Thinking About Love: Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Published by Penn State University Press 2015

Thinking About Love

Essays in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Edited by: Diane Enns and Antonio Calcagno

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271076188

Overview
Contents

About this book

Does love command an ineffability that remains inaccessible to the philosopher?

Thinking About Love considers the nature and experience of love through the writing of well-known Continental philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Derrida, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Evolving forms of social organization, rapid developments in the field of psychology, and novel variations on relationships demand new approaches to and ways of talking about love. Rather than offering prescriptive claims, this volume explores how one might think about the concept philosophically, without attempting to resolve or alleviate its ambiguities, paradoxes, and limitations. The essays focus on the contradictions and limits of love, manifested in such phenomena as trust, abuse, grief, death, violence, politics, and desire.

An erudite examination of the many facets of love, this book fills a lacuna in the philosophy of this richly complicated topic.

Along with the editors, the contributors are Sophie Bourgault, John Caruana, Christina M. Gschwandtner, Marguerite La Caze, Alphonso Lingis, Christian Lotz, Todd May, Dawne McCance, Dorothea Olkowski, Felix Ó Murchadha, Fiona Utley, and Mélanie Walton.

Author / Editor information

Enns Diane :

Diane Enns is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University and the author of Speaking of Freedom and The Violence of Victimhood, the last also published by Penn State.Calcagno Antonio :

Antonio Calcagno is Professor of Philosophy at King’s University College at Western University. His most recent book is Contemporary Italian Political Philosophy.

Reviews

“This collection opens up an overdue discussion of the intersections of love and thinking within the continental tradition.”
—Helen A. Fielding, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

“The editors of this inspiring new collection rightly contend that the question of love is woefully under-treated in contemporary Continental philosophy. This failure has impoverished both philosophy and contemporary life, making this volume a timely and much-needed intervention as well as a cause for gratitude.”
—Jason M. Wirth, author of Commiserating with Devastated Things: Milan Kundera and the Entitlements of Thinking

“The contributors—scholars from Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US—offer insightful examinations of love, in its romantic/erotic, kenotic, friendship, and agapic forms. . . . A worthy foray into a topic of universal human experience, this collection will awaken readers to the value of what philosophy today says about love.”
—S. Young, Choice

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Thinking About Love: An Introduction Diane Enns and Antonio Calcagno Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Human Vulnerability and the Limits of Love
1 Love and Death Todd May Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2 Love’s Limit Diane Enns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
3 The Subject in Crisis: Kristeva on Love, Faith, and Nihilism John Caruana Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
Part II Love, Desire, and the Divine
4 The Phenomenon of Kenotic Love in Continental Philosophy of Religion Christina M. Gschwandtner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
5 Love’s Conditions: Passion and the Practice of Philosophy Felix Ó Murchadha Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
6 What Can Love Say? Lyotard on Caritas and Eros Mélanie Walton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
7 Finding a Place for Desire in the Life of the Mind: Arendt and Augustine Antonio Calcagno Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
Part III Love and Politics
8 Against Essentialist Conceptions of Love: Toward a Social-Material Theory Christian Lotz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
9 Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on the Significance of Love for Politics Sophie Bourgault Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Part IV The Phenomenological Experience of Love
10 Trust and the Experience of Love Fiona Utley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
11 The Time of Possible and Impossible Reciprocity: Love and Hate in Simone de Beauvoir Marguerite La Caze Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
12 Intentionality and the Neuroscience of Love Dorothea Olkowski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Part V Love Stories
13 Love Is Blind: Jacques Derrida Dawne McCance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
14 The Babies in Trees Alphonso Lingis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 272
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 3
- Images: 3
- Other: 3 illustrations
Keywords: love; essays; philosophy; Enns; Calcagno; experience; nature; Continental philosophers; Hannah Arendt; Simone de Beauvoir; Jacques Derrida; Maurice Merleau-Ponty; relationships; Sophie Bourgault; John Caruana; Christina M. Gschwandtner; Marguerite La Caze; Alphonso Lingis; Christian Lotz; Todd May; Dawne McCance; Dorothea Olkowski; Felix Ó Murchadha; Fiona Utley; Mélanie Walton

eBook

Published: November 10, 2015
ISBN: 9780271076188