Philosophy
To recognize its 50th anniversary last week and Valentine's Day today, at noon by the mayor's proclamation, everyone in San Francisco will sing along with Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." A fitting tribute from the city that gave us the summer of love (I was born three months earlier in the lesser-known springtime of foreplay).
In the summer of '68 there was a lot of use of the term "love" in many different contexts and what day would be more appropriate to think about what the word means? Is love an emotion? Sitting in a room by myself, I could be angry, happy, or bored. Emotions require only a single being to experience them. Could a solitary person feel love independent of the world around him or her? Or is it a relation? Does it require a lover and a beloved and describe the not aways symmetrical relation between them? Is it a stance towards the world, as in "she's just a person full of love." Or is it something independent of people feeling it? If no one loved, could there still be love? "There's a lot of love in this room," one might reasonably say even if no one in the room was in love with anyone else in the room.
So, what is love? Maybe Tony Bennett would help:
- Pressing Your Love Button
We had a student present a senior thesis on reductionism in philosophy of mind and the love button example came up. TheWife and I went to a showing a couple weeks back of a Bangladeshi artist who has moved to the area. Very nice work in a wide variety...
- True Love Vs. Romantic Love
Great quotation today from Margaret Anderson, "In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."So, is there a distinction to made between real love and romantic love?...
- Is All Love Sweet?
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Barack Obama and Louis Armstrong (interesting coincidence), but also Percy Shelley. Shelley wrote All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who...
- Unconditional Love
For some reason, I?ve been thinking about the concept of unconditional love lately. Thinking, that is, about whether such love is desirable, about whether I would want to be loved unconditionally. The answer I?ve come to is this: ?hell no!? For those...
- William Shakespeare...if You Are Lost For Words Of Affection
Don't know what to say to the significant other on Valentine's Day?...well, borrow from the bard. "They do not love that do not show their love." "The course of true love never did run smooth." "So long as I can breathe or I can see so long...
Philosophy
What Is Love?
To recognize its 50th anniversary last week and Valentine's Day today, at noon by the mayor's proclamation, everyone in San Francisco will sing along with Tony Bennett's "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." A fitting tribute from the city that gave us the summer of love (I was born three months earlier in the lesser-known springtime of foreplay).
In the summer of '68 there was a lot of use of the term "love" in many different contexts and what day would be more appropriate to think about what the word means? Is love an emotion? Sitting in a room by myself, I could be angry, happy, or bored. Emotions require only a single being to experience them. Could a solitary person feel love independent of the world around him or her? Or is it a relation? Does it require a lover and a beloved and describe the not aways symmetrical relation between them? Is it a stance towards the world, as in "she's just a person full of love." Or is it something independent of people feeling it? If no one loved, could there still be love? "There's a lot of love in this room," one might reasonably say even if no one in the room was in love with anyone else in the room.
So, what is love? Maybe Tony Bennett would help:
- Pressing Your Love Button
We had a student present a senior thesis on reductionism in philosophy of mind and the love button example came up. TheWife and I went to a showing a couple weeks back of a Bangladeshi artist who has moved to the area. Very nice work in a wide variety...
- True Love Vs. Romantic Love
Great quotation today from Margaret Anderson, "In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."So, is there a distinction to made between real love and romantic love?...
- Is All Love Sweet?
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Barack Obama and Louis Armstrong (interesting coincidence), but also Percy Shelley. Shelley wrote All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. They who...
- Unconditional Love
For some reason, I?ve been thinking about the concept of unconditional love lately. Thinking, that is, about whether such love is desirable, about whether I would want to be loved unconditionally. The answer I?ve come to is this: ?hell no!? For those...
- William Shakespeare...if You Are Lost For Words Of Affection
Don't know what to say to the significant other on Valentine's Day?...well, borrow from the bard. "They do not love that do not show their love." "The course of true love never did run smooth." "So long as I can breathe or I can see so long...