Love is Yes to live

WHAT IS LOVE? - string initiated by Laura Capogna

Laura Capogna 12 January 2015

To me, this is a fundamental question, as a human being and as a philosopher. So, this string of reflections is an invitation to give your own answer.

2. Love is "Yes" to life

Laura Capogna 30 January 2015

Of course, many philosophers talk about love and say many things about it: what distinguishes love from other emotions (but, is love just an emotion?), what are the main characteri...

3. The Mystery of Love

Laura Capogna 06 February 2015

Saying yes to life”, then, is not just an attitude. It's an experience, an intimate experience, which involves feelings, sensations, state of mind, mood; it's a way of perceiving a...

4. Loving and liking

Michele Zese 10 February 2015

“Our reason is forced to arrange the means according to the goals”, says Simone Weil in one of her small aphorisms. On the other hand, “love should not make any difference”, she co...

5. To live in order to love

Laura Capogna 12 February 2015

Finally, let me state this: for me, all human emotions/attitudes are “just human”. I mean: no divine or demonic intervention is needed to explain them.

6. Love in Philosophical Counseling

Stefano Zampieri 12 March 2015

The complex dynamics of a relationship in a couple is probably one of the most recurring issues brought up by a guest in a philosophical counselling. So, it is quite frequent to de...

7. Love as Theme and Melody: Between Sublime and Beautiful

Manos Perrakis 20 March 2015

One of the most challenging topics in philosophical counseling is love. Love is more an emotion than a philosophical term. To speak about love is difficult – partly because of the ...

Friday, 30 January 2015 19:00

Written by Laura Capogna

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Of course, many philosophers talk about love and say many things about it: what distinguishes love from other emotions (but, is love just an emotion?), what are the main characteristics of love (but, can we grasp a whole from its parts?), what is the difference between true love and false love (but, can love be false?), which different kinds of love exist (but, can we distinguish kinds, in a thing we do not distinguish first?), the value of love (but fixing a value to something gives for granted, rather than explaining, defining this something) and so on.

Philosophers, as well as poets and novelists, can very beautifully and very differently talk about love. But, my point is: what do we grasp for real, behind and within the metaphors and the abstract reasoning their words evoke? Again: what human reality does the word “love” indicate?

So, giving words a try – and trying to make them sound philosophical enough, here is my attempt for an answer: love is a “yes” to life. A "yes" that must be lived, beyond words (which doesn't imply always in silence), in order to be "translated" into reality; a "yes" that must be shared with other human beings (and there are many ways of sharing), in order to be "translated" into something understandable. Passing from words to facts, from sentences to actions and reactions, if and when nothing gets "lost in translation" we have perfect love.

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Laura Capogna

I am a philosophical practitioner living and working in Rome. I am a member of Phronesis, the Italian Association for philosophical counselling (www.phronesis-cf.com).

I entered Phronesis (in 2011) for two reasons: to learn if and how it was possible to put philosophy into practice again, at the service of common people in everyday life, like Socrates and the ancient Greeks did; and to meet, and become part of a community of modern, living philosophers, with whom I could share, compare, and “put on trial” my vision of the world. I accepted Ran Lahav’s proposal to work on the Agora project for these same reasons.