We explain what it is to love, the different types of love and differences with loving. Also, how it is understood from different disciplines.
What is love?
Love is the supreme feeling that one person may experience towards someone. Loving is not just about affinity or chemistry between two people, love is feeling I respect, connection and Liberty by being together with another person.
Love is a non-material, spiritual union. It is not only about physical demonstrations, but affective, emotional. Love implies having towards the neighbor attitudes of understanding, respect, tenderness and commitment.
See also:Infatuation
Types of love
There are different types of loves: the love offamily, the love you have for a pet, your friends, the love of a couple. Many of these types of loves are usually present throughout thelife of every person.
There are those who affirm that love and affection are needed to live, since people are social beings and it is proven that without affection it is difficult to live and develop.
Loving someone implies doing things and having disinterested gestures towards that person such as:
- Help her / him progress.
- Encourage him / her in sad moments.
- Help him / her take decisions.
- Be present in the good and bad moments of your life.
Love and love
Loving and wanting are two different terms that refer to a certain feeling. There are various interpretations when detailing the difference between the two terms.
On the one hand, it is believed that the difference between both concepts occurs in the plane of language. This theory ensures that both terms: "love" and "want", speak of love, but that one or the other is used according to the type of love that is being talked about. The term love is used in relation to the love of a couple, and loving relationships of friendship or relatives.
However, there is another approach that affirms that loving is a deeper feeling than wanting. In this case, it defines love as a disinterested feeling that only seeks the good of the neighbor without conditions and that is formed by ties that are built with him. weather.
On the other hand, he defines wanting as a personal desire to satisfy a certain need. This theory affirms that wanting implies expectations and conditions regarding the other and refers to a form of affect related to possession.
Perspectives on love
The term "love" encompasses multiple interpretations and is studied from various points of view, disciplines Y Sciences.
From the religions
In the main religions (especially monotheistic ones) a God is usually erected as the highest figure of love.
Judaism and Christianity have love as the basis of their creed. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" and "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all things" are two of the most important mandates of the Jewish and Christian religion. Both postulates summarize the vision that these religions have about the love of neighbor and God.
For Christianity, the main source of love is God. Various apostles and saints in their letters or writings described love as the axis on which the human relations. In the words of Saint Augustine: "Love and do what you want."
From the philosophy
The concept of love is a term that has awakened various interpretations in philosophy throughout the history. Some of the most widespread definitions are:
- Plato (427-347 BC). He developed his concept of love in his works "El banquete" and "Fedro". For Plato, love is the impulse that seeks to go beyond the material and access beauty.
- Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). For this philosopher all feelings derived from desire. Define love as joy accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). German philosopher, he described absolute love as "the self that is reflected in another different being."
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). For this philosopher, romantic love is that inclination towards someone who is born by sexual instinct.
- Jorge Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). Spanish philosopher and essayist, characterized love in his book "Studies on love." There he developed topics such as the reasons for love and the difference between love and desire.
- Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017). Polish philosopher and sociologist, he introduced the concept of "liquid love" and defined it as that which governs the type of interpersonal relationships (romantic love or not) that develop in postmodernity. For Bauman, liquid love is based on a individualism and generates relationships fleeting, superficial and with little commitment.
From psychology
The different schools and currents of the psychology they have defined and characterized love in different ways.
One of the most widespread theories was developed by the American psychologist Robert Sternberg. He described the seven forms of love that every person can experience during their lifetime: affection, social love, empty love, foolish love, infatuation, romantic love, and consummate love. Some of them are more related to couple ties, others to ties between friends or family.
Sternberg characterized the different types of love within the "triangular theory of love" and detailed the three components that constitute them: intimacy, commitment and passion.
The different combinations that occur between these three components is what allows differentiating the different types of love. While in sociable love we can find intimacy and commitment; in consummate love all three components are found.
On the other hand, the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote his work "The Art of Loving" in 1959. There he describes love as an art that, as such, must be known to possess it. Fromm studies all forms of love: brotherly love, love of self, love of partner, love of father and mother, love of God.
For him, the qualities of a mature love are: caring, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
From biology
Throughout many years of research, the biology has found a relationship between love and the levels of certain hormones produced by the brain, such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin.
One of the leading scholars of the experience Of romantic love on a scientific level is Helen Fisher, who classifies the process of love in three stages: lust, attraction and attachment. In each of them, Fisher describes a different mental process in which the behavior of hormones varies.
Lust occurs in the sexual impulse, the attraction in the primary stage of a relationship and the attachment is generated between two people over time.
Fisher says that love can begin in any of these three stages. and verified through MRI that there are areas of the brain that are activated when people feel love towards their partner.