitive-i.e., they do not produce knowledge, the way logical (i.e., theoretical) judgments do (see e.g., CJ 228). In a logical judgment our thinking controls our imagination to expose truth, whereas in an aesthetic judgment our imagination controls our thinking to reveal beauty. This account of the relationship between Kant's three systems can now be used to construct a more detailed synthesis of Figures II.8 and III.4:
Figure X.2:
Feeling as Kant's Bridge between Knowing and Willing
?????The main idea governing Kant's third Critique is "finality" or "purposiveness" (two ways of translating the German word, endlichkeit). This term refers to the feeling we have that certain contingent objects or events necessarily point to a goal or end-i.e., an intrinsic purpose they must fulfill in order to realize their final reason for existing. The first half of the book deals with the "subjective" finality we experience whenever we judge something to be "beautiful" or "sublime". The second half deals with the "objective" finality we experience whenever we judge some natural object to have a purpose or design. Today we will have time to examine only the first of Kant's two examples of subjective finality.
?????Kant's theory of aesthetic judgment is based on a perfect 2LAR, distinguishing between four ways of feeling "delight" in sensible objects. Each produces a distinct type of aesthetic judgment: "an object is to be counted either as agreeable, or beautiful or sublime, or good (absolutely)" (CJ 266). Kant saw a direct correspondence between this distinction, the fourfold division of the categories (see Figure III.9), and the four main faculties of the mind (sensibility, understanding, judgment, and reason): the "agreeable" is what "pleases immediately" (208) and relates primarily to the quantity of a judgment, as fully revealed in sensation; the "beautiful" requires a "quality" that also "permits of being understood"; the sublime posits a "relation" between "the sensible" and "a possible supersensible employment" of understanding in human judgment; and the good consists in "the modality of a necessity", requiring everyone to agree with a "pure intellectual judgment" (266-267, my italics). Whereas the agreeable and the beautiful both result from a "judgment of taste", the sublime and the good both stem from "a higher, intellectual feeling" (192). By regarding this as defining the first term in each 2LAR component, with the second term being defined by the question, "Is this form of delight universal?", we can construct the following map:
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Figure X.3: Kant's Four Forms of Aesthetic Judgment
?????In his attempt to explain what is unique about our judgments of beauty, what makes them different from all other types of judgments we make, Kant distinguished between four "moments" (or essential elements) of any such judgment of taste. These correspond, as usual, to the pattern determined by his special set of four categories. But because beauty itself is most like the category of quality, he began his ontology of beauty with a description of the "moment of quality" (CJ 203); it stipulates that the delight experienced in an object judged to be beautiful must be disinterested. An "interest" is any "delight which we connect with the representation of the real existence of an object" (204). The judgments that determine "the agreeable and the good" are both "invariably coupled with an interest in the object" (209): the former depends on the existence of something "the senses find pleasing in sensation" (205), and the latter on the existence of something "reason recommends ... by its mere concept" (207). By contrast, a judgment of beauty, being a pure judgment of taste, "relies on no interest" (205n): a person making such a judgment ought to have "complete indifference" concerning "the real existence of the thing" (205). Otherwise, Kant warned, our judgments of taste will be "biased" in favor of our own interest, instead of assessing whether or not our feeling truly merits the ascription of "beauty" to the object.
?????An illustration should help clarify this first, and perhaps most important, of Kant's points. Let's imagine three possible situations when a person might refer to the sun's "beauty". First, imagine the weather was so fine this morning that you decided to skip your classes and go to the beach for the day. In that case, you might be laying on the sand right now with your closest friend, soaking up the warm sun. If you turned to your friend and said "The sun feels beautiful right now", then, according to Kant, you would be misusing the word "beautiful". Your feeling of pleasure would be a direct result of your interest in the existence of the sun's existence, aroused by your sensation of its warmth on your body. So it would be better to say the sun feels "agreeable" (or "nice") in such a situation. For the second scenario, imagine you are now walking along the road with your geography teacher, talking about the various forms of life on earth. Suddenly you become aware of the sun shining brightly all around you, so you exclaim, "Isn't the sun beautiful, the way it sustains life on earth?" This too would be a misuse of "beautiful". For once again, your feeling of pleasure would be a direct result of your interest in the sun's existence, though this time your interest would be aroused by your intellectual grasp of the sun's goodness. The third scenario could be the one I described at the beginning of today's lecture. Only if, as I sat there gazing at the sunrise, the pleasure welling up in me had nothing to do with the sun's objective existence, only if my judgment was based not on my agreeable sensations (I was actually quite cold at the time!) nor on my appreciation of the sun's usefulness (I was too tired to think so clearly!), was I justified in exclaiming: "This sunrise is beautiful!" But if my judgment was not based on my own interest in the object, what was it based on? Kant answered this question in his discussion of the other three essential characteristics of any judgment of beauty.
