Love: A Challenge for Philosophy

Abstract

Starting from the Freudian theory of love—as an illusion of something that love is not—the author develops an approach to love that owes a lot to Wittgenstein’s thought. He poses the problem of to what extent love can be altruistic without being reduced to a dynamic (whether Freudian drives or biological genes) that determines it. He proposes a fresh approach that draws love closer to ethics and aesthetics, insofar as it aims not at the beloved or desired object as such, but at the actual reality of the other. Love illustrates the human need for the real.