Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

by Shaffer, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9780061969812
• ISBN10: 0061969818
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-01-04
• Publisher: Perennial

Summary

Few people have failed at love as spectacularly as the great philosophers. Although we admire their wisdom, history is littered with the romantic failures of the most sensible men and women of every age, including:Friedrich Nietzsche: "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent." (Rejected by everyone he proposed to, even when he kept asking and asking.)Jean-Paul Sartre: "There are of course ugly women, but I prefer those who are pretty." (Adopted his mistress as his daughter.)Louis Althusser: "The trouble is there are bodies and, worse still, sexual organs." (Accidentally strangled his wife to death.)And dozens of other great thinkers whose words we revere-but whose romantic decisions we should avoid at all costs.

Author Biography

Andrew Shaffer is a frequent Huffington Post contributor and creative director of the irreverent greeting card publisher Order of St. Nick.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Philosophers
Peter Abelard (1079-1142)	p. 7
Louis Althusser (1918-1990)	p. 14
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)	p. 18
Aristotle (384-322 BC)	p. 22
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)	p. 26
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)	p. 31
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)	p. 36
John Calvin (1509-1564)	p. 41
Albert Camus (1913-1960)	p. 45
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794)	p. 48
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)	p. 53
René Descartes (1596-1650)	p. 59
John Dewey (1859-1952)	p. 63
Denis Diderot (1713-1784)	p. 67
Diogenes the Cynic (c. 412-323 BC)	p. 72
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)	p. 75
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)	p. 80
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)	p. 84
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)	p. 89
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)	p. 93
David Hume (1711-1776)	p. 97
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)	p. 100
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)	p. 104
John Locke (1632-1704)	p. 108
Titus Lucretius (c. 99-c. 55 BC)	p. 113
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)	p. 116
Plato (c. 427-c. 347 BC)	p. 120
Ayn Rand (1905-1982)	p. 124
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)	p. 129
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)	p. 134
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)	p. 138
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)	p. 143
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65)	p. 148
Socrates (469-399 BC)	p. 152
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)	p. 157
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)	p. 162
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)	p. 166
Timeline	p. 173
Acknowledgments	p. 177
Selected Bibliography	p. 179
Permissions	p. 193
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