Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Episode 3: A little thing called love
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Episode 3: A little thing called love
Time to get down and dirty, the latest episode of The Philosofa podcast is all about a little thing called L-O-V-E. In particular, in episode three we ask the question, ‘What is love?’
In this titillating philosophical romp, comedy gods, Helen and Omar, are joined by an extraordinary array of guest talent. We have the philosopher, Simon May; the marital therapist and best-selling author, Andrew G Marshall; and the mathematician, Hannah Fry, who gave the popular TED talk, ‘The Mathematics of Love’.
In his book, Love: A History, Simon May argues that, following what Nietzsche called the ‘death of God’ - a period beginning with the enlightenment when loss of theological belief became the dominant movement of the age - a vacuum was created. There have been many ideals, like communism, freedom, science, art and technology, which have attempted to take God’s place in giving meaning to life. One of them is love. But as love increasingly came to be seen as a substitute for God it began to take on divine qualities. Human love, like God’s divine love, started to be thought of as being something unconditional, selfless and redemptive. May thinks that this conception of love, though popular today, is both flawed and damaging. Instead he argues that love is an emotional response to the promise of what he calls, ‘ontological rootedness’ – the capacity of individuals to find and experience a home in the world in and through each other.
For Andrew G Marshall, love, in the long-lasting sense, has many stages. But fundamentally it involves connection with another person, attention to that person, but also, he is keen to emphasize, certain all-important skills. These include listening, communication, but also the ability to have a healthy, satisfying, old-fashioned domestic. Argue more, he preaches, not less. But argue well…
Lastly, Hannah Fry tells us how the perfectly balanced world of equations can open up the unbalanced, topsy-turvy world of human beings in love. Hannah explains how the relationship dynamics of bickering married couples is mathematically equivalent to an escalating arms race, and why the algorithms behind dating sites don’t actually work.
Interested? How could you not be? So join us for this loved-up philosophy fest.
View all episodes
Time to get down and dirty, the latest episode of The Philosofa podcast is all about a little thing called L-O-V-E. In particular, in episode three we ask the question, ‘What is love?’
In this titillating philosophical romp, comedy gods, Helen and Omar, are joined by an extraordinary array of guest talent. We have the philosopher, Simon May; the marital therapist and best-selling author, Andrew G Marshall; and the mathematician, Hannah Fry, who gave the popular TED talk, ‘The Mathematics of Love’.
In his book, Love: A History, Simon May argues that, following what Nietzsche called the ‘death of God’ - a period beginning with the enlightenment when loss of theological belief became the dominant movement of the age - a vacuum was created. There have been many ideals, like communism, freedom, science, art and technology, which have attempted to take God’s place in giving meaning to life. One of them is love. But as love increasingly came to be seen as a substitute for God it began to take on divine qualities. Human love, like God’s divine love, started to be thought of as being something unconditional, selfless and redemptive. May thinks that this conception of love, though popular today, is both flawed and damaging. Instead he argues that love is an emotional response to the promise of what he calls, ‘ontological rootedness’ – the capacity of individuals to find and experience a home in the world in and through each other.
For Andrew G Marshall, love, in the long-lasting sense, has many stages. But fundamentally it involves connection with another person, attention to that person, but also, he is keen to emphasize, certain all-important skills. These include listening, communication, but also the ability to have a healthy, satisfying, old-fashioned domestic. Argue more, he preaches, not less. But argue well…
Lastly, Hannah Fry tells us how the perfectly balanced world of equations can open up the unbalanced, topsy-turvy world of human beings in love. Hannah explains how the relationship dynamics of bickering married couples is mathematically equivalent to an escalating arms race, and why the algorithms behind dating sites don’t actually work.
Interested? How could you not be? So join us for this loved-up philosophy fest.