The Philosophy of Love - Part 1

A Straits Times reader e-mailed me recently, suggesting that I make my website more informative, perhaps by posting some of my past articles.

It sounded like a good idea. So I've decided to post, here on my blog, a series on The Philosophy of Love that I wrote for The Straits Times about three years ago.

I'll post one article a week for the next eight weeks, which means I'll be able to update my blog regularly even though I'm up to my neck researching and writing my latest book.

Anyway, here goes. Hope you like the series...

LOVE 01: MADE FOR EACH OTHER

"When a... person... meets that very person who is his other half, he is overwhelmed... with affection, concern and love. The two don't want to spend any time apart." (Aristophanes, from Plato's Symposium)

Earlier this year, I wrote a series of articles about happiness. In this second series, I will consider a subject that is just as important: love. Once again, I will be drawing upon the wisdom of some of history's greatest thinkers.

I will begin by considering the Symposium - one of the best-loved works by one of the undisputed giants of philosophy, Plato (427-347BC).

The Myth of Aristophanes

The Symposium takes the form of a dialogue - a play, of sorts. The setting is a drinking-party in Athens where guests take turns making speeches in praise of Eros, the god of love. There are six speeches in all, each giving a different perspective on love. The most celebrated is the Speech of Aristophanes.

Long ago, says Aristophanes, the human race was very different than it is today. Each person was shaped like a ball: with two rounded backs, four arms, four legs, two sets of genitals and two heads.

Back then, humans were powerful and proud. So much so that they attempted to overthrow the gods. As a punishment, Zeus sliced each of them in half, making the kind of individuals we see today.

What we now experience as erotic love is really the desire to be reunited with our other halves and made whole again: "[The] human race can only achieve happiness if love reaches its conclusion, and each of us finds his loved one and restores his original nature."

Plato didn't intend us to take Aristophanes' speech too seriously. The historical Aristophanes was a comic poet whom Plato despised. In the Symposium, Plato's own views about love are represented by the character Socrates.

But despite this, it is Aristophanes' speech that receives the greatest acclaim, and which has most influenced our contemporary notions of romantic love.

The Myth of Aristophanes finds its contemporary expression in the concept of the soul-mate. A soul-mate is someone who is made for us, accepts us just as we are, and somehow makes us complete.

Modern myths

It's a beautiful and romantic idea, and one that strikes a chord deep within. Many of our best-loved stories are built upon this notion.

Take Ross and Rachel from the US television series, Friends. How relieved we are when, in the final episode, they finally accept what we have known all along - that they belong together. We know that they'll live happily ever after because... well, because their love is 'meant to be'.

Or consider the movie, Bridget Jones's Diary. The heroine, Bridget is a mass of anxieties and neuroses. But salvation is at hand in the form of human-rights lawyer, Mark Darcy.

"I like you very much," says Darcy.

"Ah - apart from the smoking and the drinkingthe vulgar mother and the verbal diarrhoea....?" Bridget replies.

"No," insists Darcy. "I like you very much. Just as your are."

After this, we know that Bridget has found true love - the kind of love we dream of and long for. Her life will surely be transformed.

The cold, hard truth.

Sentiment aside, we know that love isn't quite so simple.

If Ross's and Rachel's past is anything to go by, their future together will have its share of conflict and heartache. And anyone who's seen the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary will know that Bridget's anxieties and neuroses don't simply melt away in the warmth of Darcy's embrace. These stories are wonderful entertainment, but they have little to do with love - real love, that is.

There are some things that we may reasonably expect from a romantic partner: passion, excitement, companionship, and perhaps even marriage and children. But it is foolish to expect salvation.

Psychologist R. J. Sternberg sums it up neatly: "Some people seek salvation in love, much as other people do in religion, hoping to find in another the perfection they cannot find in themselves... But eventually disillusionment is almost certain to set in. They discover two facts. First, the other person has flaws... Second, no other human can save them - not even the love of their life." (From his book, Cupid's Arrow: the Course of Love Through Time)

The power of love

This is not to say that I am sceptical about love. On the contrary, I agree with the French philosopher, Andre Comte-Sponville: "Our lives - private and public, domestic and professional - have value only in proportion to the love we intest in them and find in them."

Focussing our love on any one individual is a recipe for disaster, but fortunately there are many kinds of love, and many legitimate objects of love. We can love friends, family, neighbours, sexual partners, ourselves - and perhaps even our enemies.

Over the coming weeks I will consider the many varieties of love from the perspective of some first-rate thinkers. Hopefully their insights will lead to a clearer understanding of both the perils and the promise of love.