By Samuel Gugliotta
For Variety

IN my last article I introduced the notion that our emotions are inseparable from our thinking- the so-called “cognitive view” of emotion. In the words of the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, emotions are “suffused with intelligence and discernment, and...contain in themselves and awareness of value and importance.”
Boldly, Martha Nussbaum, in her important work, “Upheavals of Thought” devotes over 200 pages to the most basic and pervasive emotion of all: erotic love.
Traditionally, Western philosophers have taken a dim view of the worth of erotic love. Kant expresses the traditional view nicely:
“Sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite; as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry. Sexual love can, of course, be combined with human love and so carry with it the characteristics of the latter, but taken by itself it is a degradation of human nature; for as soon as a person becomes an Object of appetite for another, all motivates or moral relationship cease to function, because as an Object of appetite for another a person becomes a thing, and can be treated and used as such by everyone...Sexual desire is at the root of it; and that is why we are ashamed of it, and why all strict moralists sought to suppress and extirpate it.”
At the same time, the subject of erotic love represents a universal interest in literature, the arts, and in our everyday lives. Philosophers may talk about its inevitable faults: the consequences of jealously, partiality, and even anger and aggression in the attempt to find wholeness in the complete possession of another, yet, as Proust claims, “all compelling narrative is at bottom about love.” Nussbaum notes, “Precisely ‘because’ love is more mysterious than the other passions, precisely because we cannot easily catalogue the reasons for our loves, we look to narratives for the understanding we lack, or at least for the conformation of our sense that there is a great mystery here.”
From this apparent gap between the realities of erotic love and our deep attachment to its mystery and even mastery of our lives there has arisen in the arts and philosophy what is known as the “ascent tradition” (or various “ladders of love”). What this means is that from the attempt to understand the vicissitudes of love, its suffering, joys, and contradictions, thinkers and artists have developed accounts of how what may begin in the base attractions of our natural bodies may be but the first rung of a ladder which could lead the individual to the highest possible levels of morality and joy.
Nussbaum focuses on three such ladders in the Western traditions of art and literature: The Platonic tradition that ascends from erotic love to the contemplation of the good and beautiful; “a Christian account of the ascent that investigates the role of humility, longing and grace; and a Romantic account that rejects a static telos for ascent, holding that striving itself is love’s transcendence.” Nussbaum also looks at the work of James Joyce, which is a “descent” from idealistic points of view to the significance of the imperfect in our mundane world.
As an example, we may consider the Platonic account of the love’s ladder. When one is thunderstruck by the beauty and wonder of another, such beauty or goodness is but an image of a universal beauty and goodness; forms which enlighten all objects which evince such qualities. Thus from the particular one advances to the ultimate reality of the general. From the kiss of the lips to the embrace of the divine, from a love that is possessive and selfish to one that is altruistic and compassionate. Thus from bodily desire one advances to the wonder and wisdom of philosophical contemplation.
Puzzle
1. If the difference of the sum and difference of two squares is twice the smaller square, what are the original squares.
Answers from last article
1. Any nonzero digit for A and B will do.
2. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
3. 27