What is the love that turns into knowledge and how is the knowledge we seek already a form of love? Reading key texts from Socrates to Derrida, this book addresses the fundamental tension between love and knowledge that informs the history of Western philosophy. LoveKnowledge returns to the long tradition of philosophy as an exercise not only of the mind but also of the soul, asking whether philosophy can shape and inform our lives and communities.

Since its inception, philosophy has been more than an abstract search for truth or body of knowledge. It perfects one¿s understanding by means of discussion and dialogue and personal, poetic, or dramatic investigation. Philosophers such as Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida differ in almost every respect, yet they share a common method of practicing philosophy¿not as a detached, intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art. Reading key philosophical texts from classical Greece to the present day, Roy Brand explores the fundamental role of passion, desire, and love in the development of western philosophy. He then examines the character of knowledge love has created. LoveKnowledge returns to the long tradition of philosophy as an exercise not only of the mind but also of the soul, asking whether philosophy can shape and inform our lives and communities.