What is love? In any regard

General Philosophy
1

I would like to ask, but what is the ends of love? Aristotle mentions that the best love is the moral love, the love of what is good, and self-love that orients ourselves for us is good.

Socrates instructs us towards the transcendental, towards truth, beauty, and goodness. This is a tad ironic though because then he states that he doesn’t know what these are that that all he knows is that he knows nothing except that very fact.

Love comes to use in passion, gratitude. Should that not be it’s own sake?

I find love to be a scary thing because the things that you can naturally love towards you can naturally hate towards. It seems to be a very fine line between what we imagine as love and what we imagine as hate because we have such visceral reactions.

It is because of the love of God that we have a hate of hell, for example, since those ideas appear opposed and give us a natural gradient.

But maybe there is more metaphysics to the story.

I find Socrates argument very fascinating since it is a ladder of sorts that leads to beauty. In a sense love is moral, hence Aristotle’s argument.

I find that love is something I cannot grasp hence I am asking what it is. I am open to all sorts of arguments and poetic statements.

2 Likes
2

As a product of modernity, I don’t believe in truth, goodness, or beauty as anything more than contingent values that people arrive at differently. They are important but in vastly different ways for everyone. If there is something more substantial behind them, I doubt anyone has clear access to it.

Love is for experiencing, not theorising about. The only thing I feel I’ve learned in close to six decades is that, if there is such a thing as tragedy, it is probably the person who is unable to give or receive love. Which probably means I have some nineteenth-century romanticism bobbing up and down in my ocean of uncertainty.

3 Likes
3

Hello Tom,

I should mention but there is some substantial theorizing about it. There is Schopenhauer and Nietzsche with regards to their idea of drive. In particular, Schopenhauer describes it as a will to reproduce that drives us to love.

I appreciate your sentiments though. I try to conceptualize love in more fleeting terms as well. Something transcendental, yet immanent. Yet. I have a drive to intellectualize. :slight_smile:

There are so many rituals as well. From Ancient Greece to mystical rituals of Orthodox Christianity to modern date nights there are so many varieties of love.

I am really trying to make sure I have a proper definition of love, really. I want to make sure if I love, it is a love I am comfortable with. I like the idea of love. It is a touching sentiment and I would like to hear what people have to say.

I really feel it is important as I believe, when I can, in the categorical imperative. So I try to be consistent with what I say. An ideal of consistency, since it cannot exist in practice unfortunately. But we always posit certainty (see Wittgenstein).

1 Like
4

I think most us are probably aware of the billions of words devoted to love, from philosophy to novels and self-help. I wouldn’t be much interested in anything Schopenhauer or Nietzsche have to say about it, given their limitations in this area.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go to philosophy to explore love either. Just do it!

2 Likes
5

@Bizet

I think @Tom_Storm’s response is actually a good illustration of why the question really is worth asking after all. The claim that love is “for experiencing, not theorising about” is itself a theoretical claim about love — specifically, that love is a kind of raw experience that gets distorted or diminished by philosophical reflection.

But is that true?

It seems to me that the people who love well — who sustain relationships, who orient their lives around something genuinely good — are precisely the people who have reflected on what they’re doing and why. Unreflective love is just as likely to be obsession, projection, or sentimentality as it is to be the real thing.

To your actual question Bizet: I think the Socratic ladder image is more or less right, but the key insight is that love isn’t one thing among others that you then try to understand. It’s closer to the condition that makes understanding possible at all. You can’t inquire seriously into anything unless you care about getting it right — and that caring is already a form of love (of truth, of the good, of the real).

So love isn’t opposed to theorizing; its what gives theorizing its point. In my humble opinion, the person who says “stop analysing and just experience it” has it exactly backwards. The deepest experiences are the ones you can bring into reflective clarity without them evaporating.

That said, the Socratic point about not-knowing is important too. Love exceeds any particular formulation you give of it — but that’s not because its irrational or unconceptualizable. Its because the reality you’re trying to understand is richer then any single act of understanding can capture. Which is exactly why you must keep asking, reflecting and inquiring in pursuit of it.

