Philosophies of Love

By David L. Norton

Book Overview

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822603764
• ISBN13: 9780822603764
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Diverse Readings on Love

This tome provides a wide variety of readings on love and philosophy. The editors believe that love is a profound measure of human life, and a person's philosophy of love permeates his or her philosophy of life. The text includes more than forty contributions, most of them classic essays with regard to love. "Developing a philosophy of life is not something we can relegate to others to do for us, like house building or plumbing repair, but something each of us must do for himself. There is no escaping it, each of us is required to be something of a philosopher" (1). The editors divide the book into six parts. Part one, titled "Romantic Love: Madness of a Normal Man," has eight readings on romantic love. The second part includes ten essays on eros. This section is titled, "Eros: Love As Aspiration toward the Ideal." Part three addresses agape love and is titled "Agape: The Divine Bestowal." The editors title the fourth section of the book "Tristanism and Chivalric Love." Part five deals with friendship love: "Friendship: `Because It Was He, Because It Was I'." The final section of the book is on love involving fellow feeling: "Fellow Feeling: Universal Bond of Humankind." Thomas Jay Oord

A well chosen selection of philosophical readings

I began reading this book as a textbook when in one of Professor Norton's classes at the University of Delaware, and have repeatedly revisitied it and loaned it over the years. I found it to be a fantastic introduction to the styles of some of the most renowned philosophers. It's a good blend of "light" philosophical reading and diverse points of view on the types of love.