The Forgotten Phenomenology of Love: Alexandra Gustafson

In this talk, I'll propose we start using love’s phenomenology as a test of the explanatory power of our current best views on love: as they are, can they account for this forgotten feature? As the first application of this procedure, I'll analyze a group of views I call relationship-directed attitude views. These argue that love is-at least partially-constituted by an attitude toward a relationship (such as judging it to be valuable). I'll argue, however, that the phenomenology of love can’t be successfully explained in terms of any relationship-directed attitude. This should prompt philosophers of love to think not only about the plausibility of describing love in relational terms, but also about the theoretical promise of love’s phenomenology.