2. Love as Undergoing and the Paradox of Giving

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Central Paradox: Love as Both Giving and Receiving #

• Love is paradoxically described as both an act of giving (‘I give you my heart’) and an undergoing or passion (being wounded, transformed, impressed)
• The core question: Is love fundamentally active (like a carpenter giving form to wood) or passive (like wood receiving form)?
• Resolution comes through distinguishing between truth (primarily in mind) and goodness (primarily in things)

Love as Undergoing (Passion) #

• Passion (Latin: passio) means suffering or undergoing; it denotes reception of a change from an external agent
• Love is fundamentally a transformation (metamorphosis) of the heart by its object
• The beloved acts upon the lover’s heart, conforming it to itself
• Evidence of love as undergoing:
  • Lovers are ‘wounded’ and ‘overthrown’ by their beloveds
  • The heart is ‘impressed’ or ‘stamped’ like wax by a seal
  • Love is described as being ‘set on fire,’ with the heart ‘aflame’
  • The beloved ‘draws’ the lover; love ‘draws’ things out of the heart

The Wound of Love: Spiritual and Romantic Examples #

• St. Teresa of Avila: Experiences divine love as a seraph piercing her heart with a golden spear tipped with fire
  • The pain is so sharp yet so sweet that she would not wish to lose it
  • She is left ‘completely afire with the great love of God’
  • Love manifests as being drawn from her, not given by her
• St. Thérèse of Lisieux: Describes being ‘wounded by a dart of fire’ so ardent she thought she would die
  • An invisible force ‘plunged me wholly into fire… but sweetness’
  • Again, love as wound received, not given
• Romeo and Juliet: Love at first sight is mutual wounding
  • Romeo says he was ‘wounded’ by Juliet
  • Both are overthrown and transformed by seeing each other

Love as Giving: The Aristotelian Resolution #

• Truth is primarily in the mind (knowing is a taking/grasping; the thing known must be in the knower)
• Good is primarily in things (loving is a tending toward; the thing loved remains in itself)
• This explains why we use ‘grasp’ for understanding and ‘give’ for love
• The Same Knowledge of Opposites, But Not the Same Love:
  • Knowing virtue helps one know vice (same knowledge of opposites possible)
  • But loving virtue prevents loving vice (opposites exclude each other in love)
  • Because good and bad are in things and exclude each other, love of one excludes love of the other
  • In the mind, contrary thoughts can coexist; in things, contraries exclude each other
• Therefore, the heart is said to be ‘in’ what it loves (‘I left my heart in San Francisco’), not vice versa
• The lover tends toward the thing itself, extending the heart outward rather than drawing the beloved inward

Love and the Heart: Locution and Reality #

• ‘My heart is not in it’ = I do not truly love this task
• ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’ = My heart (my love) is with that person/place
• ‘Lose your heart’ (to love) is not always bad; it depends on what you lose it to
• This reflects metaphysical reality: the lover’s heart is truly oriented toward and present in the beloved

Key Arguments #

The Conformity Argument #

• Love is fundamentally a conformity or agreement of the heart with its object
• The desirable gives the desiring power an adaptation/fitting with itself
• This conformity is the essential nature of love
• From conformity follows motion (desire, if the object is absent) and rest (joy, if possessed)

The Circularity of Love #

• The desirable is both the beginning and end of love’s motion
• Love begins with the beloved acting on the heart (conformity)
• Love’s motion tends toward achieving or possessing the desirable
• The end (achieving the beloved) returns to the beginning (the desirable)
• This circular structure mirrors the structure of knowledge but operates differently

The Distinction Between Knowledge and Love #

• Knowledge brings things into the mind; the known exists in the knower
• Love tends toward things in themselves; the loved remains external
• Same knowledge of opposites is possible because opposites can exist together in the mind
• Different love of opposites because opposites exclude each other in reality (in things)
• This ontological difference (where truth vs. good are located) explains the linguistic difference (grasping vs. giving)

Important Definitions #

Love (Latin: amor) #

• The first change of the desiring power by the desirable
• A conformity or agreement of the heart with its object
• An undergoing by which the heart is transformed to match what it loves
• Not identical with desire or joy, though these follow from love

