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For Max Scheler, there is no such thing as falling out of love or before I
love him/her, but now no more.
I love him that cant live without him parasitism. M. Scott Peck
Love is a spontaneous act and a movement whereas feeling is passive, or receptive and
active. Max Scheler.
People can become addicted to the other person in the same way they become addicted
to drugs.
Dr. Stanton Peele
Love is not an addiction
o In love, the one being-loved cannot be likened to a drug wherein after a
while, the one loving reaches a level of tolerance and eventually withdraws to
the world.
The heart has its own reason which reason itself does not know. Blaise Pascal
Love is not relative to the polar co-ordinates of myself and the other.
o One can love genuinely (different from egoism). The object of egoism is not
my individual self, behaving as if I were alone in the world, but myself in
competition with others.
Love is union under the condition of preserving ones integrity, ones individuality. Love is
an active power in man, a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from
his fellowmen, which unites him with others, love makes him overcome the sense of
isolation and separateness, yet, it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love
the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
Erich Fromm
Love and Loneliness
The following concepts are excerpts from A Phenomenology of Love by William Lujpen
I want you to become what you want to be. I want you to realize your happiness freely.
his qualities); not an explicit request coming from the other (could be but it is
a sign of a deeper appeal; not also pity); the appeal of the other is himself, a
call to participate in his subjectivity, to be with and for him.
The appropriate response to the appeal is Myself. As a subjectivity, the
other person is free to give meaning to his life. His appeal means an
invitation to will his subjectivity, to consent, accept, support and share his
freedom.
Love means willing the others self-realization, destiny and
happiness.
To love the other is to labour for that love, to care for his body (embodied subjectivity), his
world, his total well-being.
Reciprocity of Love
o The gift of myself to the other must be first valuable to myself (despise
myself throwing myself, not giving)
o Love of self takes the form of being-loved (loved first by my parents)
o The primary motive of loving is you you-for-whom-I-care
Creativity of Love
o In love, a being-togetherness, a we is created; a new world
Union in Love
o The I does not assimilate the you or vice versa. The I becomes more an
I, the you an other. We become more of ourselves by loving each
other.
Love is essentially a disinterested giving of myself to the other as other; it is not giving up.
Love is Historical
o Love is historical because the other who is the point at issue in love is a
concrete particular person. Love involves no abstraction (humanity,
mankind); everything in love is concrete.
o The concrete other is not an ideal person but a unique being with all its
strengths and weaknesses. I love you because I want to improve you. To
love is to love the other historically.
Equality in Love
o Love between two persons can thrive and grow in freedom. Love is a
liberation; not a bondage.
o Equality between two persons in love is the equality in what they are, as
subjects, as freedom and not in what they have. The great thing in
friendship is being equal to an inferior. Cicero
Love implies immortality. I shall commit myself to you, in sickness and in health, for
richer or for poorer till death do us part.
Eros human physical or sexual love (bodily); desire for an object; acquisitive and
longing; egocentric love; not spontaneous but evoked and motivated; recognizes
value in its object
Agape divine cognitive or spiritual love (rational); commitment for the others
sake; sacrificial giving; unselfish love; spontaneous, overflowing and unmotivated;
creates value in its object
Pope Benedict XVI if body and soul cannot be separated in man, then eros
(physicality) and agape (spirituality) cannot also be separated. It is neither
the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, the
unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves.
What love IS
Characteristics of Love
Love is an Encounter
o Encounter means that you and I joined together to generate
something new. We travel in bus, we are very close with other people but
we dont encounter them.
o The loving encounter always presupposes the appeal of the other to ones
subjectivity. A call goes out from him; this call embodied in a word, gesture, a
glance or a request. It is a request or a plea which Marcel beautifully
expresses thus, Be with me.
o Basically love is a call which is addressed to a human persons being-withothers to be possessed, not to possess, to be needed; not to need; to be
owned and not to own. Love is really appealing. Love calls the human person
to be with others. Love, therefore can never be dislodged from its beingothers oriented. This other-orientedness of love should start from the self.
This could be the reason why Antoine de Saint- Exupery, a French
philosopher says, love is the process of my leading you gently back
to yourself.
Love is a Gift
o Love is not just a simple act of giving but the highest form of giving for it
gives nothing else but the self. This is to say that the lover experiences
self-dying for the sake of the beloved. Self-giving in the name of love, is
made manifest particularly in marriage. In this light, if one seeks to be loved,
he has to give love first.
o Love as gift is something to be given or to be shared; refers to the self of
the giver, material gifts are extension of the giver; not bounded with
conditions
Unconditional love says John Powell is a love without limits
We are lovable on the basis of being rather than of doing; on the
values we are rather than on the values we do or we have.
Love does not even desire to change the beloved. Max
Scheler
Love is an art that requires patience, confidence, discipline, concentration, faith and
practice daily.
Erich Fromm
Love is Mature
o Mature is the agreement between the way one lives and ones true nature.
o Three Myths or Error Of Maturity
Conceive maturity as invulnerability cannot be wounded or
affected
As infallibility free from error
As inflexibility permanent state or seriousness
o Maturity does not mean perfection. We can never expect a perfect
partner but each is still a perfect-able- partner.
Love is Discipline
o Love is a dynamic or a learning process
o The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous life is based
on self-control.
Love is Empowerment
o Power is significant to relationships where the partners are seeking to control
each others behavior.
o To love is to empower; it is not just a question of doing things for others but
of helping them to do things for themselves.
The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe
from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell. C.S. Lewis
Love is mutual
o To love someone, or a community of persons in general is a gamble. The
gamble here lies with the very risk of loving. To love is not an assurance of
being loved in return. Love does not necessarily mean an imposition to the
beloved for love cannot be imposed; it is a gift which is freely given.
However, when two hearts meet, the heart of the I and the heart of the
Thou, there love gets mutualized.
Love is mysterious
o Despite the many characteristics of love mentioned above, we may still,
somehow, claim that love can never be captured in capsulized
characterizations. So, we may further say that it cannot be analyzed and
dissected into components.
References:
Babor, Eddie R. The Human Person: Not Real, But Existing, Second Edition. Philippines: C & E
Publishing, Inc. 2007.
Hinacay, Marionito L. and Maria Belen S.E. Hinacay. The Human Person, 2006 Maiden Edition.
Philippines: Vitasophia Book Center, 2006.
Max Schelers Phenomenology of Love by Manuel B. Dy, Jr.