Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.

18, 14+30

Daily Shouts

Excerpts from
Philosophers’ Love
Letters
By Julia Edelman November 14, 2016

he only thing I know is that I know nothing. We've gathered at the

T agora several times and discussed our shared regard for divinity, but I
hardly know anything about you! Have you always been a midwife? Would
you pursue virtue over material wealth? How many siblings do you have? I am
ignorant of many things, but I do understand something about the art of love:
it's just asking a lot of questions until the other person is too tired to go on.
Shall I continue?—Socrates

Before we met, I was trapped deep within a cave, and had no way out. But you
were my light, and led me from the darkness. I'd love if the two of us could
leave the cave sometime and embrace our enlightened selves over dinner. My
good friend Diogenes is playing his harp at the !rst set of the sun later, if
you'd like to join me.—Plato

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

Illustrations by Hallie Bateman

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

It seems to me that it is essential to eliminate doubt and determine certainty.

So I have to ask: When I watched you prepare Queen Christina of Sweden's
robes, and you looked back at me, was that an I-could-be-interested kind of
look, or did you just have something in your eye? I'll understand if you do not
wish to respond. Uncertainty is the only true certainty, after all. —Descartes

I must admit, your support for women's rights is quite arousing. It's that look
in your eyes when you argue that women should be educated. It's the way your
arms tense up when you tell others that we should not be traded as property.
It's that smile. (It's just nice that you have most of your teeth, honestly.) Shall
we meet for the protest outside the National Assembly at dawn?—Mary
Wollstonecraft

Your mind is a blank slate, my dear girl, but I am here to color it with
knowledge. What you need is an older man who can de!ne the self through a
continuity of consciousness and also survive the Great Plague. I have done
both of these things. Now, I'm afraid your love is as infectious as a rapidly
spreading disease, your smile as contagious as an infected rat "ea. Sorry, this
plague is really getting to me. If we survive, I'd love to see you again. —John
Locke

By the time you !nish reading this letter, you will have realized that there is
no actual conception of the self. There is no "you" and "I." There are, however,
a bundle of sensations that we experience: that day we met outside my family

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

home in Berwickshire; the way you cried ever so deeply when you found out I
was an atheist; how repulsed you looked after you discovered I had scurvy. I
love you, and these moments make us who we are. I may put the "Hume" in
humor, but this is no joke.—David Hume

My dearest Frank, I was instantly drawn to you. Not just because my visa was
about to expire but also because you were surprisingly good-looking for an
American. Objectivism claims that happiness is the moral purpose of life, and
I'm quite sure that objectifying you will make me happy. You live by your own
efforts. You honor and respect achievement. You stay on your side of the bed.
That is all I need.—Ayn Rand

O Émilie du Châtelet, you are quite a dream!

I hope you like caustic men with low self-esteem.
The only thing I'd love more than separation of church and state,
Is to !nally take you out on a date.
The way you study physics makes my heart grow weak;
When you translate "Principia Mathematica," I can barely speak.
Together, let us determine the elements of !re,
And then who knows what may transpire!
The French government can try to suppress my views,
But you will forever and always be my muse.
Allow me to learn from your brilliant mind,
And occasionally glance at that nice behind.
—Voltaire

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

Permit me to deduce the reason we should be together. If Aristotle is a man,

and all men enjoy sexual intercourse, then Aristotle would surely enjoy sexual
intercourse. Now, I know what you're thinking—you're afraid I'm using you as
an instrumental good. But you can't blame me if the end is happiness. Let's
just say I'll see you at nine.—Aristotle

We desire meaning, and yet we cannot have it. Instead, we are bound to live a
tragic existence, trying to make sense of a world in which I am forced to write
you six letters in a row, and receive no response. Six. Don't you understand? I
desire you, and yet I cannot have you. Why does the Absurd taunt me so? Is it
something I said? Seriously, you can tell me. I can no longer stand the cruel,
indifferent silence of the universe. Like, just a response would be nice. Or you
know what? I don't even care anymore. Don't go out with me. I'm going to
die soon anyway, and life is better without meaning. That way I can never be
disappointed.—Albert Camus

It is essential to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And
what I certainly do not wish for myself is another disappointing date. How
can we live our fullest, most compassionate lives by just going to the same bars
over and over again? This is the time for change. The Golden Age of dating is
not over. No, it has just begun.—Confucius

Is it better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? I have always found it
safer to be feared, but with you something feels different. I !nd myself being
able to trust again, although can you ever truly trust anyone? Dishonesty and
deviousness are surely useful in the political realm, but I want to be honest

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

with you. Let me begin by confessing that I was friends with Leonardo da
Vinci. I'm changing, though, I promise. It is 1505, after all. New Year, new
me!—Niccolò Machiavelli

I'm staring at an old photograph of us, but can't !gure it out. We're at a bar
and looking off into the distance at something—I can't remember what it was.
I do know that it was !fty-six. You're smiling and holding a glass of wine,
which is almost empty. Your hand is gently resting on my arm. Normally, I
know all the signs. The wine is our signi!er, of course, and the signi!ed is a
hopeless bourgeois ideal. But what did it all mean? I thought we were having
a nice time. And yet you never called. Why? I thought I could employ
semiotics to understand what went wrong, but apparently I have much to
learn.—Roland Barthes

I've loved you ever since we were children. Some of my dearest memories
involve playing in the streets of Trier and reading about political liberalism
together in secret. Seeing as we're both workers of the world, I was thinking
we could unite over a pint of Krombacher later?—Karl Marx

Dear Lou,

Below you will !nd ten reasons why I believe we should be married:

1. I know I proposed to you twice before and you refused, but I am positive that the third
time's the charm.

2. You're the !rst female psychoanalyst, which I totally respect.

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

3. You get along well with Freud, so I already know you're great with my friends.

4. You're my favorite intellectual protégé.

5. You love writing about the erotic nature of women and how sexual difference runs
deeper than economics. I'm very into that, and also enjoy anything erotic.

6. We're both big Ibsen fans.

7. You always smell nice.

8. I adore your boyish curiosity and rugged complexion.

9. We both share a passion for critiquing reason and rejecting objective truth.

10. I am so alone.

—Friedrich Nietzsche

From "Love Voltaire Us Apart: A Philosopher's Guide to Relationships," by Julia

Edelman, illustrated by Hallie Bateman, to be published by Icon Books.

Julia Edelman is the author of “Love Voltaire Us Apart: A Philosopher’s Guide to

Relationships.” Read more »

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Excerpts from Philosophersʼ Love Letters | The New Yorker 26.05.18, 14+30

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