The Nature and Pursuit of Love: The Philosophy of Irving Singer

Singer’s approach to love in philosophy, literature, music and psychology is classical throughout, and never far from the question of eros and agape as it gives rise to the Western tradition. His exploration of Sigmund Freud and George Santayana guide his thinking, his historical philosophising moves with an abiding respect for science and art. The essays of this volume, which are the proceedings of a conference on the importance of Singer’s work, reflect his broad interests and yet focus on his key distinction between love as appraisal and love as bestowal. They assess Singer’s view of love as growing from the primitive, naturalism idealising of sex to the transcendental idealising of Christian Platonism to the humanistic idealising of post-romanticism.