Book Review
‘Love: A Very Short Introduction’ by Ronald de Sousa is a philosophical guide to love and a introduction to Philosophy of Love. The author raises questions about love by the point of view of philosopher and scientist using theories of philosophy, evolutionary theory, psychology, sociology and neuroscience.
Puzzles
What’s it we called love? And, Why the thing attract, bother and excite us?
In this chapter, author introduces four different kinds of love specified by ancient Greeks, philia, storge, agape and eros. Thus author declared the main topic of the form of love is eros which is typically associated with intense attraction for lover.
Objects of love are various. People love not only human of opposite sex, but also animals, objects (for example cars, bows, bridges, robots and the Effel Tower) and concepts. Objektophiles is the something different. But, all of love is a human capacity. On the other side, for object of love, erotic love that happens only rarely. The objective side of love is evoked by beautiful and good initially.
Lovers love each other by reasons, also blindly. Love brings the highest freedom, also become a bondage and a jealousy. Sometimes love spoils the purity of sex. At the same time, pure sex is motivated by love. But in Platonic dialogue, it suggests the best sex is it avoids love.
Perspective
The author introduces some discussions and models of love according to Plato’s ‘Symposium’. At first, he introduces conceptions of love and sex, such as the puritan model, the Lawrentian model and the pansexual model. And he explains the mind-body problem of love by Socrates’ thought. Next, he introduces the ladder of love theory. First love is the desire for immortality together with good and beauty. Second, but it illogically changes to love immortality itself. Third, this illogically twist make it want to reproduction of love by the realizing of our impossible desire for immorality. Reproduction of love means making unity of divine beauty itself. The following step is the desire for offspring as a side effect of pursuit for the eternal ideal Beauty. Next, author states love would be explained not only experiences and brain states, but also social contexts. Finally author suggests a possibility of the conceptual analysis of love. Love is not a completely enigmatic thing.
Desire
Author concerns desire in love. Love essentially involves desire. And there are two kinds of desire, the one is desire itself, the another is subject to ‘curse of satisfaction’. Lovers take delight in the other’s happiness, and lovers’ desires are unselfish. So desire in love is not subject to ‘curse of satisfaction’. But there’s the altruists’ dilemma. Devotions to each other even worse off than acts of two selfish individuals. Pure love based on reason-free desire, marriage and its following duties and obligations change love to reason-based desire.
Reasons
In this chapter, author try to grasp the content of reasons of love in some auguments. Good and bad reasons for love, taxonomy of objects in love, and the two targets of love that are the beloved and the relationship. Therefore he concludes that ‘love does not derive from reason, virtue and Kantian core rationality.’.
Science
Author concerns a possibility to understand love by science especially scientific reduction. He introduces some arguments of typologies of love. For example, Robert Sternberg’s ‘triangular model’ of love labelled the three basic dimensions of love as intimacy, passion and decision/commitment. Next, author picks up the brain anatomy by recent brain imaging technology. It’s useful for explain certain psychological phenomenon of love, but can’t grasp total activity of love. Following, author mentions Helen Fisher’s the three syndromes of love. The syndromes are lust, limerence and attachment. This study answers that love is socially constructed, but not experience of true love. To study love by physical science explain little. We need to acquire the relativity of social context of intuition and practice, and the multiplicity of syndrome by social science and history.
Utopia
Moralist rebels love of modern age, that stemming from Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas and Roman Catholic theology. Nature with God’s benevolent only matches with erotic love and sex in whose right way when they serve reproduction, and them in monogamous marriage. But many episodes in anthropological and historical studies indicates alternative rules and methods for security of love and moral. And liberal societies have admitted certain degree of the value of diversity in love. On the other hand, monogamic relationships bloom on the basis of individual personalities.
Finally, the author suggests hope to a utopia of erotic love which is constrained by our imagination and values, and people would view it as the best of our possibilities, so we must overcome our own parochial values.
This book is one of good guide to love and philosophy of love. The author covers many fields of study for love. Especially he critically introduces a viewpoint of classical aesthetics and ethics for love and many auguments of analytic and systematic approach to love including psychological, psycho analytic, brain anatomic, sociological and anthropological studies. You can comprehend the mechanism and social and psychological system of love for possitiveness such as goodness, purity, beauty, eternality and superiority, or love of lovers or in monogamy. But this book should not really explain love for children or love for tiny, shabby, ugly and evil objests, in spite of the author suggests diversity of love.
By this book, I comprehend the system and mechanism of love of good and beauty, or of lovers and monogamy. I can’t really understand justice and advantage of diversity of love, and benefits of the utopia of erotic love that Sousa suggests.
This book will be a help for you to understand and think about the mechanism, mean and aim of love in some degree.
Product Details
Love (Very Short Introduction)
Ronald de Sousa
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 8 January 2015
152 pages, £7.99, $11.95
ISBN 978–0–19–966384–2
Contents
- Acknoeledgements
- List of illustration
- 1 Puzzles
- 2 Perspective
- 3 Desire
- 4 Reasons
- 5 Science
- 6 Utopia
- References
- Further reading
- Index
Related Posts and Pages
‘Philosophy (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Edward Craig, Oxford University Press
‘Ancient Philosophy (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Julia Annas, Oxford University Press
‘Continental Philosophy (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Simon Critchley, Oxford University Press
‘Plato (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Julia Annas, Oxford University Press
‘Aristotle (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Barnes, Oxford University Press
‘Descartes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Tom Sorell, Oxford University Press
‘Locke (A Very Short Introduction)’ by John Dunn, Oxford University Press
‘Marx (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Peter Singer, Oxford University Press
‘Barthes (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Jonathan Culler
‘The Meaning of Life (A Very Short Introduction)’ by Terry Eagleton, Oxford University Press