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Philosophy of love

October 20, 2023

Philosophy of love is the field of social philosophy and ethics that attempts to describe the nature of love.[1][2]

Current theories Edit

There are many different theories that attempt to explain what love is, and what function it serves. Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of love there are: psychological theories, evolutionary theories, and spiritual theories. The vast majority of psychological theories consider love to be very healthy behavior. Evolutionary theories hold that love is part of the process of natural selection. Spiritual theories consider love to be a gift from God. There are also theories that consider love to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.

Western traditions Edit

Classical roots Edit

The roots of the classical philosophy of love go back to Plato's Symposium.[3] Plato's Symposium digs deeper into the idea of love and bringing different interpretations and points of view in order to define love.[4] Plato singles out three main threads of love that have continued to influence the philosophies of love that followed.

  1. The idea of two loves, one heavenly, one earthly. As Uncle Toby was informed, over two millennia later, "of these loves, according to Ficinos' comment on Valesius, the one is rational - the other is natural - the first...excites to the desire of philosophy and truth - the second, excites to desire, simply".[5]
  2. Aristophanes' conception of mankind as the product of the splitting in two of an original whole: Freud would later draw on this myth - "everything about these primaeval men was double: they had four hands and four feet, two faces"[6] - to support his theory of the repetition compulsion.
  3. Plato's sublimation theory of love - "mounting upwards...from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty".[7]

Aristotle by contrast placed more emphasis on philia (friendship, affection) than on eros (love);[8] and the relationship of friendship and love would continue to be played out into and through the Renaissance,[9] with Cicero for the Latins pointing out that "it is love (amor) from which the word 'friendship' (amicitia) is derived"[10] Meanwhile, Lucretius, building on the work of Epicurus, had both praised the role of Venus as "the guiding power of the universe", and criticized those who became "love-sick...life's best years squandered in sloth and debauchery".[11]

Eros in Greek, also known as Cupid, was the mischievous god of love. He was a companion of the goddess Aphrodite. Eros was known for sparking the flame of love in gods and men. He is known for being portrayed as being armed with a bow and arrows or a flaming torch. He is also known for being disobedient but a loyal child of Aphrodite.[12]

Philia love is the type of friendship love. In Greek, this translated to brotherly love. Aristotle was able to describe three main types of friendships. These are Useful, Pleasurable, and Virtue.[13] Useful is when a friendship has a benefit to it which is derived by desire. Pleasurable is based on pleasure that one receives. Virtue is when it is based on true friendship and not receiving anything from it.

Agape in Greek simply means love. The presence of agape love is when there is goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight in the object of love.[14] This type of love does not relate to that of romantic nor sexual love. Nor does it refer to Philia type of love where it is a close friendship or brotherly love. What sets this love apart is how it involves the natural actions of spirituality, such as through religiously-guided generosity and compassion to all.[15][16]

Petrarchism Edit

Among his love-sick targets, Catullus, along with others like Héloïse, would find himself summoned in the 12C to a Love's Assize.[17] From the ranks of such figures would emerge the concept of courtly love,[18] and from that Petrarchism would form the rhetorical/philosophical foundations of romantic love for the early modern world.[19]

French skepticism Edit

A more skeptical French tradition can be traced from Stendhal onwards. Stendhal's theory of crystallization implied an imaginative readiness for love, which only needed a single trigger for the object to be imbued with every fantasized perfection.[20] Proust went further, singling out absence, inaccessibility or jealousy as the necessary precipitants of love.[21] Lacan would almost parody the tradition with his saying that "love is giving something you haven't got to someone who doesn't exist".[22] A post-Lacanian like Luce Irigaray would then struggle to find room for love in a world that will "reduce the other to the same...emphasizing eroticism to the detriment of love, under the cover of sexual liberation".[23]