?????Although a judgment of beauty is always subjective, and thus has "no bearing upon the Object" (CJ 215), Kant argued that the "quantity" of such a judgment requires that some object "pleases universally" (219). The second characteristic is therefore a special kind of subjective universality. By contrast, judgments of the agreeable express a delight that is subjective but not universal, and judgments of the good express a delight that is universal but objective. The criterion of subjective universality means that a person must regard delight in the object
as resting on what he may also presuppose in every other person; and therefore he must believe that he has reason for demanding a similar delight from everyone. Accordingly, he will speak of the beautiful as if beauty were a quality of the object and the judgment logical [even though it is not] ... (211).
Unlike a truly logical judgment, a judgment of taste "does not postulate the agreement of every one ...; it only imputes this agreement to everyone" (216). We assume everyone will agree that the sun is good because it sustains life, but we do not assume everyone will agree that sunbathing is an agreeable experience. These two kinds of judgment are quite straightforward. But when we judge something to be beautiful, we feel everyone ought to make the same judgment if placed in the same position: for we adopt the "idea" that our judgment extends "to all subjects, as unreservedly as it would if it were an objective judgement" (285), even though we may know very well that, as a matter of fact, everyone does not agree.
?????The third characteristic of all judgments of beauty deals with the relation of "ends" (CJ 219): the object of such judgments must exhibit "the form of finality [i.e., purposiveness] ... apart from the representation of an end [i.e., purpose]" (236). This paradox requires that, in judging an object to be beautiful, we regard it as existing for a reason, because we perceive an inner purposiveness; yet no external purpose can be found. This is no illusion, according to Kant, but part of what it means for something to be called beautiful: judging something to be beautiful means judging that it points to itself rather than to some agreeable sensation or good state of affairs outside of the object. Since the "determining ground" of such a judgment "is simply finality of form" (223), our delight in something beautiful is based solely on the conviction that "the state of the representation itself" is intrinsically worth preserving (222). By contrast, our delight in experiencing something agreeable or good is determined by the external goal it points to, such as the pleasant sensation of tasting well prepared food, or the ability of food to satisfy our hunger. In other words, delight in the beautiful means delight in something we do not wish to consume but to preserve, just as in the case of the "timeless moment" I described at the beginning of this lecture.
?????The fourth and final characteristic, the "moment" of modality in any judgment of beauty, is that the experience must produce "a necessary delight" (CJ 240). Kant carefully distinguished between the "theoretical objective necessity" of empirical knowledge, the "practical necessity" of moral action, and the "exemplary" necessity of aesthetic judgment (236-237). An experience of delight in a beautiful object can be regarded as a necessary example only when we presuppose "the existence of a common sense" (i.e., a common way of sensing the world), corresponding to the "common understanding" that enables us to agree on cognitive judgments (238). (The latter, by the way, is closer to the traditional notion of "common sense" than is the former.) All but the most extreme skeptics assume this common sense to be "the necessary condition of the universal communicability of our knowledge", so it can also serve as an "ideal norm" that forms the basis for the necessity of our aesthetic judgments (239). Kant also referred in a similar way to an internal "archetype of taste" that serves as "the highest model" for aesthetic judgments, but cautioned that people vary widely in their ability to access it; "each person must beget [this archetype] in his own consciousness" (232), for it is a skill that must be acquired. What we do all have access to, Kant believed, is "a universal voice" telling us "only the possibility of an aesthetic judgment capable of being ... deemed valid for every one" (216).
?????Having now examined Kant's often paradoxical account of the four principles essential to the ontological nature of our judgments of beauty, we can summarize his theory with this map:
Figure X.4: The Four Moments in a Judgment of Beauty
Note that the two characteristics mapped onto the horizontal line are both expressed in terms of synthetic logic, while those on the vertical line both conform to analytic logic.
