Lesson 1 notes - Nature of love, eros, philia, agape PDF

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Nature of love, eros, philia, agape...

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Lesson 1 Notes: LOVE -Thich Nhat Hanh was a peace activist during the Veitnamese war, -Tinh and nghia are words in the veitnamese language for love -tinh means love with lots of heat and passion, in canada we call that eros. -Nghia is a type of love that is calmer, more understanding and faithful like the kind of love a parent has for their child. -comparable to Lewis’ notion of affection Philosophy of Love ● ethical and political ramifications ● constant theme (books, movies, songs) ● in philosophy ○ materialistic physical phenomenon ○ spiritual experience ○ Plato important because of shift between the two conceptions of love ■ Aristotle: two bodies one soul ■ friendship love The Nature of Love (3 types) : Helm ● Three types of love discussed in this article ○ Eros: Romantic, passionate love ■ Type of love we frequently see in “chickflick” ■ Often referred to as a sexual desire ■ In platos writing, eros is described as a common desire that seeks transcendental beauty-the particular beauty of an individual reminds us of true beauty that exists in the work of forms or ideas. According to Plato this platonic-socratic position of desiring and wanting this form of love maintains the type of love we generate for beauty on this earth yet it can never truly be satisfied until we die. ■ Emodies the idea that the idealbeauty becomes interchangable across people, things, ideas and art, for example you wouldn love the individual themselves just an element they possess that is true beauty. ○ Philia: Friendship love ■ Fondness and appreciation of others ■ Incorporates not only friendshipbut also loyalties to family, political comunity, job or dicipline. ■ Can be motivated for the individuals sake or for their own sake ■ Aristotle elaborates on the ideas of a proper friendship, suggesting that the proper asis for philia is objective; those who share dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and who admire us appropriately as we admire them and so on.

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The best characteristics in a person can create the best friendships and hence love ■ Can also be based on utility in terms of friendships that are of lesser quality. For example a business friendship ■ a condition that must be met in order to achieve the highest form of aristotelianlove is that a man loves himself first. Agape: Unconditional love of everyone, one's neighbor and stranger alike ■ Refers to the paternal love of god for man and of man for god but it is extended to include brotherly love for all humanity. ■ A middle ground between eros and philia, contains aspects from both ■ The love of god is believed to only be achieved with absolute devotion and this is reminiscent of platos lov of beauty which involves erotic passion, awe and desire that transcends early cares and obstancles. ■ One cannot be a friend to many people inthe sense of having friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one canot be in love with many people at once (love is an excess of feeling and it is the nature of such to be fet towards one person) Romantic Love ■ higher than just sexual attraction alone [you want a particular person, while there are many sexy people out there – my thoughts] ■ The fact that love is a desire for beauty, "beauty" is important to Plato [I don't think he is just talking about being pretty here] ■ knights and damsels in medieval times ■ not to be consummated ■ chivalry NOT reflection like Ovid(roman poet) ■ This typeof love is typically motivated by deep respect for the lady ■ Modern romantic loves returns to aristotles version of the special love two people find in each others virtues~one sound and two bodies.

Further Conceptual Considerations ● How is love knowable? ○ Love is knowable and comprehensible to others as understood in the phrases “I love you” or “I am in love” but what love means in these sentences may not be anylized fither ■ Due to the fact that the conet of love is irreducible-an axiomatic, or self-evodent, state of afairs that warrant no further intellectual intrusion. ○ The epistemology of love is intimately connected to the philosophy of language and theories of emotions ○ If love is purely an emotional condition, it is plausable to argue that it remains a privat phenomenon incapable of beig accessed by others. ● How to put experience into words [hmm possible connection with myth – my thoughts] ○ Love may have a nature butwe may not posss the proper intellectual capacity to understand it accordingly

It can be partially described or hinted at ina dialect or analytical exposition but never understoo in itself ○ Love may therefore ecome an epiphenomenal entity, generated by human action in loving, but never grasped by the mind or language Platonic Forms ○ in the cave and not completely able to be grasped (known) ○ hierarchy whereby only some Philosopher-Kings can grasp "love" while low- lives can only experience desire [wow! Pretty elitist this Plato dude – my thoughts] ○ Platonic philosophy may also permit that love is understood by certain people and not others. This evokes a hierarchical epistemology, that only initiated, the experience, the philosophical or the poetical or musical, may gain insightsinto its nature ○

