Love and Cognition: The View from Ancient Greece – and Beyond
Journal Title: Acta Neuropsychologica - Year 2010, Vol 8, Issue 1
Abstract
The ancient Greek philosophers took a highly cognitive view of the emotions in general, and of love (philia) in particular. At the same time, they recognized that some kinds of attraction operated on the level of perception, and were not fully cognitive in nature: attraction or affection of this sort (called natural philia) is found in animals, which lack reason in the full sense of the word (as the Greeks understood it) as well as in human beings, whereas the emotion of love in the full sense of the term was regarded as being specific to human beings. In addition to philia (in both senses), the Greeks employed the term erôs to identify the sentiment erotic passion or “falling in love.” The relationship between philia and erôs, and in particular the connection of the latter term with cognition, has not been fully explored. In this paper, it is argued that erôs too entailed cognition, in the sense that it involved belief and not just perception, but that, unlike philia, it was conceived, at least in some quarters, as a consequence of false belief. It is thus a human sentiment, and does not pertain to animals (though of course they can experience sexual attraction). False beliefs give rise to a mistaken sense of what human nature requires, and this in turn is responsible for the obsessive character of erotic passion.
Authors and Affiliations
David Konstan
Keywords
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