Love and Identity: Unconditional Concern and Particularity

Abstract

Love for a person involves an idea of the other’s particularity, or “irreplaceability”: an idea that is linked with a fine grained attention to, and affection for, very specific features of the other. This attention is largely a consequence of—or manifestation of—my love, rather than its ground. What I see in the other is partly conditioned by an “unconditional” concern for her as an individual. A consideration of the importance of the face and of personal names in my interactions with another may bring into focus crucial aspects of the particularity and unconditionality that are characteristic of love.

Keywords

love / identity / self / face / name

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Brill