Skepticism and Perspective

Abstract

Abstract Employing as an organizing principle the classical skeptic’s ten modes of suspending judgment, this long chapter forms the heart of the book by going systematically through the reasons for being distrustful of love as a source of insight, and by examining why each skeptical argument might be rejected. Proust’s narrator Marcel engages in relentless analysis of his love for Albertine—and, earlier, for Gilberte—and Swann’s love for Odette, tending to argue that love is merely subjective, but learning in spite of himself that loving subjectivity may be an essential condition for apprehending what is meaningful in each of our worlds. Adopting a “system of mental hygiene,” such as skeptical doubt toward one’s own emotions and what they reveal, appears to be a defense against the vulnerability that loving entails.