Abstract
AbstractThe attempt to explore human beings transdisciplinarily as beings of love can contribute to a more realistic anthropology, with an increased practical relevance for science and research. On the other hand, with its holistic orientation towards the whole person, it leads to an improper standardization of scientific research results. In order to avoid the problems associated with the holistic study of man as Homo amans, this article therefore reverses the perspective. Fundamentally, the nature of love is not discussed anthropologically on the basis of an examination of human nature and its altruism or egoism, but on the basis of the phenomenon of love in its ambivalence. Following Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of love, the article shows that love cannot be clearly distinguished from selfish acts without the reference of interpersonal relationships with a “third party.” In the Christian perspective, God is such a “third party,” who makes our fellow human beings recognizable to us as neighbors of God and enables us to behave in the spirit of love. Christian love of neighbor is therefore an example of the revolutionary, socially transformative dynamics of love.
Highlights
The attempt to explore human beings transdisciplinarily as beings of love can contribute to a more realistic anthropology, with an increased practical relevance for science and research
I would like to pose some exploratory questions concerning the nature of love and its visibility and appearance in human life: Where do we find love in our lives and can it be equated to the prosocial behaviors and attitudes of cooperation and altruism? Is love grounded in a feeling, or is it grounded in a rational choice made by us? Is love a capability and among the properties of human life, or rather is it a phenomenon of contingent appearance? Is love the solution, or key, to human flourishing, or is it a challenge that we do not normally master but which always proves to be a milestone for failure in our lives?
It can be said that the longing for love as well as the desire for bonding, for reliable commitment and rootedness, is a kind of child of the spirit of our age, and I think this should be taken into account when we address the problem of exploring the possibilities and limits of an orientation towards a loving human being
Summary
“A person can flourish only by seeking the common good, by seeking the good for oneself and others.”. A number of consequences follow from this reorientation of science which can be summarized as follows: firstly, pressure to solve overall societal problems and to present an all-inclusive solution to them means that scientists are motivated to develop an integrative and overly harmonious picture of human society which tends to make the solutions they are studying more plausible and approachable. I want to create a productive contrast, applying my own approach and experience (Klein 2011) from a transdisciplinary perspective in order to shed some light on aspects which may not have been given enough attention in the outline of the Homo amans project This means that my goal is to challenge and, complement the project’s perspective, as well as to describe and to explore the limits and problems inherent in the argument that is presented here. It will be shown that love is misunderstood by focussing solely on the relationality of human beings, because the understanding of love requires an understanding of the interruption of social relations
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