New Philosophical Essays On Love And Loving

New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be (between humans and artificial intelligences, between non-human animals and humans); whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is “fragile,” and may not survive in a deterministic world; and whether or not love is actually a good thing or may instead be a force opposed to morality. Key philosophers discussed include Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, Niko Kolodny, Thomas Hurka, Bennett Helm, Alfred Mele and Derk Pereboom. Essays also touch on the treatment of love in literature and popular culture, from Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair to Spike Jonze’s movie her.

New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be (between humans and artificial intelligences, between non-human animals and humans); whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is "fragile," and may not survive in a deterministic world; and whether or not love is actually a good thing or may instead be a force opposed to morality. Key philosophers discussed include Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, Niko Kolodny, Thomas Hurka, Bennett Helm, Alfred Mele and Derk Pereboom. Essays also touch on the treatment of love in literature and popular culture, from Graham Greene's The End of the Affair to Spike Jonze's movie her.

Does love command an ineffability that remains inaccessible to the philosopher? Thinking About Love considers the nature and experience of love through the writing of well-known Continental philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Evolving forms of social organization, rapid developments in the field of psychology, and novel variations on relationships demand new approaches to and ways of talking about love. Rather than offering prescriptive claims, this volume explores how one might think about the concept philosophically, without attempting to resolve or alleviate its ambiguities, paradoxes, and limitations. The essays focus on the contradictions and limits of love, manifested in such phenomena as trust, abuse, grief, death, violence, politics, and desire. An erudite examination of the many facets of love, this book fills a lacuna in the philosophy of this richly complicated topic. Along with the editors, the contributors are Sophie Bourgault, John Caruana, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Marguerite La Caze, Alphonso Lingis, Christian Lotz, Todd May, Dawne McCance, Dorothea Olkowski, Felix Ó Murchadha, Fiona Utley, and Mélanie Walton.

And what if one day … after stop loving someone that you liked so, so much … you decide to replace that big whole from your soul with loving all the people from the timeline of your life?! Today i believe that to understand the life itself we need to experience … love … in whatever form it might appear to us. It sounds weird, or even as a total nonsense … but in the end … following the paths of life …. I always realized that everything comes by itself. Not so long time ago, before becoming 40 …. I heard lots of strange ideas about the change is happening in man’s perspective about life … the next second he comes to this age. In fact … the truth is that only 2 versions worth to be mentioned … and i saw that at all my friends that had this age. One theory was that we start to have all types of medical problems … and the other one was that the man starts to be obsessed by love … love stories …. and all the women from the timeline of his life. I never had medical problems in my life … so i totally ignored the first theory ….and on another hand, working in sales for more than 20 years … i met thousands of ladies … but never had the intention to cheat my wife. So … i totally ignored both theories, but just few days before becoming 40 … a very beautiful lady … appeared in my life. She was the most unexpected person i could dream that i would start a love story with … but … it happened. The theory was right … or at least one of it. I fell in love … with that amazing soul … and i started to write all my feelings and everything related to us. I wrote so much … that one day i realized that i published 10 books carrying the word … love … inside of the title. But … same as any other story from the history of the human being … my love story had a beginning, the story itself …. and the end. Today … looking back in time, i see just the 10 books i wrote … but i would not like to read them again. Never … In my last book about love stories … “Loving, but not understanding where the love goes” … the last 2 essays i wrote tell everything it was in my heart and soul … “I miss you a lot, but i don’t want you back in my life! Never again!” … and “Awakening can be obtained at the end of the love story!”. I left the love story dissatisfied of all happened … but still … i was chasing for love. Getting back into her arms … was useless. I knew it … and even if i lied myself for such a long time … she was the same as my wife … a shrew … or at least this is how i saw both of them. I decided to let my life continue … near my family, totally forgetting the love story …. but still not ignoring my huge desire for … love. The smaller kid ….told me one day while arguing with my wife … “ You are not allowed to leave us. You are our parents and you don’t have the right to do that.” Ignoring those words … was equal with betrayal. …. A huge one. So i remained near my wife and kids … doing my duty, understanding the dharmic side of life … but still something was whispering me all the time …”love, love, love, love … love ….” I thought i need to find another lady … but my wife was paying attention now to any small detail … so i could not repeat the love story i had with that crazy lady. I was meditating a lot. On the scene of my life, i met lots of other people in the same situation as myself … that ended the love story and …. somehow started to be in a relationship with themselves. They discovered a new path …. the one of self love. But i did not know anything about the subject … and not even wanted to bother becoming more profound and connected to myself. I actually did not wanted to start a new relationship either …. with someone else … either with myself. I knew i needed something else into my life… but did not understood the new path i need to follow. And i continued … searching. On and on …. and on. One day … a year ago … while having a fire at one of my properties … a heart appeared on the roof of the building. Everyone saw the heart … except myself. Later on … i saw it in the pictures taken by the people that were there at the time. Again …. I thought that i should find a new mistress and have a parallel life again … without my wife to find out. But … i was wrong. So … damn wrong. Time passed and … and the russian-ukrainian war began … and i started to host lots of refugees. There were people that needed unconditional love and support … and i somehow connected to the all of them … realizing that i can be in a weird love story with all those women coming from Ukraine. They were ladies of different age and personality … but i loved having them into my life. I somehow started to understand that even if i thought that being in love can have only 2 options … loving a soulmate …. or yourself … i finally saw a totally new path …. and that was being in a lovely relationship … practicing another type of love …. with anyone was appearing in my reality. That of course … could not offend in any way my wife …. and also could not affect the marriage i had … but … Yes …. It was … an amazing trick … and i just loved it. I finally understood what Dalai Lama or Pope Francis were saying … about … unconditional love for all the people from this world. Reading their books … i even had moments when i thought the 2 of them were idiots …. but i was the idiot one. My marriage … was indeed karmic … having nothing to do with love … but my youngest son learnt me the meaning of … dharma. My mistress … which even if i loved so, so much … but don’t even want to hear her name again … taught me … what love … means. She was somehow a combination between karma and love … and saw her at the end of our love story more as a teacher …. than a soulmate. Most probably i have totally different values as those 2 shrews … my wife and my mistress … but i am happy i met the ucrainian ladies. The abstract love story i started with them …. all of them … no matter of age, personality, perspectives of life … was a much better path for continuing my life journey. I finally understood that if i would know to connect to the people that appear on the timeline of my life … and love them unconditionally…. somehow that love that i was chasing so, so much … since i was a kid … will come back to me in infinite quantities. I was looking for love … and i had to see the meaning of love story … from a totally different perspective. But … now everything was clear to me. I knew what i had to do … and which path to follow. My expectation was as my wife to love me …. but she was a karmic character that i could not replace … or my mistresses to love me unconditionally…. but she was the teacher that made me realize what the concept of love … means. My life journey … had to continue … and the ucrainian ladies showed me such a beautiful perspective … i never thought about. I was glad … of this awakening moment. So … loving you?! … loving me?! … or … simple loving any soul that appears in our lives?! Well … maybe from my position where i am now … being in a love story with everyone … is probably the best scenario i could live. Am glad i see things today … as that. Might be your perception … or not. Might sound as a total nonsense all what i am writing …. but maybe it will be much interesting to hear weird ideas … than the boring ones. So … let the journey begin … and we will see if i succeed to really connect to my real self … so … that i can find the inspiration to express myself clear enough … that in the end you will try at least one time … this kind of abstract love story … being in love with all the people from your life.