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Physical, Emotion, Spiritual Considerations ● behaviorists: love is just physical and completely observable [oh right! So this is why guys can completely see that I like them!] ● physicalists and geneticists: love is just physical because of sexual intercourse is gratifying ● physical determinists: chemical attraction, completely biological so DNA mating is controlling who we "fall" in love with ● expressionist: reflection of internal, emotional state – therefore soulmate/spiritual element [but state may change – fall out of love?] ○ Others in this vein may claim love is to be a spiritual response, the recognition of a sould that completes one's own soud, or compliments it. Love: Ethics and Politics ● moral appropriateness ○ love as an object; love everyone equally; love oneself; love transcends physical desires; love transcends appearances; same-sex love; sex and reproduction ● political ○ social dominance (gender issues) Love can have many meanings and represent different emotional connects Love as a union ● Claims that love consists in the formaion of some significant kind of union “we”. ● The idea that a union becomes a union when you act out of concern not for my sake alone or for your sake alone but for our sake. ● Particle fusion o thelovers caresm concerns, emotions responses and actions is love according to fisher ● Soloman offers union view as well by identifying it as when two people refine their identities as people in terms of their relationship and become one as they have a “fusion of two souls”

Love as a Robust Concern ● This form of love looks at how someone's concern for another is fundamentally “my” concern, even if it is for your sake and so not egoistic ● The heart of the robust concern view is the idea thatlove is neither effective nor cognitive, it is volitional ○ A person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make them feel or with his opinions about them, them with the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and that guide andminit his conduct ○ Loving someone by caring and conernign for their sake more than your own

MYTH -Myths are frequently dismissed as fictional storiies or a way to explain phenomena prir to advances in science Methodology: “the study of myth” -structuralism: an approach in the study of muth and literature in general, that investigates what are believed to be the hidden meanings within the myth -patterns within myth are then analyzed in an attempt to elucidate what organizes or structures the worldview of those who consider the myth important -fuctionalism: approaches yth with the understanding that it plays a role or functions to justify or legitimate social structures and norms The myth: takes place in the beginning of time, its acting personages are gods and mythic being like the culture hero, primeval man and the prototypes ofanimals, and the scene for action is the supernatural world. The myth has a fixed pattern of events and actions are often repeated four times in North American texts. They are passed down through generations The legend; takes place in historical and recent times, its acting personages are human beings in their encounters withrepresentatives of a supernatural world (spirits, ghosts, monsters) and the scene for action is this world or the supernatural world

Cosmological myths: sacred myths that describe the cosmos and the interrelations outfits phenomena by anchoring them in a series of supernatural events in primordial time -cosmological myths can be connected with a ritual, but this is not always the case, particularly not among the hunting and gathering peoples. -procure for man a world-view, but not necessarily a religion. -these types of myths are sacred myths tht describe the cosmos and the beginning of time, it frequently provides a world view

Institutional myths: relate how cultural and religous institutions were established in primordial times. The way the mythic begins arranged it has to be followed today by the people -the ancients gave the pattern, the people repeat it, but there is noritual identification -all thosemyths belong here in which the culture hero instructed the ancestors how tomake houses, canoes, how to regulate the laws, how to deal with menstruation and death -although these myths may often also be catalogued as myths of entertainment. -many institutional myths end to merge with sacred legends. -explaihow cultural and religious institutions were established Ritual myths: cosmological mths which serve as “texts'' for tritual performances. The ritual procedure is identified with the incidents in the myth, the officiants of the ritual represent the mythic personages. Not all cosmological myths are, orare used as, ritual myths. Students of religion who deal with near easter nythology tend to consider myths as ritual myths and they consequently conclude that every myth has taken form in a ritual setting. -cosmological myths that serve as “texts” for rituals Myths of entertainment/ mythological tales:myths that have been elaborated by the raconter and thus lost their sacredness, but are nevertheless considered as basically true. Their counterparts in literate cultures are the library myths. -lost their sacredness and become folktales Religious epic legends: both myths and legends -Hultakrantz: prefers functionalism as an approach for the study of myth -The demarcation line between myths and legends is not absolute, they bend together into eachother...