Dialogues of Love

...because when they are missing from us they cannot be loved because we do not have them; nonetheless, they are loved for the sake of having them.

SO. This is speaking improperly Original: "parlare in proprio." Sophia is critiquing Philo's use of language, arguing that he is confusing two distinct psychological states., to say "to love" meaning "to want to have the thing," which really means to desire it; because love is for the thing itself being loved, and desire is to have or acquire it; nor does it seem possible for loving and desiring to exist together.

PHI. Your arguments, O Sophia, demonstrate the subtlety of your wit more than the truth of your opinion; because if we do not love what we desire, we would desire that which is not loved, and consequently that which is abhorred and hated—which could not be a greater contradiction Philo uses a logical trap here: if we don't love the object of our desire, the only alternative in his binary view is that we hate it, which is absurd..

SO. I am not mistaken, O Philo, for I desire that which, although I do not love it because I do not possess it, when I have it, it will be loved by me and no longer desired; nor because of this do I ever desire what I abhor, nor yet that which I love, because the loved thing is possessed, and the desired thing is missing. What clearer example can be given than that of children Original: "figliuoli." In Renaissance philosophy, the love for children was often used as the archetype of "pure" love for something one already possesses.? He who does not have them cannot love them, but desires them; and he who has them does not desire them, but loves them.

PHI. Just as you demonstrate by the example of children, you ought to remember the husband husband (marito): Used here as an example of an object that is both loved and desired simultaneously before possession, and whose love may grow after possession., who before he is possessed is desired and loved at the same time; and after he is had, the desire ceases, and sometimes even the love—although in many cases it not only persists but even grows. The same often happens with the husband toward the wife. Does this example not seem to you more sufficient to confirm my statement than yours is to refute it?

SO.