The author argues that the key to a fulfilled life is to pursue what one cares about, that love is the most authoritative form of caring, and that the purest form of love is, in a complicated way, self-love.

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy. The papers, many of them previously inaccessible to non-specialist readers, deal with such fundamental issues as the relationship between style and content in the exploration of ethical issues; the nature of ethical attention and ethical knowledge and their relationship to written forms and styles; and the role of the emotions in deliberation and self-knowledge. Nussbaum investigates and defends a conception of ethical understanding which involves emotional as well as intellectual activity, and which gives a certain type of priority to the perception of particular people and situations rather than to abstract rules. She argues that this ethical conception cannot be completely and appropriately stated without turning to forms of writing usually considered literary rather than philosophical. It is consequently necessary to broaden our conception of moral philosophy in order to include these forms. Featuring two new essays and revised versions of several previously published essays, this collection attempts to articulate the relationship, within such a broader ethical inquiry, between literary and more abstractly theoretical elements.

Philosophers have long been interested in love and its general role in morality. This volume focuses on and explores the complex relation between love and justice as it appears within loving relationships, between lovers and their wider social context, and the broader political realm. Special attention is paid to the ensuing challenge of understanding and respecting the lovers’ personal autonomy in all three contexts. Accordingly, the essays in this volume are divided into three thematic sections. Section I aims at shedding further light on conceptual and practical issues concerning the compatibility or incompatibility of love and justice within relationships of love. For example, are loving relations inherently unjust? Might love require justice? Or do love and justice belong to distinct moral domains? The essays in Section II consider the relation between the lovers on the one hand and their broader societal environment on the other. Specifically, how exactly are love and impartiality related? Are they compatible or not? Is it unjust to favor one’s beloved? Finally, Section III looks at the political dimensions of love and justice. How, for instance, do various accounts of love inform how we are to relate to our fellow citizens? If love is taken to play an important role in fostering or hindering the development of personal autonomy, what are the political implications that need to be addressed, and how? In addressing these questions, this book engenders a better understanding both of conceptual and practical issues regarding the relation between love, justice, and autonomy as well as their broader societal and political implications. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working on the philosophy of love from ethical, political, and psychological angles.