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Philosophy Shorts

Philosophical Power Couples

by Matt Qvortrup

‘More songs about Buildings and Food’ was the title of a 1978 album by the rock band Talking Heads. It was about all the things rock stars normally don’t sing about. Pop songs are usually about variations on the theme of love; tracks like Rose Royce’s 1976 hit ‘Car Wash’ are the exception.

Philosophers, likewise, tend to have a narrow focus on epistemology, metaphysics and trifles like the meaning of life. But occasionally great minds stray from their turf and write about other matters, for example buildings (Martin Heidegger), food (Hobbes), tomato juice (Robert Nozick), and the weather (Lucretius and Aristotle). This series of Shorts is about these unfamiliar themes; about the things philosophers also write about.

The word ‘philosophy’ comes from ‘love’ of ‘wisdom’ – philos and sophia in the original Greek, and the origins of two quite common English first names. So it is cute that the student philosophy society at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, is called ‘Phil and Sophie’. I don’t know exactly what they get up to in that august society, but it did make me wonder who Phil and Sophie might be, which then led me to think about philosopher power couples.

Sadly, all too many historical philosophers have been boring, middle-aged, white men (like me!). But a few have been halves of exceptional power couples, where both parties wrote philosophy. Lovers Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Hannah Arendt (1906-1973) worked independently of each other; as did Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). All four were existentialists, though in radically different ways. Pillow talk must have been at a different level.

Other couples collaborated on joint works. Pierre Abélard (1080-1142) and Heloise d’Argenteuil’s (1101-1164) Epistolae Duorum Amantium (Letters of Two Lovers) springs to mind. Things ended badly for this star-crossed pair. Heloise’s family disapproved of their collaboration, or their love, and had poor Abelard castrated after the two had married in secret.

Another French philosopher couple were Madame de Staël (1766-1817) and Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), who stubbornly kept the flame of liberal constitutionalism alive when the French Revolution turned to Terror.

A little later, in Nineteenth Century Britain, there were John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Harriet Taylor (1807-1858). When the two slipped away for a romantic weekend in Paris in 1848, they penned a chapter of The Principles of Political Economy. What could be more arousing than the value theory or labour or the law of supply and demand? Later they jointly wrote On Liberty (1859). These books are normally attributed to John Stuart Mill alone, even though he was clear in his Autobiography that the latter book was “written as usual twice over, we kept it by us, bringing it out from time to time and going through it de novo, reading, weighing and criticizing every sentence” (p.249). Mill, who normally wrote dry prose except when writing with Harriet, penned this entry in his diary:

“I feel as if no really dangerous illness could actually happen to me while I have her care for me; and yet I feel as if by coming away from her I had parted with a kind of talisman, and I was more open to attacks of the enemy than while I was with her.” (Diary, 9th January 1854).

Not to be outdone, the letters written by Heidegger and Arendt were so full of desire, sensitivity, and emotion that they became pure poetry. “I kiss you on the forehead and your eyes,” Arendt wrote to Heidegger.

Matt Qvortrup’s book Great Minds on Small Things is now available in Spanish as Grandes Mentes Y Pequeñas Cosas.