The Experience of Love

The longer I worked at the ethics,the clearer it became that the understanding of
love should shape ethical theory rather than that ethical theory already formed on some other basis should determine what we consider in the experience of love.But it also became progressively clearer that the results could be deplorable without a detailed, precise, deep, consistent, accurate, understanding of love, which could be achieved only by a demanding philosophically serious study of love in its own right,free from concern for moral or clinical implications,free even (insofar as this is possible)from the screening and molding influence of an already accepted philosophical anthropology.For the latter also should be shaped by rather than shape our understanding of love.




This book is the account of a prolonged effort to produce an intelligible description of the human experience of love, that is, conscious human love with no further qualification.On the one hand, I have not attempted to achieve an ontology or a metaphysics of love, built on an analogous notion of love embracing all levels or dimensions of being, including impersonal or even non-conscious being,as is done by Plato, St.Thomas,Paul Tillich, or Teilhard de Chardin.My concern is with the human and in the human with what is conscious. On the other hand,I am not directly concerned with any of the qualified forms of conscious human love as such,for example, mature and immature, morally good and morally evil, romantic, parental, religious and so on.My aim is to uncover within these differently qualified forms of human love that by reason of which every one of them can without equivocation be called love if,indeed there is any such thing to uncover. Other topics or questions frequently discussed at length in writing on love (its power, its growth, its importance in human life) are relevant only insofar as they are helpful toward that limited goal. In the measure that we know precisely and deeply what human love is, we can with confidence of proceeding accurately take up in any depth the kinds of love, the growth of love, morally good and evil love, etc. And only when we know what conscious human love is can we hope to speak intelligently about love as a metaphysical category without danger of hidden equivocations.



The reaction of those who discovered I was writing a book on love has convinced me that it is imperative to justify “another book on love.” And this is especially necessary for a book that intends a philosophical answer to the question, what is human love? For I am sure there will be two principal reactions:isn ’t this a hopeless task?Or, hasn ’t this question been answered a hundred times?



The latter question reminds one of Hilaire Belloc ’s remark to the effect that many people live and die under the illusion that they have read Das Kapital.Similarly, most of those who ask this question live under the illusion that they have read some author who takes this question in all philosophical seriousness and answers it satisfactorily. Surely, to say the question has been answered a hundred times is supreme understatement; but to say it has been answered in all philosophical seriousness a half dozen times would probably be an overstatement. Let me explain what I mean.



It is a strange and striking fact that even those who write best about love devote very little space to considering what love is. The important problems are evidently thought to lie elsewhere. After a brief unquestioned and undeveloped declaration of or a few paragraphs on the nature of love, there are long discussions about the kinds of love, the power and effects of love,the stages of growth in love, the moral and psychological norms for love, the relation of love with knowledge, sex, justice, and so on. It is assumed that readers and writer know what love is and agree on what it is.



When,however,we examine carefully the explicit or implicit notions of love in the literature on the subject,we find a bewildering mass of different and often conflicting notions swarming before us. (For a detailed and discriminating account of the diverse opinions on love, see Hazo 1967. Unfortunately, I could not make use of this book which appeared after mine was already in press.) The disagreement is on the nature of the act itself and on the object of the act. Those who agree in some general way on the nature of the act of love may still differ on what the object can and ought to be. And conversely, those who agree on what the object is or ought to be may differ on what the nature of love is. Some will differ from each other on both counts. We even find one and the same author delivering several different definitions which are never integrated for us and sometimes do not seem reconcilable. The reader gets the impression that there is little general agreement among those who write on the subject except on one point: all agree that there are many current unsound notions of love. But there is notable disagreement on what
notions are sound and what are unsound.



Further, among these many notions of love, a good proportion are really not statements about human love in its basic reality at all but rather about what characterizes one sort of human love as against another. We are told the difference between agape and eros, mature and immature love,amor amicitiae and amor concupiscentiae, gift-love and need-love; we are told what is peculiar to romantic love or motherly love or married love or Christian love or some other sort of love.But what is love which can take these diverse forms we are not told. The adjectival is discussed, the substantival is passed over or confused with the former. And when authors do intend a substantival statement about love, the almost universal practice is to begin with a definition. Sometimes this definition is explained but hardly ever is there a serious effort to justify it in the face of other opposing definitions.The psychic realities pointed to by other definitions are brushed aside as “not really love,” or “not worthy of the name love,” without a criterion established for what really is love or worthy to he called love and what is really a simulacrum of it.




