From Plato and Aristotle and on to the present, many great
philosophers have dealt with the nature of love, which is the most
central and profound act of the person. Particularly the philosophy
of the twentieth century excelled in this regard, most often
inspired by the methods of essential (eidetic) analysis developed
and practiced by phenomenology, particularly by realist
phenomenology as represented by Max Scheler, by Dietrich von
Hildebrand, whose masterwork, The Nature of Love (St. Augustine's
Press, 2009), was recently published in an excellent English
translation, and by Karol Wojtyia in his profound analysis of love
in Love and Responsibility and in Man and Woman He Created Them: A
Theology of the Body (1987 in Italian, 2006 in a recent
translation). One of the key topics of a philosophy of love regards
the question whether love is a self-centered act in the service of
what Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas regarded as the supreme goal of
human life, happiness, to which the beloved person and love would
be means, or whether true love is verily an other-centered and
other-directed act motivated by the intrinsic value of a person,
such that love can truly be called a "value response" - a response
to the beloved person for her own sake. According to this last
understanding of true love defended in the present work, any
hedonistic interpretation of love as springing from a mere desire
for pleasure, and also any eudemonistic interpretation of love
according to which love would be a mere means to true
self-fulfillment and happiness, turn out to be serious
misunderstandings of true love. Instead, happiness, however
ardently desired by man, is a superabundant fruit of a true love
that first turns to the beloved person for her own sake (propter
seipsam), and only through a sincere self-donation can reach
authentic happiness. The book answers many objections that have
been and could be raised against this central thesis about the
self-giving and value responding gesture of true love, for example
some profound objections raised by Nygren and by Josef Pieper. The
book shows the multiple and complex mysterious root of that value
and intrinsic goodness of the person that motivates love. He shows
that the genuinely self-transcending and self-sacrificing gesture
of love is fully compatible with a motivating role, but only with a
subordinated and co-motivating role, of happiness in love, while
happiness always remains principally and primarily a fruit of true
love and self-donation, rather than its motive.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
