Alienation and Identity in Romantic Love - by Gary Foster (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book explores the relationship between romantic love and personal identity by examining work in both areas by philosophers in the continental and analytic traditions. Foster finds a promising connection between love and identity in the Sartrean influenced notion of embodied love.

Book Synopsis

The concept of romantic love, influenced as it is by the theme within Romanticism of alienation and identification, suggests an important connection between love and personal identity. Love in this context recognizes both the sense in which one's beloved is a separate human being and is, at the same time, a constitutive aspect of one's identity. Alienation and Identity in Romantic Love explores this connection in the context of discussions of both metaphysical views of personal identity and practical or ethical accounts. To this end, Gary Foster discusses the work of influential philosophers in both the analytic and continental traditions as well as the findings of sociologists. He explores the love and personal identity relationship through moral and narrative perspectives and examines certain aspects of the modern love experience such as the phenomenon of online dating. Ultimately, Foster finds in Jean-Paul Sartre's work a promising approach to understanding this connection through his emphasis on embodied identity.

Review Quotes

Gary Foster has written a thoughtful and interesting contribution to the literature on the philosophy of love. Drawing largely on Sartre, but also on contemporary philosophers including Frankfurt, Velleman, Schechtman, Strawson, and others, Foster presents an attractive and often compelling view of love as directed toward embodied human individuals and explores its implications for our views about identity. The book will be of interest to philosophers working on love, identity, or at the intersection between the two.

About the Author

Gary Foster is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Wilfrid Laurier University.