The Science and Philosophy of Love

Why do we love? Is love inevitably a foolhardy endeavour? Or does it lead to a knowledge of reality beyond reason?

In this discussion, Robert Rowland Smith and Mark Vernon discuss the ideas of Freud and Lacan, Bowlby and Winnicott, who had differing ideas about the nature of love and where it leads.

Is love the idealisation of another, which inevitably leads to frustration and loss? Is love the realisation of a wider reality which, without it, we would neither feel drawn to or be prepared to know?

And why are love and suffering so intimately linked, so that strangely it promises our greatest fulfilment and worst fears?

For more on Robert - https://www.robertrowlandsmith.com
For more on Mark - https://www.markvernon.com