Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

This volume features original essays on the philosophy of love. The essays are organized thematically around the past, present, and future of philosophical thinking about love.

In Part I, the contributors explore what we can learn from the history of philosophical thinking about love. The chapters cover Ancient Greek thinkers, namely Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kierkegaard’s critique of preferential love and Erich Fromm’s mystic interpretation of sexual relations. Part II covers current conceptions and practices of love. These chapters explore how love changes over time, the process of falling in love, the erotic dimension of romantic love, and a new interpretation of grand-parental love. Finally, Part III looks at the future of love. These chapters address technological developments related to love, such as algorithm-driven dating apps and robotic companions, as well as the potential of polyamory as a future romantic ideal.

This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in moral philosophy and social and political philosophy who are working on issues related to the philosophy of love.

André Grahle is Assistant Professor in philosophy at LMU Munich. Before that he was a post-doc at the University of Osnabrück. He received his Ph.D. from the University of St Andrews in 2014. His work centres around questions of political and social philosophy, as well as topics in the ethics of emotions, ideals and relationships.

Natasha McKeever is a Lecturer in Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Sheffield in 2014, which she wrote on the topic of romantic love and monogamy. Her research interests are primarily in the philosophy of love and sex, and she has published articles on topics including: rape, asexuality, prostitution, romantic love, sexual infidelity, and sexual exclusivity. She is currently co-editing the forthcoming anthology with Raja Halwani and Jacob Held: The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 8th edition.

Joe Saunders is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. He works on ethics and agency in Kant and the post-Kantian tradition, the philosophy of love and media ethics.