Philosophy of Love and Work
The two sources of greatest potential happiness for people
are productive work and romantic love.
Love
Thinking, willing, and doing the real good of another.
Interpretations of:
Stanford Enclopedia
http://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/Love
Bibliography
Plato:
The Collected Dialogues (TCD) including the Letters
Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 1961
Lysis
by Plato
A discussion of love and friendship.
Plato argues that friendship must have a purpose,
and he identifyies this purpose with the highest purpose
--individual wholeness--the good.
(TCD Introduction)
Phaedrus
by Plato
Plato discusses the madness of the lover, his struggle with appetite, and his desire
to mold his beloved into the image of the Idea.
(TCD Introduction)
Symposium
by Plato
Plato carries the phonomenon of love from physical desire through
the artistic impulse manifested in the way we do things,
to the love of the beautiful or Good which is the Idea that molds the world. ...
In the classical tradition Plato's doctrine of Eros and Love is seen for what it is, namely, as an integeral part of his philosophy
binding all things, making each a distinct whole.
(TCD Introduction)
Nicomachean Ethics
by Aristotle
Aristotle on Friendship
Transition from Ethics to Politics
All this takes us beyond the individual to the community in which he lives—from ethics to politics. For no man, it is clear, is sufficient to himself. A man may be able to live, that is, in isolation and solitariness, but he cannot live well except in community. This comes out clearly in Aristotle’s account of friendship. He distinguished three types of friendships: (1) “friendships of utility,” which are based upon the facts of economic interdependence (for example, partnerships for mutual advantage and division of labor); (2) friendships for pleasure, which are based upon social needs and desires (for example, the associations we may form with “ready-witted people” whom we love mot because of their character but because of the pleasure we take in their company); (3) friendships between men who are good and alike in virtue.
Friendships of the third type are infrequent, for such men/women are rare. Such friendships require time and familiarity to mature, but once formed they are permanent, for “each gets from each in all respects the same as, or something like, what he gives.” What each gets (and gives) is stimulus, encouragement, and example in the art of living well and being virtuous. None of the virtues is possible, obviously, unless one lives in some sort of a community. How can a man/woman be just without other men/women to be just to? But if he lives in a society of just and courageous men/women he is much more likely to develop these virtues, supposing of course that he has the capacity for them, than if he lives in a society of evil men. This is true even of contemplation, the most self-sufficient of the virtues. Through it is less difficult to contemplate in isolation than to be courageous of just, the most fruitful kind of contemplation is that shared by friends. “The philosopher, even when by himself/herself can contemplate truth, (but) he can perhaps do so better if he has fellow-workers …
Dante Alighieri
(1265-1321 CE)
For Dante - All reality is thus a hierarchy of the multiple kinds and Forms of Light. Culminating in the Spiritual Light which is God. The light of the universe is a hierarchy of luminous beauty, and beauty elicits love in proportion to its intensity. In other words: Light as Beauty to lure one to The Source. In Dante’s Tenth Heaven - that is beyond time and space - rays of light, immaterial light, materializes and gives life and power to the Ninth Heaven. And so on down to Earth.
More Light = More Love = More Light
A History of Western Philosophy
The Classical Mind
By W. T. Jones, 1969
The Art of Loving
by Erich Fromm, 1963
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Paul Edwards, Editor in Chief
Volume 5 "Love" pages 89-95
by George Boas, 1967
The Psychology of Self-Esteem
by Nathaniel Branden, 1969
The Psychology of Romantic Love
by Nathaniel Branden, 1980
Love and Friendship
by Allen Bloom, 1984
Philosophy and Sex
Edited by Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston, 1984
Love and its Place in Nature:
A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis
by Jonathan Lear, 1990
It Looks Like Love: SOMETIMES IT IS
By Richard Richards, 1993
Upheavals of Thought:
The Intelligence of Emotions
by Martha C. Nussbaum, 2001
Part III: Ascents Of Love
A Passion for Wisdom:
Readings in Western Philosophy on Love and Desire
by Ellen K. Feder, Karmen MacKendrick, and Sybol S. Cook, 2004
Marriage, a History:
How Love Conquered Marriage
by Stephanie Coontz, 2005
Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Work
(The Good Stife)
The exertion of strength or faculties to accomplish something; toil; labor;
also, employment; occupation. The matter on which one is working; task; duty.
The Republic
by Plato
On Statecraft
by Aristotle
The Communist Manifesto
by Karl Marx
The Vocation of Man
by Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Edited with an Introduction, by
Roderick M. Chisholm, 1958
The Second Treatise of Civil Government,
in Two Treatises of Government
By John Locke, 1964
Working:
People talk about what they do all day and
how they feel about what they do
by Studs Terkel, 1974
Good Work
by E. F. Schumacher with Peter N. Gillingham, 1979
On Human Work:
Encyclical Laborem Exercens
by John Paul II, 1981
The Resymbolization of Work
by Donald Hutchinson, 1989
Dissertation
The Oxford Book of Work
Edited by Keith Thomas, 1999
Unions in America
by Gary N. Chaison, 2005
Working in the Shadows:
A Year of Doing the jobs (most) Americans won't do
A Journey into the lives of immigrant workers
by Gabriel Thompson, 2010
There is Power in a Union:
The Epic Story of Labor in America
by Philip Dray, 2010
THE WORK
by Wes Moore, 2018
Union of Their Dreams
by Miriam Pawel, 2010
The Crusades of Cesar Chavez:
A Biography
by Miriam Pawel, 2014
The Browns of California:
The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation
by Miriam Pawel, 2018
If we all live our lives in and through organizations, then
large or small organizations must have productive people.
Hence the need for:
Personal and Organizational Development
Copyright 1978