CC.112 | Spring 2013 | Undergraduate

Philosophy of Love

Course Description

This course explores the nature of love through works of philosophy, literature, film, poetry, and individual experience. It investigates the distinction among eros, philia, and agape. Students discuss ideas of love as a feeling, an action, a species of 'knowing someone,' or a way to give or take. Authors studied …

This course explores the nature of love through works of philosophy, literature, film, poetry, and individual experience. It investigates the distinction among eros, philia, and agape. Students discuss ideas of love as a feeling, an action, a species of ‘knowing someone,’ or a way to give or take. Authors studied include Plato, Kant, Buber, D. H. Lawrence, Rumi, and Aristotle.

This course is part of the Concourse program at MIT.

A marble statue of a winged gentleman embracing a reclining woman.
Psyché ranimée par le baiser de l’Amour (Psyche Revived by the Kiss of Love), a marble sculpture by Antonio Canova (1757-1822). (Image courtesy of Sebastià Giralt on Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA.)