哲學家是愛智慧的人。哲學家對智慧的愛，究竟是怎樣的一種愛，卻不是一個很容易就可解答的問題。通常都把愛智慧的「愛」理解為由於欠缺而進行追求。但在此以外，還有人把愛智慧的「愛」理解為友好，而非追求。雅斯貝爾斯、海德格爾恰代表這兩種不同的意見，並對希臘語詞philosophos的意味作了推敲。這裡論證指出，在古希臘人那裡，愛智慧的「愛」原就是指與智慧友好。赫拉克利特殘篇B35使用philosophos，意在批評。其所批評的畢達哥拉斯，應是philosophos一詞的發明者。惟自柏拉圖始，愛智慧的「愛」才成了因缺少而追求的那種愛，等同於「愛慕」。雅斯貝爾斯、海德格爾的觀點，都有不準確的地方。

Although it is well known that a philosopher is the one who loves wisdom, it is not easy to figure out what kind of love the love of a philosopher to wisdom is really. While Karl Jaspers insists that to the ancient Greeks loving wisdom is pursuing wisdom for lack of it, it is nonetheless argued by another German philosopher Martin Heidegger that loving wisdom just means being in harmony with wisdom to the pre-Socratic Heraclitus. Actually, both Jaspers and Heidegger do not speak correctly of the Greek term philosophos. The love of a philosopher to wisdom does mean being in harmony with it before Plato argues in his Symposium that a philosopher is the one pursuing wisdom for lack of it. And it is reasonable to argue that Pythagoras should be the first one to call himself a philosopher and that Heraclitus does not like this word and criticized Pythagoras with reference to it.