?????Taken together, these four characteristics of all judgments of beauty suggest that such judgments point not to some obvious purpose, but to a mystery hidden deep within certain objects we experience: our aesthetic ideas "strain after something lying out beyond the confines of experience" (CJ 314). In addition to using the term "finality" (or purposiveness) to describe this mystery, Kant also claimed that, ultimately, "the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good" (353). By this he did not mean that the experience of beauty is in any way dependent upon the experience of goodness, but only that, just as respect for the moral law gives moral goodness a foothold in the will, so also the "analogy" between beauty and morality can give morality a foothold in nature. In so doing, such experiences serve to resolve the tension between our theoretical and practical standpoints (cf. Figures VIII.2 and X.2).
?????Let's now take a step back from Kant's theory and ask: Do such basic characteristics establish an objective standard of beauty? Yes and no! On the one hand, they do demonstrate that we use the word "beauty" at precisely those times when we are acting as if everyone else ought to agree. And this means judgments of beauty require us to adopt the universal standpoint of "common sense"-or, as we could also call it, the unifying standpoint, through which the diversity of our ordinary experience is held together by a common, gut-level feeling. But on the other hand, Kant fully recognized that this feeling is subjective, and that people are therefore bound to disagree about what ought to be regarded as beautiful (239). In such a case, he argued, if both parties are truly judging aesthetically, then "both would ... be judging correctly" (231). This is possible, of course, only if we interpret such experiences in terms of synthetic logic. So, although his account of the four essential elements in any judgment of beauty cannot be said to give us an objective standard, in the sense of a set of universal criteria that can be externally forced upon all possible objects, it does give us a universal standard, in the sense of a set of criteria that is internally applicable to all possible subjects who hope to experience beauty. And this is no small achievement!
?????This means our ability to experience beauty depends not so much on the objective characteristics of the objects we meet every day, as on whether we are able to adopt this standpoint when the appropriate situations present themselves. In other words, like all the unifying experiences we shall examine here in Part Four, an experience of beauty is likely to "hit" us only when we are prepared internally to receive the mystery of such a gift. It is therefore entirely possible that people living near me on that bleak winter's morning in England might have woken up at the same time as me, looked out the window, and noticed nothing beautiful. Had I met them, I would have felt quite strongly that they ought to have noticed the beauty of the sunrise, and would have noticed it, had they adequately nurtured the "common sense" that gives us our taste for beauty; nevertheless, I could have done nothing to force them to agree with my judgment.
?????Kant's ontology of beauty therefore suggests that the old saying "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" has some measure of truth. However, this saying is grossly misinterpreted if we associate it with a relativistic saying such as "different strokes for different folks", and thereby take it to mean that "it doesn't really matter what different people think about what is and isn't beautiful, because beauty is different for everyone". By assuming that because beauty is not scientific it must be a mere illusion, this all-too-common view strips beauty of the paradox that makes it what it is. For, as Kant has shown us, the subjective character of such judgments (i.e., the fact that they depend primarily on our own eyes) does not imply that our experiences of beauty are all merely relative; on the contrary, such experiences put us into contact with an absolute reality, a mystery that our imagination glimpses but our thoughts cannot fully comprehend. Just because beauty is not in my eye at one particular moment does not mean it is not there, waiting to be seen and tasted, if only I am willing to feel its presence.
30. Reunion and the Mystery of Love
?????What is love?
?????Answering this question is, or at least ought to be, of interest to everyone, even people who know nothing about philosophy. For each of us has experienced love on numerous occasions in the past, though admittedly our awareness of love varies greatly. Some people feel they have rarely experienced more than glimpses of love here and there, while others feel they have to hold love back, lest it rush forth like a raging flood and wash away the objects it is directed toward. Nearly everyone agrees that love is an indispensable aspect of human life, and that without love it would be difficult if not impossible to live a meaningful life. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that love is usually one of the most frequently discussed topics (along with truth, beauty, death, and the meaning of life) in students' insight papers.
?????When students write about love, there is usually a tendency to emphasize romantic love, and thus to view love as primarily a feeling, directed exclusively toward the perfect person known as the "lover". But of course, as is often pointed out, there are many different types of love. And some of these are more properly described in terms of a commitment, directed inclusively toward many imperfect people. One of the most common ways of answering the question of the nature of love is to confess ignorance, by arguing either that no one can define love, or that everyone has their own definition, so that there is no single, all-encompassing definition. In one respect, there is no doubt that this is true: of all the experiences human beings have, love is certainly one of the most mysterious; and because each of us must rely primarily on our own experiences, there are indeed almost as many different ideas about love as there are different people who have given and received love.
?????Where does this leave the philosopher? Is it hopeless to try to give a truly philosophical account of love-that is, one that describes an underlying similarity between all types of love, and a common factor in all acceptable definitions? In one sense it is. For as we have seen on numerous occasions, some experiences can never be adequately described, especially in terms of analytic logic alone; and in such cases we actually discover that we can sometimes understand our experience better in silence than we can in words. However, in another sense, the philosopher is never satisfied with complete silence, but always holds out a hope that words can somehow be used to express the inexpressible. This is the purpose of symbolic language, as we shall see more fully in Lecture 31, and is made possible by synthetic logic. Provided we do not expect to grasp love completely, as if we could reduce it to a mere formula, but attempt only to learn what it means to be grasped by love, I see no reason why we should not search for a philosophy of love that enables us to see the diversity of human experiences as part of a unified whole.
?????Many philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle right down to the present day, have, in fact, developed theories of love. Since we have no time to examine the whole history of the philosophy of love, let's take a closer look at the ideas of one fairly recent philosopher, whose quest for love's meaning led him to some very interesting conclusions. The person I am thinking of is Paul Tillich, whose idea of faith as expressed in terms of symbols of ultimate concern will be examined in Lecture 31. His insightful little book, called Love, Power, and Justice (1954), devotes most of one chapter to the explanation of "The Ontology of Love". The term "ontology" can be defined rather simply as "the study of being". However, let us look briefly at the more in depth account of the meaning of this term that comes at the beginning of Tillich's chapter on love.
?????Tillich's account begins by suggesting that the Greek words for "ontology" are best translated as referring to "the 'rational word' [logos] which grasps 'being as such' [on]" (LPJ 18). In order to grasp this "word", he paradoxically claims, "ontology asks the simple and infinitely difficult question: What does it mean to be? What are the structures [or "characteristics"] common to everything that ... participates in being?" (19). Ontology recognizes the "manifoldness" of being, but attempts to unify this diversity by describing "the texture of being itself" (20). Everyone who has knowledge engages in ontology, because "knowing means recognizing something as being." He distinguished ontology from metaphysics in the following way:
... ontology is the foundation of metaphysics, but not metaphysics itself. Ontology asks the question of being, i.e. of something that is present to everybody at every moment.... Ontology is descriptive, not speculative. It tries to find out which the basic structures of being are. And being is given to everybody who is and who therefore participates in being-itself. Ontology, in this sense, is analytical. It analyses the encountered reality, trying to find the structural elements which enable a being to participate in being. (23)
?????Although Tillich never explicitly said so, this passage clearly implies that ontology is both analytic and a posteriori (see Figure IV.4): like logic, ontology is "analytic", yet unlike logic, it is "descriptive" (i.e., it focuses a posteriori on what is rather than on what we think). Metaphysics, by contrast, is synthetic and a priori (at least according to Kant): it asks questions about what is necessary before we experience "what is", but it requires us to step outside of our analytical concepts. Rather than saying ontology is the "foundation" of metaphysics, it would therefore be more accurate to say metaphysics and ontology are two diametrically opposed tasks that nevertheless depend on each other, just as the opposites -- and ++ depend on each other, and just as do the roots and leaves of a tree.
?????The passage where Tillich set out his ontological description of love is actually quite brief. It begins with a description of the relationship between love and life itself (LPJ 25): "Life is being in actuality and love is the moving power of life." In other words, when a being ceases to be merely possible, and becomes actual, we can say it is "alive"; and the very power that moves beings into life and through life is called "love". This means being requires love in order to become "actual", and through love we learn what life really is. Of course, this description is so broad that it seems to include nearly everything! So Tillich narrowed his description with an idea borrowed directly from Plato's Symposium:
Love is the drive towards the unity of the separated. Reunion presupposes separation of that which belongs essentially together.... [But] separation presupposes an original unity.... It is impossible to unite that which is essentially separated.... Therefore love cannot be described as the union of the strange but as the reunion of the estranged. Estrangement presupposes original oneness.
