[lit-ideas] Re: Nussbaum Does It Again

Yost mentions steam rooms and McEvoy c-ontology. 

We are discussing the _title_ of Nussbaum's book,

"Love's Knowledge"

I was thinking Greek. Love is complex enough for the Greeks:

1. philos
2. eros
3. agape

I of course think it's eros with philosophy, but I tend in mixed company to say 
it's philos. Since Nusbaum is mixed company, I do philos (or philia if you 
must).

But then there's the anathema, 'knowledge'.

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Love’s Knowledge, 




Also, shouldn't it be Love's _Wisdom_, which doesn't make sense, 
incidentally. "Episteme" sounds so restricting!


 


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 So I thought how _that_ would come out in Greek. Obviously, Nussbaum is doing 
it again and trying to be clever. The book would just as well be entitled, 
"Philosophy", but she wanted, as I say to be clever, so it has the 'inversio' 
figure of speech: instead of philosophia being the philia of sophia, it becomes 
the sophia of philia. But what irritates me is that it's not the _eros_ for 
_wisdom_ (or Sophia, if you must -- not in vain it was a popular girl's name 
for the Byzantines) but the _knowledge_ of 'eros'??????

Genitives, as in "Love's" are usually tricky, as Geary knows. Subjective, 
objective? If we don't do abstract notions,
the idea is that we have a LOVING agent, and a KNOWING agent. This is the 
KNOWING activity by a LOVING agent, i.e. LOVING agency ("Love") itself.

This is a far cry from Philosophy, which was coined as a mere desire or 
appreciation of sophia where you found it. 

There is _no_ knowledge of love, and there is no way a _love_ for 'knowledge' 
rather than _wisdom_ be made into an imperative.

"Know" is a typical English construction, unknown in even the Germanic 
languages who would use 'kennen' (for 'can') and 'weissen', cognate with 
'wise', 'wisdom'. So Nussbaum, who's done Greek and Latin, should do a bit of 
Germanic philology, too.

"Know" possibly occurs in Old High German ("knoweren"). But I'm sure if you say 
"knoweren lieben" in Hamburg, they'll think you want to f*ck* a prostitute 
("Adam knew Eve"), "Liebling" = sweetheart = tart.



JL

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