3 Likes
6

But that’s not quite what I’m saying. I don’t think of love as a raw experience that becomes distorted by theory. I’m not sure how you would see such a “distortion” taking place. My point is that, for me personally, love is for doing, not talking about. I try to avoid theorising, whether it’s love, the self, morality, or purpose. That is simply my response to questions like this. Others can theorise until the cows come home about all manner of things, and the theories are sometimes interesting.

7

I’m the science types and so I view love as emotional gravity, an attractive force that can hold many independent lovable entities together in various conformations. Each such conformation is dynamic and fully determined by relevant love-factors at play.

In this view you can have stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, rogue planets, and black holes and every conceivable lovable.

Now enrich the system with a repulsive force, hate (?) and emerges a complex system of lovables, and now hateables, in intricate, exquisite conformations that morph continuously in real-time.

Empedocles and his binary system of philotes (love) vs. neikos (strife).

Apologies for theorizing, but AFAIK experimental physicists have no clue what to do with their time unless theoretical physicists tell them what to do with their time.

1 Like
8

What is love, and “what is the ends of love”? These are important questions, eternal questions that I have also pondered.

The ancient Greeks have two schools of thought on the subject of love. In the language of mythos, the Greek poets sang of love as divine, as “a mighty god”. In the language of logos, the Greek philosophers spoke of love as a desire. Plato, through Socrates, said: “Everyone sees that love is a desire, a desire for the beautiful… and if the beautiful is also the good… then love is the desire for the beautiful and good.”

So, should we accept the poet’s description of love as “a mighty god”? Or should we accept the philosopher’s description of love as a desire?

9

Good pondering.

I’m of the opinion that love is an action. We may feel attraction, but the only way to distinguish whether that’s a possessive attraction or love is to notice that in love we act by caring for our love, and in attraction we act to possess what we desire as an object.

Love is not a desire, in that sense, and it’s not a mighty god.

It’s something we do for another in spite of what they do, in spite of who they are, in spite of anything that might happen. Love overcomes all boundaries because it’s in spite of who you were and in favor of who we are or can be.

It’s not a feeling, but an act.

Erich Fromm: The Art of Loving inspires my thinking on love.

10

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a strange land.

Perhaps a necessary, rather than a sufficient condition.

But I’ll go with @Tom_Storm , and agree that it is something one lives, rather than analyses.

11

Moliere, it sounds like you are describing love as charity in the sense of I Corinthians:13. If love is an act, then is love an act of charity?

12

I’m told older English versions render the Greek ἀγάπη as “charity”, not “love”.

We should guard against thinking of love as an archetypal ontic or metaphysical entity. Better to treat it as a disjoint aggregate of related notions. Not an individual had in common, but an explanation for some of our actions. And that seems to be along the lines of what Paul has in mind. Not that I would accept him as an authority.

“What is love?” is best treated not as a request to set out some essential characteristics; there may be no common set of properties held by all instances of love, and in any case understanding that we have the right set of properties implies that we have a way of grasping what love is that is independent of those properties.

See An approach to aesthetics.

Specifically, this post.

1 Like
13

Would you agree that “What is love?” and “How do we use the English word ‘love’?” are two distinct questions?

14

An interesting question. With many answers that satisfy some and dissatisfy others.

Perhaps before one tries to attack such a debate that has been raging for thousands of years, one should try to orient themselves into an average or reasonable frame of mind that encapsulates the shared sentiments of most, as far and oppositely opposed as they may be.

What qualities do we associate with someone or something we profess to “love”? What qualities would be impossible for one to associate with said entity or idea?

Has a man ever loved someone or something they have no interest in or no respect for? No, right? So we can draw a base foundation, at least a temporary one for now.

But let’s go further. Admiration and respect seems to be a healthy “reach” from this foundation we’ve established. But what crosses the boundary between admiration and respect to “love” (bearing in mind there are different types of love, allegedly, per wise men before us: “parental love for a child”, “romantic love for a spouse or lover”, “platonic love for a friend”, “personal love for an idea or desire”, etc.).

We have to establish which qualities are absolutely fundamental to each (unless this is a discussion about a certain so-called “type” of love, which others may rightfully suggest is an inaccurate and forced classification that eternally separates us from the truth of such).

