What is love?
“Love is begun by time, And time qualifies the spark and fire of it.” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7)
To begin with, Kierkegaard identifies love with caring. At the root of the flow of emotions, longings and desires is the wish for the best for the beloved. Thus Kierkegaard believes that in order to fulfil its nature, love should be first and foremost focused on the person who is being loved.
What did the Ancient Greek think about it? Aristotle's moral psychology of love in general is to love something in itself, as opposed to loving it because it pleases you or is useful to you. It's to love on the basis of one's rational recognition that it is kalon ('fine' or morally 'beautiful') and good in itself.
Plato believed that love is the motivation that leads one to try to know and contemplate beauty in itself. This happens through a gradual process that begins with an appreciation of the appearance of physical beauty and then moves on to an appreciation of spiritual beauty.
During the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas defined love as “the choice to will the good of the other.” While this definition lacks the romanticism that we often associate with love, it much more fully encompasses and expresses what love is in its fullness.
Three centuries later Spinoza defines love yet again this way: love is nothing but joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause. Love is an affect; affects are changes in the power of the body and mind. Joy is an increase of power to act, sadness a decrease in power.
These days Coelho claims that love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused. His most famous quote is: "Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience."
Camus wrote beforehand that love is not just a confrontation with the absurdity of the world; it is a refusal to be broken by it. It is one of the ways we can each of us be stronger than our rocks. There is nothing we can do to change the constraints of our existence.
“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!” (Dickens in Great Expectations)
Kant asserted once: "Love of man is, accordingly, required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection, even if no account is taken of advantages (of happiness)." Yes, but then that lacks also wholeness by virtue of man's inability to achieve simple friendship.
Sartre's analysis of love was, however, yet again of 'eros' or romantic love. Sartre conceived that this form of love has as its ideal an absolute unity between lovers; a merging together of two free consciousnesses in which each grounds the other's being to form one consciousness.
Love according to existentialism is indeed personal, meaning that it's love of an individual, which differentiates it from spiritual love. It involves the hope that it will last, which makes it different from lust. It also involves a yearning to be together.
I like to end this long strain of thought now with St Paul who crops up whatever I do think these days:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (Corinthians 13:4-7)
To begin with, Kierkegaard identifies love with caring. At the root of the flow of emotions, longings and desires is the wish for the best for the beloved. Thus Kierkegaard believes that in order to fulfil its nature, love should be first and foremost focused on the person who is being loved.
What did the Ancient Greek think about it? Aristotle's moral psychology of love in general is to love something in itself, as opposed to loving it because it pleases you or is useful to you. It's to love on the basis of one's rational recognition that it is kalon ('fine' or morally 'beautiful') and good in itself.
Plato believed that love is the motivation that leads one to try to know and contemplate beauty in itself. This happens through a gradual process that begins with an appreciation of the appearance of physical beauty and then moves on to an appreciation of spiritual beauty.
During the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas defined love as “the choice to will the good of the other.” While this definition lacks the romanticism that we often associate with love, it much more fully encompasses and expresses what love is in its fullness.
Three centuries later Spinoza defines love yet again this way: love is nothing but joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause. Love is an affect; affects are changes in the power of the body and mind. Joy is an increase of power to act, sadness a decrease in power.
These days Coelho claims that love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused. His most famous quote is: "Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience."
Camus wrote beforehand that love is not just a confrontation with the absurdity of the world; it is a refusal to be broken by it. It is one of the ways we can each of us be stronger than our rocks. There is nothing we can do to change the constraints of our existence.
“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!” (Dickens in Great Expectations)
Kant asserted once: "Love of man is, accordingly, required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection, even if no account is taken of advantages (of happiness)." Yes, but then that lacks also wholeness by virtue of man's inability to achieve simple friendship.
Sartre's analysis of love was, however, yet again of 'eros' or romantic love. Sartre conceived that this form of love has as its ideal an absolute unity between lovers; a merging together of two free consciousnesses in which each grounds the other's being to form one consciousness.
Love according to existentialism is indeed personal, meaning that it's love of an individual, which differentiates it from spiritual love. It involves the hope that it will last, which makes it different from lust. It also involves a yearning to be together.
I like to end this long strain of thought now with St Paul who crops up whatever I do think these days:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (Corinthians 13:4-7)
