Introduction
Introduction
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the philosophy of love. Since Plato's dialogue, Symposion, there have been almost no philosophical theories about love. The dialogue states that the philosophical truth of love is a spiritual truth. Love is not a theoretical phenomenon. The complex phenomenon that love is always involves two distinct perspectives—the subjective perspective of the lovers, and the third-person perspective of those who surround the lovers as involuntary observers and commentators. Love in this book will be addressed in a metaphysical sense, claiming that love, before it is classified within any particular domain of reality, is a relation. It is not in a subjective feeling but in a reciprocal relation of desire that love fully comes into being.
Keywords: philosophy of love, love, Plato, Symposion
Columbia Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .