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The Structure of Love
'The point of departure for all future work in the philosophy of love. Soble believes in personal love, and his book gives a sober appraisal of what we can reasonably expect and not expect of love. In this way we may perhaps have more sane and sensible and enduring loves.'-Russell Vannoy, State University College at Buffalo
- GenresPhilosophy
392 pages, Hardcover
First published September 10, 1990
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April 23, 2024
The love discussed in this book is primarily romantic love (broadly understood) and it is a very philosophical, philosophy book on love. I suggest those who don't have some prior acquaintance with analytical philosophy stay clear as the book and arguments is often quite daunting and intricate. On occasion the intricacies in the book gave me the feeling the original question was lost in all the details (can't see the forest for all the trees). A feeling I sometimes also get when I read philosophical texts on free will. Anyone looking for a self-help book on love or looking to be enchanted by the mysteries of love better turn around. This is a rational take on love trying to disenchant the reader from the apparent mysteries.
While Soble does put forward his own theories, a lot of arguments in the book is Soble analyzing and criticizing other authors and their theories. The main dichotomy in the book is between erosic (sic!) love and agapic love. Two concepts I wasn't really familiar with when I first started reading the book. "Plato's Symposium, sexual love, courtly love, and romantic love" is examples from the erosic tradition while "God's love for humans and Christian neighbor-love" is of the agapic tradition. While it may sound religious it really isn't as the main difference is between a property-based and reason-based love (erosic love) and unconditional love (agapic). So according to the erosic understanding the lover loves because of some properties of the loved and the lover could in principle give reasons for his/her love (or non-love), while this isn't possible according to the agapic tradition where love is understood as irrational and could in principle be a pure act of will.
From the opposition between erosic and agapic love Soble discusses the uniqueness of the beloved, desire's role in love, if love is exclusive to one person at a time, if love is constant, if love demands reciprocity, the morality of love and much, much more.
To give you an idea on what to expect I'll quote Soble from page 4, where he gives a first explanation of erosic love, as I think it will be a good showcase of both the content and style of the book:
In the first view of personal love (that derived from the eros tradition), love is in principle and often in practice comprehensible. In particular, love is what I will call "property-based”: When x loves y, this can be explained as the result of y's-having, or x's perceiving that y has, some set S of attractive, admirable, or valuable properties; x loves y because y has S or because x perceives or believes that y has S. These properties of y are the basis or ground of x's love and hence, in the first view, something about the object of ones personal love is a crucial part of the explanatory source of love; love is ”objectcentric.” In principle, x and y (and outsiders) are capable of knowing why x loves y — that is, of knowing which attractive properties of y, the object, have brought it about that x loves y. Further, personal love is ”reason-dependent”: when x loves y, x (given enough self-investigation) will be able to answer "Why do you love y?” by supplying reasons for loving y in terms of y's having S. Because the attractive properties of y figure both in the explanation of x's love and in the reasons x will give for loving y, I will use "property-based” and ”reason-dependent” interchangeably. The central claim of the first view is that something about y is central in accounting for x's love for y; the emphasis is on the perceived merit of the object as the ground of love. Such is the structure of erosic personal love.
If I had the energy and time to invest in the book it might have been a four. Now I wanted to get through it and it became a slog and I can't give it more than a three star rating.
While Soble does put forward his own theories, a lot of arguments in the book is Soble analyzing and criticizing other authors and their theories. The main dichotomy in the book is between erosic (sic!) love and agapic love. Two concepts I wasn't really familiar with when I first started reading the book. "Plato's Symposium, sexual love, courtly love, and romantic love" is examples from the erosic tradition while "God's love for humans and Christian neighbor-love" is of the agapic tradition. While it may sound religious it really isn't as the main difference is between a property-based and reason-based love (erosic love) and unconditional love (agapic). So according to the erosic understanding the lover loves because of some properties of the loved and the lover could in principle give reasons for his/her love (or non-love), while this isn't possible according to the agapic tradition where love is understood as irrational and could in principle be a pure act of will.
From the opposition between erosic and agapic love Soble discusses the uniqueness of the beloved, desire's role in love, if love is exclusive to one person at a time, if love is constant, if love demands reciprocity, the morality of love and much, much more.
To give you an idea on what to expect I'll quote Soble from page 4, where he gives a first explanation of erosic love, as I think it will be a good showcase of both the content and style of the book:
In the first view of personal love (that derived from the eros tradition), love is in principle and often in practice comprehensible. In particular, love is what I will call "property-based”: When x loves y, this can be explained as the result of y's-having, or x's perceiving that y has, some set S of attractive, admirable, or valuable properties; x loves y because y has S or because x perceives or believes that y has S. These properties of y are the basis or ground of x's love and hence, in the first view, something about the object of ones personal love is a crucial part of the explanatory source of love; love is ”objectcentric.” In principle, x and y (and outsiders) are capable of knowing why x loves y — that is, of knowing which attractive properties of y, the object, have brought it about that x loves y. Further, personal love is ”reason-dependent”: when x loves y, x (given enough self-investigation) will be able to answer "Why do you love y?” by supplying reasons for loving y in terms of y's having S. Because the attractive properties of y figure both in the explanation of x's love and in the reasons x will give for loving y, I will use "property-based” and ”reason-dependent” interchangeably. The central claim of the first view is that something about y is central in accounting for x's love for y; the emphasis is on the perceived merit of the object as the ground of love. Such is the structure of erosic personal love.
If I had the energy and time to invest in the book it might have been a four. Now I wanted to get through it and it became a slog and I can't give it more than a three star rating.
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