It would be a misunderstanding of my meaning in the preceding remarks, if the reader thought I intended to deny value to the work of those to whom we all owe so much. On the contrary, I wish to show a great deal more respect to them than they frequently do to each other. For in almost every case I find that in their positive statements about what love is, they have given us at least some partially true insight into the total concrete experience, and that what they build on that positively in their treatment of other questions, does have value. The total concrete experience has many elements; and to have light thrown on this or that element, even when it gets out of perspective or is mistaken for the central element, is truly a gain. It is hardly to be thought that the many sensitive and intelligent writers who have given us their observations and thinking on love were all missing the reality of love altogether and merely spinning out nonsense. I am only pointing out that most of what they say does not pertain to the particular question taken up in this book and that what does pertain to it is for the most part asserted without serious effort to justify it in the face of many conflicting views —that, therefore, an important task remains to be done.




It would also be a misunderstanding if readers thought I expected them to take my word for the preceding large assertions about the history of writings on love.These assertions are made in order to explain what I mean when say it is difficult to find even a handful of authors who have taken up with philosophical seriousness the question of what human love is.Without a detailed, documented, historical study to back up my assertions, I could not expect to win anyone ’s assent.On the other hand,it is my hope that what I have said and what is to be said in the historical chapters of this book may give pause to any hasty assumption that the question being dealt with here has already been adequately answered by many others.



There are those who say that if in asking what love is, I am looking for a description or definition of what is essential to every love, then I am embarked on a hopeless quest. I must fail as everyone else must fail for the very good reason that there is no such thing as the essence of love.They see all the diversity of notions about love as unavoidable. Thus, Douglas Morgan, in his excellent historical study of love in Plato, the Bible, and Freud, will have no part in searching for the essence of love.




It is finally in order here to disavow any intention of expounding the “real meaning ” or “essence ” of love.. There is no such thing. Love is, as the currently fashionable phrase has it, an “open concept.” If we are to be satisfied with only a unique,, universally applicable, all-time definition of “love,” we may as well not even enter upon our adventure (Morgan 1964,3). Carried to an extreme,to which I have no reason for thinking Mr. Morgan would want to carry it,this way of thinking ends in a nominalistic view.It is this way of thinking that Ortega y Gasset repudiates:



Clearly, it would be much more simple and convenient to think that love has infinite forms, that it is different in each case, etc. I hope always to remain aloof from the intellectual abasement which elicits this way of thinking and flatters inert minds so greatly. The ultimate mission of the intellect will always be to search for the “essence,” that is to say,, the unique mode of being of each reality (Ortega y Gasset 1957,196,n.5).



Some who agree with Ortega ’s antinominalistic attitude and even disagree with Morgan, nevertheless speak of two or more irreducible “loves,” each of them descriptively definable. The implication of this position is that there is no answer to the question, what is human love? The question has to be qualified: what is eroslove and agape love (Nygren 1953)? What is gift-love and need-love and appreciative love? (Lewis 1960,ch.1-2,esp.11-14,32-33; lest there be any
misunderstanding, the “four loves ” in the title of the book do not refer to four irreducible loves or elements in love but to three of these Lewis found combined in various ways in the four loves to which the title refers.) What is benevolent love, appetitive love, adoring love? (Benoît 1955; esp.ch.1 and 8; there is some indication that Benoît thinks of a common element in benevolent and appetitive lose which is not common to adoring love.)



In response to Morgan,it may fairly be required that before adopting such a position as he does we first examine experience to see whether in those experiences called love we do not find certain essential elements,structured in certain constant ways. I do not find that he or anyone else has done this and arrived at his conclusion. And in response to him and to those who hold several irreducible loves, we may fairly require that, before adopting such positions, an examination of experience be made to see whether there is not one radical element which is a necessary constant in all love and, if there is, whether there is not some common aspect in experiences generally called love which justifies a general concept of love. To my knowledge none of those who give us too or three irreducible forms of love have ever done this.



