Dialogues of Love

... [natu]re The text begins mid-sentence, likely continuing from the bottom of the previous page. Based on the context of Leone Ebreo's work, it is discussing the nature of health. because it must have being original: essere. In this philosophical context, "being" refers to the actual existence or ontological reality of a quality. in the healthy, and it also existed in him before he became ill; and similarly regarding children, although they do not have being in those who desire them because they lack them, nevertheless they have being in others. For whatever man exists is, or has been, a child, and for this reason, he who does not have them knows them, and judges them to be a good thing and desires them. And these types of being are sufficient to make health understood to the sick person, and likewise to those who desire children and do not have them. In this way, love and desire are for things that in some way have a real existence, and they are known under the species original: spetie. A logic term referring to the form or essential appearance of a thing by which it is recognized. of "good" things; except that love seems to be common to many good things, both those possessed and those not possessed, but desire is only for those that are not possessed.

SO. According to your speech, every desired thing would be loved, as you said was the opinion of some; and Love would be a genus original: genere. A broad category that contains sub-groups (species). that would contain within itself all things esteemed as good. Thus, those things that are not possessed and are desired, as well as those that are possessed and not desired, would all—according to your opinion—be loved. But it does not seem to me that things which are entirely lacking (like those I mentioned, health and children) can be loved by one who does not have them, even if he desires them. For the "being" that you said they have in others is not enough to know them [personally], and consequently not enough to love them; for we do not love the children of others, nor the health of others, but our own. And when it is lacking, how can it be loved, even if it is desired?

PHI. We are not now very far from the truth, even though in common speech all desired things are...