This rose will never die...
The Question of All Women (In All Possible Ways)
There comes a moment in a philosopher’s life when he looks around a summer beach in Narbonne, a pedestrian precinct in Cardiff or the main university campus in Warsaw and asks, philosophically: Why can’t I be with all* women** (in all possible ways)?
Many male philosophers ask the practical, or technical, version of the question – completely outside philosophy – and most know the answers. These, however, are completely different questions from the former two, even though they refer to the same persons; or objects, depending on how the question is asked.
So what is the answer to The Philosophical Question of All Women (In All Possible Ways)? It’s not difficult to see that philosophy will quickly have to point out some external limits, general conditions and direct us back to technical aspects of human beings, some of which - let’s face it – aroused philosophers’ interest in the question in the first place. But before we come back down to earth, and find the answers that we already know, we can try to look at the problem terms as general as our imagination and intellect allow. In other words: let's ask whether the fact that in the current circumstances philosophers cannot be with all women (in all possible ways) is simply a consequence of those circumstances or philosophers cannot be with all women (in all possible ways) because of what or who they are.
Let us imagine then a world in which we have retained all of our human faculties,instincts and urges but have been freed from deadlines, including the dreadful one.
Taking into account the fact that in this world people can, and sometimes do, divorce, become widowers, dump or kill partners and then enter new relationships, it would seem that the answer is yes: given enough time, a philosopher could be with all women (in all possible ways). But there are some follow-up thoughts are just begging to be thought here. First of all, just as is the case in this world, relationships in the new world couldn’t – if we were to retain our present type of psyche - be simultaneous. Simultaneous relationships, which are possible and which happen, are in an obviouls way - through their non-exclusivity - of a different, inferior kind and let’s leave them out of these considerations and focus on full, proper, exhaustive and exclusive ones, which are in a league of their own.
What follows is, again - just as is the case in this world, that in order to have a new relationship in that new world, an old one would need to finish. And a relationship that finishes is inferior to one that doesn’t. If someone happened, or chose, to fulfil the all women scenario, he would end up with a history of inferior, ‘no happy end’ relationships with just a single exception, the on-going one; or perhaps two, if we count in – for reasons slightly harder to explain than to understand – the first one.
The situation might be even worse: what if the relationship with the only woman left in the entire new Universe ended in a massive, ugly fight? We can see then that it’s not difficult to imagine a situation which would make this world with its ever present opportunities and continuous hope look – romantically - like a real fairy tale, compared to the imagined one, which might have seemed so enticing to many a thinker, whereas in fact the main difference between this new imagined world and the one we’re in would be in quantity, not quality; and the quantity advantage would consist of barely countable unhappy ends.
It would be possible of course to do returning, rekindling and go through the whole cycle again, but isn't an unbroken love superior to a broken one? How would this eternity of second-best compare to our present permanent - considering the local ratio of women to time - possibitliy of the best, one unbroken love from the very beginning to the very end?
The situation might be even worse: what if the relationship with the only woman left in the entire new Universe ended in a massive, ugly fight? We can see then that it’s not difficult to imagine a situation which would make this world with its ever present opportunities and continuous hope look – romantically - like a real fairy tale, compared to the imagined one, which might have seemed so enticing to many a thinker, whereas in fact the main difference between this new imagined world and the one we’re in would be in quantity, not quality; and the quantity advantage would consist of barely countable unhappy ends.
It would be possible of course to do returning, rekindling and go through the whole cycle again, but isn't an unbroken love superior to a broken one? How would this eternity of second-best compare to our present permanent - considering the local ratio of women to time - possibitliy of the best, one unbroken love from the very beginning to the very end?
Of course, we can imagine (or can we?), still another world: one in which there won’t be any time limits and our minds, or psyche, will be changed too. But whether such a world is possible at all how much can One change human beings for them to remain human beings could be questions beyond most sophisticated metaphysics.
Thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, the conclusion seems to be that the answer to the question may not matter, because, in any conceivable human world, the road to romantic happiness for a philosopher - if he is to stay what he is - leads through one woman only: the only one.
**I refrain from discussing female philosophers in this context: philosophically they may come from the same supernatural planet as male philosophers, but the question itself may never cross their minds, because in the relevant respect they're from Venus.
***considered desirable
Ilustrationons: top - Yusuf Islam & band; middle - White Towers Swimming Club, Sandy, Utah; bottom - kootation.com
*for some reason the question usually crops up in a narrower version: "Why can't I be (in all possible ways) with all attractive women?
**I refrain from discussing female philosophers in this context: philosophically they may come from the same supernatural planet as male philosophers, but the question itself may never cross their minds, because in the relevant respect they're from Venus.
***considered desirable
Ilustrationons: top - Yusuf Islam & band; middle - White Towers Swimming Club, Sandy, Utah; bottom - kootation.com
