Between I and thou

on the dialogical nature of love

Angelika Krebs

pp. 7-24

in: Christian Maurer, Tony Milligan, Kamila Pacovská (eds), Love and its objects, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

What is the nature of love? Why is love so precious? Why would happy women and men wish to spend their lives without partners or close friends? One popular answer to these questions is that loving somebody means rejoicing in their joy, suffering on account of their suffering, and doing whatever you can to promote their good life. In loving somebody you reach out to the world. Valuing the flourishing of beings, or even things and ideas, other than yourself gives meaning to your life. The purest form of love is selfless maternal love. Call this the curative model of love. According to this model, love is opposed to egoism. The curative model constitutes the major paradigm in the philosophy of love. It can be traced back to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Some contemporary proponents are Lawrence Blum, Harry Frankfurt, and Hugh LaFollette.

Cited authors

Aristoteles

Frankfurt Harry