Philosophy of Love

[Amir y]

scientific nature of love.

Philosophy of love is the field of social philosophy and ethics which attempts to explain the nature of love. The philosophical investigation of love includes the tasks of distinguishing between the various kinds of personal love; asking if and how love is/can be justified; asking what the value of love is; and what impact love has on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved.

There are many different theories which attempt to explain what love is, and what function it serves. It would be very difficult to explain love to a hypothetical person who had not himself experienced love or being loved. In fact, to such a person love would appear to be quite strange if not outright irrational behavior. Among the prevailing types of theories that attempt to account for the existence of love there are: psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider love to be very healthy behavior; there are evolutionary theories which hold that love is part of the process of natural selection; there are spiritual theories which may, for instance 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.

[Dodo25]

Good summary. Well, the theories from evolutionary biology are most likely right. Love is a Darwinian adaptation.

Romantic love, the most interesting type, ensures that couples stay together to rear children. Family love is perfectly explained by kin selection. And 'love for friends' is explained by reciprocal altruism.

[Amir y]

Tell me your idea about the quote below:
"WILL to Truth" do you call it, you wisest ones, that which impels you
and makes you ardent?
Will for the thinkableness of all being: thus do I call your will!
All being would you make thinkable: for you doubt with good reason
whether it be already thinkable.
By Nietzsche.

[lit.girl]

Love is really hard-full base which is people cannot understand and describe it rationally. Love is something natural from deep heart not only humans can feel it but all living organisms. Also, it can heal people who always feel pain, who suffering from loneliness. What a hard feeling!
Amir y: i think its about the thinking of people who always lies and they cannot hang themselves to tell the truth, and others can't realize if its truth or not. The liars just want to access to truth for what people think. Moreover, people cannot distinguish between lies and truth so they just flows with liars until to win the truth. I think the quote means that in such way. Amir y: what do think am i right or wrong correct me.

Thanks

[Dodo25]

Good summary.

Good one, Dodo! Oh wait, that's me.

Of course it's a good summary when it's copied from a wikipedia article. I don't know what exactly you're trying to achieve with your post. I think you have to cite if you copy text.

And lit.girl, 'all living organisms can love' is an absurd statement, and in my view, it actually diminishes what love is. This coming from a reductionist.

[Amir y]

Dodo 25 ! you are right.
Yeah brought to you by Wikipedia.
lit.girl ! let me think,I will tell you later.

[Cunninglinguist]

I dont think you have to cite wiki. It's not copyrighted.

Love's definition varies widely, thus it makes it a hard term to pin down. All in all, it varies so widely that it would be impossible to provide a generalized definition in the current cultural context. This does not mean it's impossible to provide definitions at all, though. And given it's polysemous nature the best way to approach the topic is probably not by imposing your definition of love onto an argument, but rather to approach it with an open mind.

I divide love into three camps: subjective-based, objective-based and a combination of the two. What I mean by this is that, one camp says one is in love when one possesses a certain state of mind, the second camp says that one is in love when one possesses a certain state of relations with an object (or person, etc. whatever you prefer calling it), and the third says that both kinds of states are to be accounted for in the assessment. Current scientific theories tend to be the former, subjective-based, focusing on the neuropsychology of love. The Greeks tended to have the latter two.

I most prefer the theory of love posited by Socrates in Plato's Symposium. For Socrates, love is a sort of vicarious immortality. I believe that we're hardwired to desire immortality, it would only be logical; for the system that desires it is more motivated to survive (I can elaborate on this if one requests). When we are socially integrated we fulfill this desire by loving and perpetuating our society. When we are not socially integrated we can desire immortality for ourselves; if we are not socially integrated and feel as if a burden of society, but still feel we have an investment in the society we become suicidal (I can also elaborate on this upon request).
Ultimately one fulfills this desire more fully through vicarious immortality, since death has hitherto always been an inevitability haunting the loner's mind.

I have also read that "if no one ever read about love, it would never happen." I believe this is true in a certain sense, i.e. that we would not preform all the various customs we normally preform to show love. But it's only natural that we should create customs in order to facilitate our ability to express our emotions and thus to facilitate social integration. I don't believe that it would negate ones desire to achieve immortality vicariously.

[billl]

I dont think you have to cite wiki. It's not copyrighted.


This is actually an important issue. Since it can be copied, there are tons of websites making their own encyclopedias out there (with attendant advertising banners, etc. this time), and the first thing they do is copy the most current version of Wikipedia into it, page by page--maybe the whole thing, maybe the just the pages that relate to some certain area of knowledge.

Of course, those sites don't get the very top search results, but I know that I have run into them several times nonetheless. They clog up searches (and there'll be a constant war with search engines over that), and they also spread a single 'version' of explanation for topics. Rather than competing encyclopedias, we end up with a bunch of virtually identical encyclopedias popping up at every turn, with Wikipedia reaching even those who might actively be trying to avoid Wikis altogether.

SORRY FOR THE SIDE-TRACK, I won't be offended if mods delete this.