?????The basic meaning of this passage can be understood quite effectively by mapping the key ideas onto the pair of 1LSR triangles shown in Figure V.7 (cf. Figure III.7). The resulting map, given in Figure X.5, depicts how estrangement is a necessary step in the process of love, the process whereby two "estranged" opposites (+ and -) that were once held together in a mysterious, original unity (0), are brought back together in a "reunion" (1). Almost any pair of opposites could be used to exemplify
Figure X.5: Tillich's Ontology of Love
this process. But an obvious example occurs whenever a man (+) and a woman (-) are in love. The two lovers, as they gaze into each other's eyes, want to be closer and closer, until, if possible, they merge into one being (1). Whenever they are together they feel as if they have returned to a long lost home (0); yet there always seem to be obstacles keeping them ultimately estranged. An indispensable point in Tillich's discussion, therefore, is that the reunion itself is not love, but is the goal love drives toward. Love itself, the being of love, is the power of driving toward reunion. This means it is a mistake to think of love as the goal; love is the unifying power of a relationship, enabling two beings to drive toward a higher goal.
?????Tillich warned his readers not to make the mistake of confusing this rather abstract, ontological description of love's essential nature with the emotion we often associate with love. Love as such can occur without being accompanied by any emotion whatsoever. However, when emotion does accompany love, Tillich argued, the ontology of love helps us explain why it is present. Since love is the drive toward reunion, it is certainly possible to love someone without thinking much about what the final state of reunion will be like. If this happens, then there will be little or no emotion associated with love, for "love as an emotion is the anticipation of the reunion" (LPJ 26). This means a person who, by contrast, frequently imagines a future state of increased unity with another person will find that a great deal of emotion accompanies the experience of driving toward that reunion (i.e., of love).
?????Once this point is recognized, an interesting paradox arises when we consider what happens when we experience the fulfillment of love: "Fulfilled love is, at the same time, extreme happiness and the end of happiness. The separation is overcome. But without the separation there is no love and no life" (LPJ 27). Tillich's point here is that the very nature of our anticipation of a goal is such that the moment of reaching that goal, the very moment of most intense satisfaction, is at the same time the beginning of a feeling of emptiness at the prospects of no longer having that goal to strive after. This enables us to understand why the romantic emphasis on love as a feeling can be so misleading. Feeling is important, of course, for it is aroused by our anticipation of reunion; and if we never anticipate this goal, our love is less likely to develop toward its proper end. But if love is not based more fundamentally on a commitment of the will, then when the "end of happiness" arrives-as it inevitably does-we will be caught off guard, and might even think our love has died, just because the old feelings are gone.
?????This point reveals a very practical insight as to how we ought to view marriage. Lovers who view marriage as the final goal of their relationship are likely to be quite shocked once they realize, usually soon after their wedding day, that marriage is not all pleasant feelings: the person who was once viewed as the ideal lover inevitably "changes" into an ordinary, imperfect human being. This is why the typical Hollywood love story is so misleading: I'm sure you've all seen plenty of films and/or read lots of novels where the man and woman fall in love with each other, struggle to overcome numerous obstacles to the fulfillment of their love, finally get married, and then ride off into the sunset at the end of the film, to live "happily ever after". By the end of such stories most of us are wishing "if only that could be me ...". But beware: the whole thing is an impossible dream, because the point where the film ends is where life's real struggles are likely to begin!
?????The lesson this should teach us is to set high goals in love relationships (indeed, perhaps even absolute goals), so that each small step along the way (each "mini-reunion", so to speak) can bring its extreme happiness and at the same time complete the happiness experienced in the process of driving toward that step, without undermining the basis of the love relationship. In other words, there is always room for any relationship to grow into a deeper level of love: we must never expect to reach "true love", since true love is the process of reaching toward an ultimate goal. The fulfillment of this goal is the end of love, and hence can come only at (or after) the end of life. This is why, as we shall see in Week XII, death is such an important topic in ontology. But in the meantime we must recognize that our problems are not solved merely by understanding the essential ontological nature of love; on the contrary, the process of understanding the being of love is, like ontology itself, "a never-ending task" (LPJ 20).