Assuming that the reader will grant tentatively the legitimacy of asking and trying to answer the question, what is human love, let me indicate how I intend to proceed. There are two main steps or parts. The first of these is a dialectical survey of opinions about what love is. The second is a reflection on the concrete experience of love. It might be thought, on the basis of what has already been said, that the principal or even sole reason for the first part is to show the confused state of thought on the nature of love and so to exhibit the need for what is to be done in the second part. If that were so, the historical material would be treated in a different way than it is, with many more authors included and a much less thorough discussion of any one of them. It is true that the first part is calculated to serve what might be called a negative purpose, showing that the question has not yet been adequately answered; but it has also and more important a positive function.To go directly to experience without any help from others who have done so and to achieve any accurate and deep descriptive analysis is far more difficult than might be imagined by one who has not tried it. The successes and the failures of others are of greatest importance —even when what has been said is only an assertion which is not established by any careful description nor defended against opposing views.What the most intelligent,sensitive
minds have seen in the experience of love can give us important leads. The consequences of their observations within their own thought and the conflicts between different views can enable us to take these leads critically. And, since the concrete experience of human love is a manifold of many elements, we may find hidden in an apparent jumble of opinions precious materials that can be clarified, made more precise, and related to one another in such a way as to help form an accurate description of what is in the full concrete experience.





The first part, the survey of opinions, is, therefore, undertaken primarily because of its positive value for the second part; and its scope is measured with that in mind. It does not pretend to be a thorough canvass of opinions nor a history of thought on love. The content is quite frankly and obviously selective, chosen and arranged with a view to the second part. Thus,there is a grouping of the many notions of love in such a way as to limit the confusion, to indicate the several main lines of thought along which opinions tend to converge, and to relate these dialectically rather than chronologically.



Attention should be called to certain consequences of the limited aim in the first part. Some famous contributors to the history of thought on love will not receive the attention the reader might expect if the aim of this study were broader in scope. For instance; those who have focused their study of love on some qualified form or forms enter our discussion only indirectly (e.g., Charles Williams on romantic love and Anders Nygren on agape and eros). Further, when an author is mentioned as presenting some notion of love in a certain book, I do not imply that this is the only definition of love. Authors may change their opinions over the years or may even within a single piece of writing at one time of life have worked with several notions of love, which notions may be compatible and complementary or may be incompatible and in tension within their thought. One and the same author, therefore, may appear under more than one heading. Thirdly, the notion of love chosen for our purposes when taken out of its full context will usually lose something of its complete and nuanced meaning Nevertheless, what remains will be accurate and sufficient for our purpose. That purpose is not to offer a fully balanced and adequate picture of any individual ’s thought on love. I am aware and want to insist that the reader be aware that the full meaning of any author ’s formula can only be fairly understood in its context. At the same time, I do not think I am distorting anyone ’s opinion: an inadequate presentation can be but need not be a misreading one unless it is presented as adequate. Finally, in this survey, no evaluation of the author ’s views is intended. The criticism which one author makes of another is sometimes necessary in order to bring out one ’s own thought and to highlight the conflicts which do exist. But, while drawing up a picture of the situation within which we will begin to rethink the whole question of love ’s nature, I wish myself to remain strictly expository. It may be necessary to criticize one author ’s understanding of the other in order to make the latter ’s view clear
and accurate. But in presenting each author ’s own notion of love, I shall try to maintain myself in the position of expositor until I begin the second part of the book, the direct study of experience. Here disagreement with the opinions presented in the survey will inevitably arise.




The second part is, then,the principal part of this book. It is an attempt to answer the question, what is love, by a methodic reflection on the experience of love, bringing the main conscious constituents of the total experience into the focus of attention, noting their interrelations, discerning what is radical among them, and making a descriptive analysis of the various aspects of that radical element. In doing this,full account will be taken of the main ways of thinking about love as these have appeared in the survey of part one, offering a reasoned evaluation and criticism.



The two parts taken together should provide what I mean by a response which takes with full philosophical seriousness the question, what is human love? Should you, the reader, not find the content of my answer to that question acceptable, you may nevertheless agree that there is a task still to be done, a task that can be done; and you may find in this effort some indication of how it is to be done.