The Ideal Love: Platonic or Frommian?

• Authors: Wong Muk-Yan
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In this paper, I compare two theories of ideal love, the Platonic and Frommian, and argue that they give opposite advices to lovers in practice. While Plato emphasizes “whom to love” and urges one to continuously look for a better beloved, Erich Fromm emphasizes “how to love” and urges one to grow and change with one’s imperfect lov-er. Using the movie Her as an example, I explain why an ideal love is extremely diffi-cult to attain under the guidance of the Platonic and Frommian ideals. In an imperfect love, to leave or to stay seems to be a question with no simple answer.

Keywords

EN

Ideal love; Plato; Erich Fromm; dichotomy

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2017
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 137-146

Contributors

author

Wong Muk-Yan

• Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong