Love

Tim Robbins

I was wondering can Philosophy help us describe love?

I know the Greeks made some interesting efforts deconstructing the various types of love: Agape, Eros and Philo. I am wondering are there any better contemporary efforts? Particularly with respect to romantic love between just two people.

Religious people think they have the answer. They think they know the source of love, what love is and what its effects are.
The source is God. The description of what it is can be found in its scripture. For example they often quote Corinthians and discuss agape as something that was proffered by Jesus.

To an atheist (even a fairly open minded one) this is just not a satisfactory answer. I won't bore you with the proverbial rebuttals but I was wondering if Philosophy has come up with something better and more detailed.

For example, suppose an alien who could speak fluent English except for the word love, was to ask me as a human to describe as much as I could about love, how would I go about doing that?

Could it be that love is something we simply think exists, such as God, but is really just a derivative of something else going on in our brain that for cultural reasons we call love?
Or if you really believe love exists, how could we put forward a coherent and good argument to describe it as something which has genuine existence?

I have read some of the Greeks, De Botton's 'Essays in Love' and Russell's 'Marriage and Morals'. Some interesting bits and pieces but nothing that I have felt really grasps it. I was just wondering is there anything anyone would recommend to read.

ChocolateSauce

If an alien asked me, I'd reply that love is a not well understood, addictive long-term "cascade" chemical reaction in the brain which causes symptoms such as withdrawal, lethargy, pounding heart, high blood pressure, blurry vision, irritability, irrationality, libido increase in short run, libido decrease in chronic cases, euphoria, depression, and sometimes pregnancy.

Tim Robbins

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

If an alien asked me, I'd reply that love is a not well understood, addictive long-term "cascade" chemical reaction in the brain which causes symptoms such as withdrawal, lethargy, pounding heart, high blood pressure, blurry vision, irritability, irrationality, libido increase in short run, libido decrease in chronic cases, euphoria, depression, and sometimes pregnancy.

Well at least somone had a go.

Joe1919

There is a difference between love and desire. Desire is usaully for someone or some object. The object of our desire is something to be consumed. The desire often dimishes after this consumation. Romantic love is, IMO, probably closer to desire than to love. Its loving them loving me.(St. Augustine?) Romantic love could be described as a selfish desire, its really a love for the self, the other person meerly been a means to our own self fulfilment.

Pure love is different, it contains no consumation and hence does not dimish in the same way. One of the best examples is probably strongest between a parent and its child. The parent would give up his life to save his/her child. The parent does not desire the child (hopefully) as an object but desires whats best for the child.

It could be argued that this form of Pure Love, a love that goes beyond our own desires, a love that we would die for, that goes beyond our own material being, is almost transendental. Maybe there is something greater than our own self after all?

Im probably a bit cynical but I dont think the love between partners or couples is as strong as this. Desire is often mistaken for Love and in one sense romantic love may be the weakest love of all !

Finally, it has been argued by at least one philosopher (Schopenhauer) that 'The Will' is all that really exists. This 'Will' that contains all our life forces, our emotions, love, desires, pain etc is the only 'thing in itself' and is also part of the greater energy that makes up all of existence. ( E=MC i.e energy(will) is matter ?)Everything else is mere representations. Everything else is there to satisfy our 'Will'. Emotions and pain are the source of our consciousness. We are always conscious of 'something' and pain and desires is something that forces us to become conscious. They are difficult to switch off. Pain or desire forces and multiplies our awareness and consciousness onto the object of the pain or desire.

metrovelvet

Rollo May's "Love and Will'

Lacan.

Shakespeare.