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Hätte ehrlicherweise „Gründe für Fürsorge“ heißen sollen. Hätte sich aber vermutlich schlechter verkauft.
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The Reasons of Love
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This beautifully written book by one of the world's leading moral philosophers argues that the key to a fulfilled life is to pursue wholeheartedly what one cares about, that love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love.
Harry Frankfurt writes that it is through caring that we infuse the world with meaning. Caring provides us with stable ambitions and concerns; it shapes the framework of aims and interests within which we lead our lives. The most basic and essential question for a person to raise about the conduct of his or her life is not what he or she should care about but what, in fact, he or she cannot help caring about.
The most important form of caring, Frankfurt writes, is love, a nonvoluntary, disinterested concern for the flourishing of what is loved. Love is so important because meaningful practical reasoning must be grounded in ends that we do not seek only to attain other ends, and because it is in loving that we become bound to final ends desired for their own sakes.
Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is self-love. This sounds perverse, but self-love--as distinct from self-indulgence--is at heart a disinterested concern for whatever it is that the person loves. The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love. Insofar as this is true, self-love is simply a commitment to finding meaning in our lives.
Harry Frankfurt writes that it is through caring that we infuse the world with meaning. Caring provides us with stable ambitions and concerns; it shapes the framework of aims and interests within which we lead our lives. The most basic and essential question for a person to raise about the conduct of his or her life is not what he or she should care about but what, in fact, he or she cannot help caring about.
The most important form of caring, Frankfurt writes, is love, a nonvoluntary, disinterested concern for the flourishing of what is loved. Love is so important because meaningful practical reasoning must be grounded in ends that we do not seek only to attain other ends, and because it is in loving that we become bound to final ends desired for their own sakes.
Frankfurt argues that the purest form of love is self-love. This sounds perverse, but self-love--as distinct from self-indulgence--is at heart a disinterested concern for whatever it is that the person loves. The most elementary form of self-love is nothing more than the desire of a person to love. Insofar as this is true, self-love is simply a commitment to finding meaning in our lives.
100 pages, Paperback
First published December 30,2004
This edition
- Format
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100 pages, Paperback
- Published
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January 22, 2006 by Princeton University Press
- ISBN
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9780691126241
- ASIN
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0691126240
- Language
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English
About the author
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Harry Gordon Frankfurt was an American philosopher. He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, where he taught from 1990 until 2002. Frankfurt also taught at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Ohio State University.
Frankfurt made significant contributions to fields like ethics and philosophy of mind. The attitude of caring played a central role in his philosophy. To care about something means to see it as important and reflects the person's character. According to Frankfurt, a person is someone who has second-order volitions or who cares about what desires he or she has. He contrasts persons with wantons. Wantons are beings that have desires but do not care about which of their desires is translated into action. In the field of ethics, Frankfurt gave various influential counterexamples, so-called Frankfurt cases, against the principle that moral responsibility depends on the ability to do otherwise. His most popular book is On Bullshit, which discusses the distinction between bullshitting and lying.
Frankfurt made significant contributions to fields like ethics and philosophy of mind. The attitude of caring played a central role in his philosophy. To care about something means to see it as important and reflects the person's character. According to Frankfurt, a person is someone who has second-order volitions or who cares about what desires he or she has. He contrasts persons with wantons. Wantons are beings that have desires but do not care about which of their desires is translated into action. In the field of ethics, Frankfurt gave various influential counterexamples, so-called Frankfurt cases, against the principle that moral responsibility depends on the ability to do otherwise. His most popular book is On Bullshit, which discusses the distinction between bullshitting and lying.
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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 68 votes)
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68 reviews All reviews
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A failed philosophical attempt.
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The title should have been "My Reasons of Love." Also, Henry writes like a grumpy and lonely old academic, which is annoying when it isn't French.
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Gedanklich grandios.
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"Inspiring"
Don't be scared that it is a book of philosophy. It is an inspiring read. It has become such an inspiration for me: to wholeheartedly care for what we care.
Don't be scared that it is a book of philosophy. It is an inspiring read. It has become such an inspiration for me: to wholeheartedly care for what we care.
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I'm sorry but Frankfurt's argument of a 'good life' just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
He's basically like
Care + Wholeheartness = happiness
But he does not really expand on what happens when your cares start conflicting each other, and whether or not wholeheartness can be the ultimate defeat of your happiness (ex. grief, love for a broken marriage, religion, etc.)
He's basically like
Care + Wholeheartness = happiness
But he does not really expand on what happens when your cares start conflicting each other, and whether or not wholeheartness can be the ultimate defeat of your happiness (ex. grief, love for a broken marriage, religion, etc.)
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Frankfurt’s “The Reasons of Love” examines the necessity of love, (not simply in the romantic, but in the general unconcerned care of things), to providing meaning and purpose to our lives. This argument of love within philosophy is presented in refreshingly clear and human terms for an academic work. To this point, the initial ideas and components that lay the framework for Frankfurt’s position manage to avoid the usual confusion that comes with expressing a new conceptual approach and vocabulary. Overall this book was a surprising gem to find within the context of usual philosophy course readings, and is well worth the time if you are interested in a relevant and refreshingly meaningful approach to moral philosophy.
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The whole argument falls apart the more he tries to explain it. At one point he says, "it seems like koan" and then tries to explain how it's not, but, it seemed to me, actually just reinforced the criticism.
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