?????Having completed his description of the essential nature of love, Tillich proceeded to explain four distinct ways love is manifested. Love itself is "one" way of being (LPJ 27): it is always the drive toward reunion of the separated. But this drive appears in many different forms. The four forms Tillich discussed can be regarded as a perfect 2LAR, constructed out of the two questions: (1) Is this form of love personal? and (2) Is it unequal (rather than mutual)? As such, they can be mapped onto the cross in the following way:
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Figure X.6: The Four Basic Types of Love
This map shows how epithymia and philia are similar in that they both require the loving subject and the loved object to be mutual participants in the love relationship, while eros and agape both require the two parties to have unequal roles; likewise, it shows how eros and epithymia are similar in being primarily impersonal, while agape and philia are similar in being personal. The sense in which "transpersonal" is a special type of impersonal love and "super-personal" is a special type of personal love should become clear as we look more closely at Tillich's account of how each of these types of love illustrates his definition of love's essence.
?????The Greek word "epithymia" (meaning desire) is roughly equivalent, according to Tillich (LPJ 28-30), to the Latin term "libido", as popularized by Freud (see DW 56-61). These terms refer to the basic instinctual desires that characterize all animals, especially the sex drive. In itself (viewed apart from the other types of love that often accompany it in human beings), epithymia is radically impersonal. One's sexual urges, for example, could in principle be satisfied by virtually anyone, regardless of their personality, just as hunger can be satisfied by any type of food, regardless of how bad it might taste. Normally, the parties in such an encounter desire mutually to fulfill each other's urges. In this way, epithymia gives rise to sensual pleasure in the process of driving two separated beings into physical reunion. But, Tillich argued, in a proper expression of epithymia love, "it is not the pleasure as such which is desired, but the union with that which fulfils the desire." That is, the two lovers desire reunion, and this reunion produces pleasure. Hence this basic animal desire has a legitimate right to be called "love", even though it represents only the "lowest" of the basic types of love.
?????When epithymia transcends the mere expression of sexual union and is sublimated in the form of a drive "towards union with the forms of nature and culture" (LPJ 30), it is more properly called "eros". This Greek word (related rather misleadingly to the English word "erotic") was used by Plato and other ancient Greek philosophers to describe the philosophical search for union with the ideas-especially with truth, goodness, and beauty. As such, it refers to a transpersonal form of love that "strives for union with that which is the bearer of values". Unlike epithymia, this higher form of impersonal love is fundamentally one-sided or unequal, in the sense that the "lover" strives toward something that does not necessarily respond with a mutual drive toward unity of its own. Truth, goodness, and beauty often fail to cooperate when we try to apprehend them. Have you ever suddenly realized that what you formerly thought was true is actually false? Have you ever tried to do something right, but ended up doing something you know is wrong instead? Or have you ever had people laugh at your choice in clothing, or in anything else that required a judgment of taste? If so, then you have experienced the struggle that inevitably accompanies the drive of eros toward reunion with a recalcitrant object of value.
?????Tillich referred to the mutual interdependence between eros and "philia" (the Greek word for friendship) as a "polar" relationship (LPJ 31). This is reflected in Figure X.6 by the fact that these two terms both appear on the "impure" (+- and -+) positions of the cross (though I would refer to this as a "contradictory" form of interdependence). As the truly "personal" love, philia is a prerequisite of eros, since one cannot pass from the impersonal to what transcends the personal until one has achieved personhood. As such, philia refers not only to conventional friendships, but also to the mutual drive toward unity that characterizes family relationships and all other relationships between individuals in a common group. As Tillich put it (32): "Love as philia presupposes some amount of familiarity with the object of love. For this reason Aristotle asserted that philia is possible only between equals."
?????Whereas the first three types of love are closely interrelated in human experience, Tillich claimed that the fourth type, known as "agape" (the Greek word for love used primarily in the New Testament), is radically different:
One could call agape the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life [i.e., God]. One could say that in agape ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love. Agape is love cutting into love, just as revelation is reason cutting into reason ... (LPJ 33)
Unlike eros, which transcends philia by driving toward a higher unity beyond personhood, agape transcends philia by driving toward a higher unity within personhood. Agape achieves this super-personal kind of love by reversing the goal set by eros. Agape is like eros, however, insofar as they both presuppose a fundamentally unequal relationship between the lover and the object of love: whereas eros is the drive of a person lacking value toward unity with an intrinsically valuable object, agape is the drive of a person having value toward unity with an object that has in itself no value to the lover. This is the kind of love Christians believe God has for human beings and we ought to have toward people we would not naturally love. From an ontological point of view, this is the most profound type of love, especially since it has the same, analytic a posteriori status as does ontology itself (cf. Figures I.1, IV.4, and X.7). This status is expressed in terms of synthetic logic in Jesus' command that we should love our enemies.