Can you love something you do not understand? Perhaps. Or perhaps, we delude ourselves thinking mere fascination (occupying of one’s mind), possibly such that distracts us from a deep pain or suffering, effectively mirrors what “love” is. These two things offer similar qualities. They make the brain, and so the mind and body “happy.” But is this illusion? Do we really want to find out and discover what ancient sages suggest man is not meant to know? That, I suggest, is up to the will and mind of the pursuer. :slightly_smiling_face:

15

If not, no man could ever love a woman.

16

It looks like I missed your response somehow. Sorry about that.

You say “love is for doing, not for talking about” and fair enough. But I don’t think this undercuts my point. After all, your prioritization of “doing” presumably isn’t just some personal foible with no rationale behind it. You’re choosing to prioritize “doing” over “reflecting”, and that choice is itself guided by some understanding of what matters and why. Thats not the absence of theory — its a theory operating below the surface without being examined.

And look, I’m not saying everyone needs to read Plato before they can love somebody. Obviously not. But when you say “I try to avoid theorising about love, the self, morality, or purpose” — well, that’s a pretty comprehensive list. Those are arguably the things most worth thinking carefully about precisely because they shape everything else we do. The person who avoids reflecting on them doesn’t thereby escape having operative assumptions about all of them. They just lose the ability to check whether those assumptions are any good.

17

Hmm. I’m reminded of a “go-to” (oh how I despise when I hear that ceaselessly parroted phrase) quote of mine.

Or. Perhaps love means different things to different people. Or, perhaps, there are different levels or understandings of love that some can access while others (currently) cannot.

Is the “love” one feel’s for one’s child as he or she opens his or her eyes each morning and gazes upon the person a different experience than if one were a paid caretaker watching the same process in a stranger’s child who according to basic rights and virtue, is of equal importance? Or are we simply projecting our own self-love and desire for innocence, rebirth, purity, or immortality upon a helpless, defenseless being thus objectifying a human life as but another object to reach a means to our ego’s end?

If we do call this love, what is the “love” of seeing a person who we believe brutally murdered this child being executed, perhaps brutally and outside of the “relatively” civilized and humane judicial process?

Is there a difference at all? Surely there must be. We must pin down these differences lest they pin us down. Don’t you agree?

Some practitioners of Stoicism believe all emotion is inherently irrational, that is not to say foolish or useless, but ultimately conforms to something that is not logical or rational, therefore a distraction or perhaps “obstacle” in true peace and purpose. Not necessarily and automatically a prohibiting factor in experiencing a life of true contentment (or contentedness, which you prefer) but a common stumbling block best either removed or at the very least identified and consciously “watched out for” throughout the course of one’s life. Do you view that point of view as fair?

As far as romantic or sexual emotion or “love” is concerned, I feel if we did not let our romantic or familiar partners defy logic or perhaps compromise our virtues, values, and morals every now and again (or for some, constantly), we would have likely lost them to those who hold weaker or less strict standards, and not have been alive today. We turn a blind eye to when our kids or those we care about commit acts we fundamentally know are wrong, even when they could very well be harmful to the very person we profess to care about. Some people call this a fundamental flaw in human emotion. A biological drive, a deep and indecipherable desperation that merely masquerades as love. What would you call it?

18

According to St. Paul, “Love never faileth. Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away… but love never faileth.”

So even unacceptable behavior cannot banish true love. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

19

He may be absolutely correct. And worthy of one’s whole and unwavering attention and respect.

But one might reasonably argue, in response to the claim of “love never waivers”: Neither does pleasant delusion never challenged. Neither does selfishness or want never offset by something higher. You should think about that. Or, perhaps not. :slightly_smiling_face:

20

Not so much. The first can only be answered after answering the second. Asking what love is tempts us into the Platonic mistake of thinking of love as a hidden object with a specifiable essence, or as some series of “qualities”, when it is more a group of related practices. There need be no “absolutely fundamental qualities”, but just a pattern in the way we use a word.

Notice that we all manage to use the word “love” quite adequately, despite not being able to immediately set out the necessary and sufficient conditions for being in love.

See my thread on Aesthetics.