The three stages of philosophical therapy
An excellent answer to the perennial question: “what is philosophy good for?”
Philosophy, you very likely know, means “love of wisdom,” from philo, meaning loving, and Sophia, knowledge or wisdom. Of course things get immediately more complicated once we realize that the ancient Greeks had at least four words that could be translated with the English “love”:
Agápē, which means love that comes with an aspect of charity, in the sense of benevolence. This is the sort of love we have for our children, but also for our spouse or partner. Early Christians adopted the term to mean the unconditional love that God has for his children. As Thomas Aquinas put it, agápē means “to will the good of another” (in Summa Theologiae I-II, 26, 4).
Érōs, which in part means, as the modern word “erotic” indicates, sexual attraction for someone. However, Plato expanded the concept to indicate, after maturation and contemplation, love for beauty itself. This is the origin of the phrase “Platonic love,” which does not mean love without sex, necessarily, but rather love of the ideal Form of Beauty itself. This may begin with erotic attraction, but eventually transcends it, as Socrates explains in the Symposium.