?????To conclude this week's study of ways of feeling united, let's use Tillich's ontology of love, and especially his way of distinguishing between agape and eros, to rephrase the question I quoted from Lessing (via Kierkegaard) at the beginning of Lecture 22. Do you still remember the question? If not, I hope you will go back and reread it; then, before forgetting it again, you should spend some time thinking about how you would respond. Lessing, along with Plato and anyone else who emphasizes the search for "heavenly" ideals, chose the lifelong search. Which one do you think Tillich would have chosen? Once we recognize that the "lifelong search" corresponds closely to eros, while the attainment of "all truth" corresponds to agape, it becomes evident that Tillich would have regarded the two as complementary. If so, the very idea that we must choose one or the other is a mistake; for each has its proper place in life.
?????Relating agape and eros to beauty and sublimity can aptly illustrate the two forms of breakthrough (see Figure X.1). We experience agape whenever Truth suddenly breaks into our ordinary ways of thinking and puts us into communication with the Mystery of life. Agape begins when synthetic logic breaks into our ordinary, analytic ways of thinking with a concrete example of the law of non-identity: it teaches us to accept as beautiful what we thought was ugly in ourselves and others, and/or to reject as ugly what we thought was beautiful (A=-A). We experience eros, by contrast, by actively pursuing the eternal quest for a means of breaking through the boundaries that traditionally hold us in place. Eros begins by assuming analytic logic; but once we achieve a breakthrough, we realize we can speak of this breakthrough only in the paradoxical terms of the law of contradiction: it teaches us that the quest for Truth requires the sublime recognition that truth is not Truth (A≠A); we will be unable to proceed unless we see our quest for literal truth as part of a sublime quest for the symbolic Truth. We can thus picture the complementary relationship between eros, agape, beauty, and the sublime as follows:
(a) Agape and Beauty??????(b) Eros and Sublimity
Figure X.7: The Mystery and Paradox of Love and Beauty
?????Our examination of beauty and love this week has exemplified how we all experience the paradox and mystery of feeling united. Next week we shall look at examples of how being religious leads to paradox and mystery as well. For now, let me reiterate one of the most important lessons we have learned from Tillich: that both unity and diversity, both the belief in a mysterious, "heavenly" Truth, and a lifelong search for it, must coexist in order for love in its fullest manifestation to continue to grow and prosper. Hence it should be clear that there is no straightforward answer to Lessing's question, for it suggests that, paradoxically, it is more important to keep asking the question than it is to settle upon one side or the other as the exclusively correct answer.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT/DIALOGUE
1.?A. Does silence have a sound?
?? B. Can insights be controlled?
2.?A. What does it mean to say unity exists "in diversity"?
B. Could a person who possesses "all truth" still search for truth?
3.?A. Does beauty relate only to objects of sense perception?
B. Can we ever know that a certain object is beautiful?
4.?A. Could there be an ontology of hate?
?? B. If love's goal can never be reached, what is the use of loving?
RECOMMENDED
READINGS
1. Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Ch. 7, "The Discipline of Solitude" (CD 84-95).
2. James P. Carse, The Silence of God: Meditations on prayer (New York: Macmillan, 1985).
3. Max Picard, The World of Silence (South Bend: Gateway Editions, 1952).
4. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, Part I, Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, §§1-22, "Analytic of the Beautiful" (CJ 203-244).
5. Erazim Kohák, The Embers and the Stars: A philosophical inquiry into the moral sense of nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
6. Paul Tillich, Love, Power, and Justice, Ch. II, "Being and Love" (LPJ 18-34).
7. Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), especially Chapters I-II, "Is Love an Art?" and "The Theory of Love", pp.9-61.
8. Stephen Palmquist, Dreams of Wholeness, Ch. X, "Psychology of Love" (DW 211-235).
Send comments to the author: StevePq@hkbu.edu.hk
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