Western philosophers of love Edit

Eastern traditions Edit

  • Given what Max Weber called the intimate relationship between religion and sexuality,[24] the role of the lingam and yoni in India, or of yin and yang in China, as a structuring form of cosmic polarity based on the male and female principles,[25] is perhaps more comprehensible. By way of maithuna or sacred intercourse,[26] Tantra developed a whole tradition of sacred sexuality,[27] which led in its merger with Buddhism to a view of sexual love as a path to enlightenment: as Saraha put it, "That blissful delight that consists between lotus and vajra...removes all defilements".[28]
  • More soberly, the Hindu tradition of friendship as the basis for love in marriage can be traced back to the early times of the Vedas.[29]
  • Confucius is sometimes seen as articulating a philosophy (as opposed to religion) of love.[30]

Love in Hinduism

Love in Hinduism is referred to as devotional love, or love for a divine purpose.[31] Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk and philosopher said, "All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved; it has, however, to be borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts."[32]

Love in Buddhism

In Buddhism love is meant to be universal, to reach enlightenment, love must be for all humankind.[31] The Dhammapada instructs "pluck out your self-love as you would pull off a faded lotus in autumn. Strive on the path of peace, the path of NIRVANA shown by Buddha."[33]

Love in Confucianism

Love in Confucianism places importance on love in human affairs.[31] Ren is a virtue of Confucianism meaning benevolent love that is central to their teachings, and focuses on different social relationships.[34] In Book IV of The Analects of Confucius it says,

"4.1 The Master said, to settle in ren is the fairest course. If one chooses not to dwell amidst ren, whence will come knowledge?

4.7 The Master said, people make error according to the type of person they are. By observing their errors, you can understand ren."[35]

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ Irving Singer (31 March 2009). Philosophy of Love: A Partial Summing-Up. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-19574-4. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  2. ^ Kephart, William (1970). "The "Dysfunctional" Theory of Romantic Love: A research report". Journal of Comparative Family Studies. 1 (1): 26–36. doi:10.3138/jcfs.1.1.26. JSTOR 41600756. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
  3. ^ Linnell Secomb (1 June 2007). Philosophy and Love: From Plato to Popular Culture. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2368-6. Retrieved 14 September 2012.
  4. ^ "Plato's theory of love: Rationality as Passion" (PDF).
  5. ^ Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1976) p. 560-1
  6. ^ S. Freud, On Metapsychology (PFL 11) p. 331
  7. ^ B. Jowett trans, The Essential Plato (1999) p. 746
  8. ^ Aristotle, Ethics (1976) p. 377-9
  9. ^ William C. Carroll ed., The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2004) p. 3-23
  10. ^ Quoted in Carroll, p. 11
  11. ^ Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe (1961) p. 27 and p. 163-5
  12. ^ Kingsley-Smith, Jane (2010). Cupid in early modern literature and culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76761-3. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  13. ^ "Philia: Love In Friendships | BetterHelp". www.betterhelp.com. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  14. ^ "What Is Agape Love?". Bishop William B. Caractor's blog. Retrieved 2022-01-21.
  15. ^ Templeton, Sir John (1999). Agape Love: Tradition In Eight World Religions. Templeton Foundation Press. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-890151-75-1.
  16. ^ Fay, Jim (2000). Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood. Love and Logic Press.
  17. ^ Helen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (1968) p. 20 and p. 26
  18. ^ K. Clark, Civilisation (1969) p. 64-5
  19. ^ Carroll, p. 31
  20. ^ Irving Singer, The Nature of Love (2009) p. 360-1
  21. ^ G. Brereton, A Short History of French Literature (1954) p. 243
  22. ^ Adam Phillips, On Flirtation (1994) p. 39
  23. ^ Luce Irigaray, Sharing the World (2008) p. 49 and p. 36
  24. ^ Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (1971) p.236
  25. ^ Carl Jung, Man and his Symbols (1978) p. 81 and p. 357
  26. ^ Sophy Hoare, Yoga (1980) p. 19
  27. ^ Margo Anand, The Art of Sexual Ecstasy (1990) p. 38-47
  28. ^ Quoted in E. Conze, Buddhist Scriptures (1973) p. 178
  29. ^ Hindu Philosophy of Marriage[permanent dead link]
  30. ^ F. Yang/J. Taamney, Confucianism (2011) p. 289
  31. ^ a b c Ding, Z. (1995, Fall). ""Love" and the Eastern Spirit: a philosophic perspective." The Cal Poly Pomona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 8, 183-189.
  32. ^ Vivekananda, Swami (September 10, 2010). The God Of Love Is His Own Proof. Kessinger Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1163062906.
  33. ^ Anonymous (May 30, 1973). The Dhammapada: The Path of Perfection. Translated by Mascaró, Juan. Penguin Classics. p. 76. ISBN 978-0140442847.
  34. ^ Bunnag, Anawat, The Concept of Love in Philosophy: A Comparative Study Between Plato’s Idea and Chinese Philosophy Part II: Confucius (August 9, 2019). CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY eJOURNAL, Vol.4, No.134: Aug 23, 2019, Available at SSRN: SSRN 3435287 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3435287
  35. ^ Confucius. (1979). The analects (Lun yü). Harmondsworth ; New York :Penguin Books

Further reading Edit

[1]

External links Edit

  1. ^ WILLIAM M. KEPHART. (1970). The “Dysfunctional” Theory of Romantic Love: A Research Report. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 1(1), 26–36.

October 20, 2023
philosophy, love, field, social, philosophy, ethics, that, attempts, describe, nature, love, contents, current, theories, western, traditions, classical, roots, petrarchism, french, skepticism, western, philosophers, love, eastern, traditions, also, references. Philosophy of love is the field of social philosophy and ethics that attempts to describe the nature of love 1 2 Contents 1 Current theories 2 Western traditions 2 1 Classical roots 2 2 Petrarchism 2 3 French skepticism 2 4 Western philosophers of love 3 Eastern traditions 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External linksCurrent theories EditThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed October 2012 Learn how and when to remove this template message There are many different theories that attempt to explain what love is and what function it serves Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of love there are psychological theories evolutionary theories and spiritual theories The vast majority of psychological theories consider love to be very healthy behavior Evolutionary theories hold that love is part of the process of natural selection Spiritual theories consider love to be a gift from God There are also theories that consider love to be an unexplainable mystery very much like a mystical experience Western traditions EditClassical roots Edit The roots of the classical philosophy of love go back to Plato s Symposium 3 Plato s Symposium digs deeper into the idea of love and bringing different interpretations and points of view in order to define love 4 Plato singles out three main threads of love that have continued to influence the philosophies of love that followed The idea of two loves one heavenly one earthly As Uncle Toby was informed over two millennia later of these loves according to Ficinos comment on Valesius the one is rational the other is natural the first excites to the desire of philosophy and truth the second excites to desire simply 5 Aristophanes conception of mankind as the product of the splitting in two of an original whole Freud would later draw on this myth everything about these primaeval men was double they had four hands and four feet two faces 6 to support his theory of the repetition compulsion Plato s sublimation theory of love mounting upwards from one to two and from two to all fair forms and from fair forms to fair actions and from fair actions to fair notions until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty 7 Aristotle by contrast placed more emphasis on philia friendship affection than on eros love 8 and the relationship of friendship and love would continue to be played out into and through the Renaissance 9 with Cicero for the Latins pointing out that it is love amor from which the word friendship amicitia is derived 10 Meanwhile Lucretius building on the work of Epicurus had both praised the role of Venus as the guiding power of the universe and criticized those who became love sick life s best years squandered in sloth and debauchery 11 Eros in Greek also known as Cupid was the mischievous god of love He was a companion of the goddess Aphrodite Eros was known for sparking the flame of love in gods and men He is known for being portrayed as being armed with a bow and arrows or a flaming torch He is also known for being disobedient but a loyal child of Aphrodite 12 Philia love is the type of friendship love In Greek this translated to brotherly love Aristotle was able to describe three main types of friendships These are Useful Pleasurable and Virtue 13 Useful is when a friendship has a benefit to it which is derived by desire Pleasurable is based on pleasure that one receives Virtue is when it is based on true friendship and not receiving anything from it Agape in Greek simply means love The