Could philosophy have saved Romeo and Juliet?

Auguste Rodin, The Kiss. © Musée Rodin. Photo: Adam Rzepka.

Perfection is ignorance.

Love is perfection.

Love is ignorance.

Theory of forms

Platonic love was named after the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. He didn’t write much about love, but what he wrote about it is in accordance with his theory of forms, which is also known as theory of ideas.

What are these “ideas”? They are abstract notions. According to Plato, they are perfect, unique and immutable. For example, a dog that chases squirrels up the tree in the park, then, after arriving home, it escapes its owner when he wants to wipe its muddy paws, and runs around in the living room. What is even worse, it enjoys it. It is needless to say that this canine criminal is not an ideal dog. But not all hope is lost, because according to Plato, the mentioned four-pawed bandit is an imperfect version of the “super dog” that exists in the world of ideas. This ideal dog is not an actual dog, but a notion about “dogness”. It is immaterial, unchanging and perfect.

Plato applied the same way of thinking to love too. According to him, the more immaterial love is, the less bodily desires it involves, the more perfect it is. Perfect love exists only in our minds. Perfect love is the love of the troubadour who sings for his sweetheart who sits in a room in the highest tower of the castle. They never touch each other, they never meet, they don’t even speak. Ever.

Does it sound like the perfect love for you? Isn’t it strange that Plato thought that love like this could be perfect?

Was Romeo's and Juliet’s love perfect?

According to Plato, ideas are abstract. Abstraction means that we ignore everything that is irrelevant. When Newton formulated his theory about gravity in his work Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he based it on the notion of point mass. He ignored that everything that has mass has extension in space. It is obvious that the theory cannot work in reality according to its mathematical principles, but it is good enough to predict the motion of heavenly bodies.

Ignorance is a must for abstraction. If we accept Plato’s opinion that abstraction is necessary for perfection, then we must accept that perfection cannot exist without ignorance.

Now, let’s go back to Romeo and Juliet. Let’s imagine that we are watching Romeo and Juliet in the theatre. Juliet is thinking aloud on the balcony “Oh Romeo, Romeo, why are you Romeo” – more exactly she is saying “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” – but she should really ask, “Oh Romeo, do I really know you or am I just idealising you in the solitude of my room?”

The situation is the same from Romeo’s perspective under the balcony behind the bush from where he is gazing at Juliet on the balcony. It is easy to be madly in love with her if he cannot see her faults. What is perfect love if not the complete ignorance of the defects of the loved one? Right? No, it isn’t. Romeo’s and Juliet’s love is platonic at this point of the story, but it is far from perfect. We cannot reach perfection by ignoring what is important.

Perfection is not uniqueness

Originally, Plato thought that only one perfect form existed. Later, he refuted the theory of forms in his book, Parmenides. It is easy to understand why uniqueness is not necessary for perfection. Let’s take an example from geometry, as Plato frequently did. A circle is a perfect form. If only one circle can exist, how can we interpret the intersection of two circles?

According to the 19th century concept of romantic love, only one person exists who perfectly matches you, who is your soulmate. It might be true in practice 200 years ago when people could choose from only a few people to marry. Let’s recall Pride and Prejudice (1813): Elizabeth Bennet had to choose between George Wickham and Mr. Darcy. She didn't have too many opportunities, especially when she got to know that George Wickham was wicked. But the truth is that there was at least one other man out there who was as a perfect match for her as Mr. Darcy. If perfection is not unique, perfect love is not unique either.

How would Romeo and Juliet have acted if they have known what perfect love is?

In the last scene of Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo sees Juliet who appears to be dead, he drinks poison and dies. A minute later, Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo’s dead body and kills herself with Romeo’s dagger.

We can learn from this story how Plato’s philosophy works in practice. If Romeo or Juliet had read Plato and had understood what perfection was, the story would have ended differently.

If Juliet had read Plato attentively, when she woke up and saw Romeo’s dead body, she could have thought:

“I love Romeo. But love is not perfect. I am only fourteen. I don’t know even myself, not to mention Romeo. If you are not aware of your loved one’s negative traits, you are not really in love, you just think you are in love. Love is knowing his fault and accepting them. Even if Romeo had been the perfect guy for me, perfection is not unique, I can find someone else when I am a bit older. I am anguished that Romeo died, but I am not going to kill myself.” And she lives happily after.

The story is even better if Romeo reads Plato. Although he’s tremendously depressed about Juliet’s death, he doesn’t kill himself. Few minutes later, Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo crying. She doesn’t understand it and asks Romeo who gets cheered up and kisses Juliet.

Philosophy can save lives, philosophy can save lives!