The difficulty in explaining one's love for another person in the 'in love' sense is rivaled only by trying to write about it. I think there is a strange infinity to such love, involving endlessly falling, a complete surrender of the self, where even language seems to become superfluous, giving the poets an uphill struggle to produce something credible. But who needs language when you have the complete understanding and empathy of another? Yet these moments of 'infinity' are anything but infinite. And when love goes, it happens quick, it happens hard, and it seems to abscond with a large part of ourselves. Loving others, loving oneself, even loving symbols and ideology, are enough to keep people tingling with purpose and buzzing with meaning. So we can see that, whatever love is, it has to be the strongest motivator, the most authoritative enabler, and the commonest of common denominators for all human behavior. With love, we would die to protect it. Without love, we would die to find it. Love is riddled with these paradoxes.
I've deliberately framed love in this way because I think this recognition of its paradoxical nature is integral to understanding relationships that are often perplexing to those on the outside. We have all come across couples that have left us wondering how they could possibly still be together. What is the elusive factor that makes these people put up with each other, even as they seem to delight in tearing each other apart?
Denne historien er fra October/November 2023-utgaven av Philosophy Now.
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Denne historien er fra October/November 2023-utgaven av Philosophy Now.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.