Romantic Love, a Philosophical Inquiry

Romantic love is subject to the same philosophical analysis, this book shows, as any other human experience such as selfhood, good and evil, or justice--even though most philosophers have neglected it. An appropriate method of inquiry here, the author holds, "must be an ontological theory; it must evaluate the reality of love in comparison to the other things we think are real."

Part I examines the layman's conception of romantic love as a "mysterious, unanalyzable feeling." It also examines the psychologist's conception of romantic love as "an unmysterious natural phenomenon"--a drive. Part II turns to the sociologist's conception of romantic love as a social institution--"an interpersonal transaction with a social function." Part III concludes that romantic love is an objective social process which society makes possible "by granting the individual a private inner being which escapes typification by being literally unspeakable."

Written with clarity, wit, and charm, Romantic Love will appeal to all intellectually curious readers including philosophers and social scientists.