presence of agape love is when there is goodwill benevolence and willful delight in the object of love 14 This type of love does not relate to that of romantic nor sexual love Nor does it refer to Philia type of love where it is a close friendship or brotherly love What sets this love apart is how it involves the natural actions of spirituality such as through religiously guided generosity and compassion to all 15 16 Petrarchism Edit Among his love sick targets Catullus along with others like Heloise would find himself summoned in the 12C to a Love s Assize 17 From the ranks of such figures would emerge the concept of courtly love 18 and from that Petrarchism would form the rhetorical philosophical foundations of romantic love for the early modern world 19 French skepticism Edit A more skeptical French tradition can be traced from Stendhal onwards Stendhal s theory of crystallization implied an imaginative readiness for love which only needed a single trigger for the object to be imbued with every fantasized perfection 20 Proust went further singling out absence inaccessibility or jealousy as the necessary precipitants of love 21 Lacan would almost parody the tradition with his saying that love is giving something you haven t got to someone who doesn t exist 22 A post Lacanian like Luce Irigaray would then struggle to find room for love in a world that will reduce the other to the same emphasizing eroticism to the detriment of love under the cover of sexual liberation 23 Western philosophers of love Edit Hesiod Empedocles Plato Symposium St Augustine Thomas Aquinas Leon Hebreo Baruch Spinoza Nicolas Malebranche Jean Pierre Rousselot Antonio Caso Andrade Sigmund Freud Soren Kierkegaard Works of Love Carl Jung Anders Nygren Martin D Arcy Irving Singer Philosophy of Love A Partial Summing Up Arthur Schopenhauer Metaphysics of Love Thomas Jay Oord Friedrich Nietzsche Max Stirner Egoistic Love Max Scheler The Nature of Sympathy Erich Fromm author of The Art of Loving C S Lewis The Four Loves Michel Onfray author of Theorie du corps amoureux pour une erotique solaire 2000 Karl Popper Jean Luc Marion The Erotic Phenomenon Luce Irigaray The Way of Love bell hooks All About Love New Visions Roger Scruton Notes from Underground Carrie Ichikawa JenkinsEastern traditions EditThis section needs expansion You can help by adding to it October 2012 Given what Max Weber called the intimate relationship between religion and sexuality 24 the role of the lingam and yoni in India or of yin and yang in China as a structuring form of cosmic polarity based on the male and female principles 25 is perhaps more comprehensible By way of maithuna or sacred intercourse 26 Tantra developed a whole tradition of sacred sexuality 27 which led in its merger with Buddhism to a view of sexual love as a path to enlightenment as Saraha put it That blissful delight that consists between lotus and vajra removes all defilements 28 More soberly the Hindu tradition of friendship as the basis for love in marriage can be traced back to the early times of the Vedas 29 Confucius is sometimes seen as articulating a philosophy as opposed to religion of love 30 Love in HinduismLove in Hinduism is referred to as devotional love or love for a divine purpose 31 Swami Vivekananda a Hindu monk and philosopher said All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved it has however to be borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts 32 Love in BuddhismIn Buddhism love is meant to be universal to reach enlightenment love must be for all humankind 31 The Dhammapada instructs pluck out your self love as you would pull off a faded lotus in autumn Strive on the path of peace the path of NIRVANA shown by Buddha 33 Love in ConfucianismLove in Confucianism places importance on love in human affairs 31 Ren is a virtue of Confucianism meaning benevolent love that is central to their teachings and focuses on different social relationships 34 In Book IV of The Analects of Confucius it says 4 1 The Master said to