Passion (Latin: passio) #

• An undergoing or being acted upon
• Originally meant suffering; extended to any reception or change
• Implies an external agent acting upon a subject
• All emotions are passions in this technical sense

Metamorphosis/Transformation (Greek: metamorphosis; Latin: transformatio) #

• Change of form or shape
• Love as a change in the form that the heart bears
• The beloved gives a new form to the lover’s heart
• Example: Proteus loses the form Julia gave him when he sees Sylvia

Conformity (Latin: conformitas) #

• The agreement or fitting between the heart and its object
• Established when the desirable impresses itself upon the desiring power
• The essential nature of love (not mere desire or joy)
• Precedes and causes desire and joy

Examples & Illustrations #

From Shakespeare #

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

• Proteus: ‘Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me’
• Shows love as complete transformation of the person
• ‘Like a waxed image against a fire bears no impression of the thing it was’
  • The heart loses the form Julia impressed upon it
  • The wax becomes molten and takes on a new form (Sylvia’s)
  • The old impression dissolves; a new one takes its place
• Valentine also metamorphosed by Sylvia: ‘I can hardly think you’re my master… you’re not the same man anymore’

Twelfth Night

• ‘How easy is it for the proper false in woman’s waxen hearts to set their forms’
  • Woman’s heart as wax, easily impressed by the beloved
  • The wax receives the seal’s imprint
  • Metaphor of the seal and wax shows love as reception of form
• ‘His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed’
  • Heart compared to agate stone with portrait impressed upon it
  • Again emphasizes impression, not projection

Romeo and Juliet

• Romeo is ‘wounded’ by Juliet at first sight
• Both lovers are ‘overthrown’ by each other
• Love as mutual wounding and transformation

From Sacred and Philosophical Sources #

St. Dionysius the Areopagite

• Describes seraphim as ‘all afire’ with love of God
• The highest angels characterized by burning love
• Berquist uses this to frame St. Teresa’s vision

St. Alfonso de Liguori (Meditations on the Passion)

• Quotes Christ: ‘I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled?’
• Uses fire metaphor for divine love
• Love as fire acting upon the heart

Goethe

• ‘We are shaped and fashioned by what we love’
• Direct philosophical statement of metamorphosis through love

Metaphors Used Throughout #

• The Seal and Wax: Hard seal impresses form on soft wax; sealed impressions
• The Agate Stone: Heart impressed with beloved’s portrait
• Fire: Heart ‘aflame,’ being consumed by love’s fire
• Wounding/Piercing: Spear, dart, arrow piercing the heart
• Drawing: The beloved draws the lover toward itself
• Molten Wax: Heart losing old form and taking new form as it melts and reforms

Questions Addressed #

Q: How Can Love Be Both a Giving and an Undergoing? #

Resolution:

• Love is fundamentally an undergoing: the heart is acted upon and transformed by the beloved
• But it is called a giving because good is in things, not in the mind (unlike truth)
• The lover’s heart tends toward the thing itself, not pulling it inward
• Therefore, the heart is said to be ‘in’ what it loves, metaphorically ‘giving’ itself to the beloved
• This is not giving in the sense of transferring something, but rather the heart’s orientation and presence with the beloved

Q: Why Use the Language of ‘Giving Your Heart’ If Love Is Receiving? #

Answer:

• Because the good is primarily located in external things (unlike truth, which is in the mind)
• The desiring power conforms to the desirable, which comes from outside
• Yet because the object is external, the heart is drawn outward toward it
• The metaphor of ‘giving’ captures this outward tendency toward what is good in itself
• The lover ‘gives’ not by transferring something, but by directing the heart toward the beloved

Q: Why Does the Heart Remain More in the Beloved Than Vice Versa? #

Answer:

• Because good is in things; the lover tends toward the thing in itself
• The beloved does not take on a new form; the lover does
• The beloved acts upon the lover’s heart, transforming it
• This is metaphysically and phenomenologically true: the lover’s orientation is toward the beloved, not the reverse
• ‘The soul is more where it loves than where it animates’ (Augustine)