Living Wisdom with Patrick Lee Miller

Paradox of Love


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Sartre argues that love is paradoxical: the lover craves love that is given freely, but because such love can be revoked, and this possibility makes him anxious, the lover also wishes to control the beloved. He wants love that is free yet determined. This episode shows how this paradox stems from Hegel's Master-Slave dialectic, then concludes by synthesizing it with the theories of preceding episodes (on Ovid, Solomon, and Freud) in order to argue that loving wisdom requires liberating the slave within. 

Recommended Readings:

Sartre, Being and Nothingness (3.3.1: "First Attitude Toward Others: Love, Language, Masochism")

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Living Wisdom with Patrick Lee MillerBy Patrick Lee Miller