settle in ren is the fairest course If one chooses not to dwell amidst ren whence will come knowledge 4 7 The Master said people make error according to the type of person they are By observing their errors you can understand ren 35 See also EditAttachment theory Agape Diotima of Mantinea Eroticism Free love Intimate relationship Love Is Roman de la Rose Sexual relationshipReferences Edit Irving Singer 31 March 2009 Philosophy of Love A Partial Summing Up MIT Press ISBN 978 0 262 19574 4 Retrieved 14 September 2012 Kephart William 1970 The Dysfunctional Theory of Romantic Love A research report Journal of Comparative Family Studies 1 1 26 36 doi 10 3138 jcfs 1 1 26 JSTOR 41600756 Retrieved 8 December 2021 Linnell Secomb 1 June 2007 Philosophy and Love From Plato to Popular Culture Edinburgh University Press ISBN 978 0 7486 2368 6 Retrieved 14 September 2012 Plato s theory of love Rationality as Passion PDF Lawrence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy 1976 p 560 1 S Freud On Metapsychology PFL 11 p 331 B Jowett trans The Essential Plato 1999 p 746 Aristotle Ethics 1976 p 377 9 William C Carroll ed The Two Gentlemen of Verona 2004 p 3 23 Quoted in Carroll p 11 Lucretius On the Nature of the Universe 1961 p 27 and p 163 5 Kingsley Smith Jane 2010 Cupid in early modern literature and culture Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 76761 3 Retrieved 20 November 2022 Philia Love In Friendships BetterHelp www betterhelp com Retrieved 2021 11 23 What Is Agape Love Bishop William B Caractor s blog Retrieved 2022 01 21 Templeton Sir John 1999 Agape Love Tradition In Eight World Religions Templeton Foundation Press p 49 ISBN 978 1 890151 75 1 Fay Jim 2000 Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood Love and Logic Press Helen Waddell The Wandering Scholars 1968 p 20 and p 26 K Clark Civilisation 1969 p 64 5 Carroll p 31 Irving Singer The Nature of Love 2009 p 360 1 G Brereton A Short History of French Literature 1954 p 243 Adam Phillips On Flirtation 1994 p 39 Luce Irigaray Sharing the World 2008 p 49 and p 36 Max Weber The Sociology of Religion 1971 p 236 Carl Jung Man and his Symbols 1978 p 81 and p 357 Sophy Hoare Yoga 1980 p 19 Margo Anand The Art of Sexual Ecstasy 1990 p 38 47 Quoted in E Conze Buddhist Scriptures 1973 p 178 Hindu Philosophy of Marriage permanent dead link F Yang J Taamney Confucianism 2011 p 289 a b c Ding Z 1995 Fall Love and the Eastern Spirit a philosophic perspective The Cal Poly Pomona Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 8 183 189 Vivekananda Swami September 10 2010 The God Of Love Is His Own Proof Kessinger Publishing LLC ISBN 978 1163062906 Anonymous May 30 1973 The Dhammapada The Path of Perfection Translated by Mascaro Juan Penguin Classics p 76 ISBN 978 0140442847 Bunnag Anawat The Concept of Love in Philosophy A Comparative Study Between Plato s Idea and Chinese Philosophy Part II Confucius August 9 2019 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY eJOURNAL Vol 4 No 134 Aug 23 2019 Available at SSRN SSRN 3435287 or http dx doi org 10 2139 ssrn 3435287 Confucius 1979 The analects Lun yu Harmondsworth New York Penguin BooksFurther reading EditThomas Jay Oord Defining Love 2010 C S Lewis The Allegory of Love 1936 Theodor Reik Psychology of Sex Relations 1961 Camille Paglia Sexual Personae 1992 Glen Pettigrove Forgiveness and Love Oxford University Press 2012 Thomas Jay Oord The Nature of Love 2010 1 External links EditLove and Reasons Special issue of Essays in Philosophy Philosophy of Love article in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Singer amp Santayana On Love Entry on love in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy WILLIAM M KEPHART 1970 The Dysfunctional Theory of Romantic Love A Research Report Journal of Comparative Family Studies 1 1 26 36 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Philosophy of love amp oldid 1166387552, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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