The American Renaissance Society at the University of Texas at Austin is looking for new members! (a registered UT student organization)

We meet on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Tuesday’s of the month at 7pm at the Caffé Medici on Guadalupe St to discuss a variety of intellectually engaging topics ranging from American foreign policy to the greatest rock albums of the 20th century. Diversity of backgrounds and viewpoints are welcome and encouraged, and meetings are casual and usually last about an hour, or until all those in attendance have contributed whatever they have to say. Our topic this week is “What is Love?”

Love is one of the most powerful feelings that we as human beings can experience. Men and women throughout history have at times thrown away their careers, their reputations, their relationship with their families, and even their kingdoms or empires for the sake of being with the one they loved. And yet for all its power, love is widely misunderstood. Though contemplated in classical philosophy (Plato’s “Symposium” probably being the best example), the power of love has often been ignored or seen as unimportant by more modern philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke, who instead focused the bulk of their attention instead on self-interest. But is self-interest really more powerful than love, and if it is, why are people so often willing to sacrifice their self-interest for the sake of love? Moreover, what exactly is the nature of love? Is it a desire to attain the beautiful and make ourselves immortal through reproduction (as Socrates argues in the “Symposium”), or is it instead, as Aristophanes argued, an instinct rather than a conscious effort, and one which is entirely devoid of self-interest, yet still the most powerful force acting on human beings?

Tuesday, February 5 at 7:00 pm, Caffé Medici on Guadalupe

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