Everyone wants love, but no one can tell you exactly what love is. In this episode, we deep dive into seven philosophical perspectives on love, ranging from the Ancient Greeks to the existentialists. If you’re curious whether Plato thought soulmates were real or Kierkegaard would tell you to text your ex, this episode is for you.
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00 Intro (the philosophy of love)
03:19 What even is love? (hypotheticals on love)
07:07 Ancient Greek philosophy on love
07:35 Origins of the concept of soulmates (Plato’s The Symposium)
09:03 Socrates’ ladder of love
13:03 Enlightenment thinkers on love
13:15 Love as social performance (Rousseau)
13:58 Rousseau’s two types of self love
15:22 How self love affects how you love others
17:31 The humanity formula (Kant)
19:49 Practical vs. passionate love (Kant)
22:07 Love as a trick (Schopenhauer)
24:04 Why do opposites attract? (Schopenhauer)
24:28 Is love just biological encouragement to reproduce? (Schopenhauer)
26:06 Existentialists on love
26:14 The tension between love and freedom of choice (Sartre)
27:50 Love as an objectifying force (Sartre)
30:32 Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s non-monogamous love story
31:40 The relationship between love and possession (de Beauvoir)
33:06 How your fear of being seen impacts your ability to give and receive love (Sartre, Doestoevsky, de Beauvoir)
36:54 Kierkegaard’s Works of Love
37:22 Unreasonable standards in love (Kierkegaard)
42:24 Lightning round recap
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Plato, The Symposium (c. 385–370 BCE)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)
- Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
- Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
- Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1818)
- Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit (1944)
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
- Gordon Marino, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide (2018)
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