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CMV - “platonic love” does not mean “non-romantic” (lemm.ee)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/32338762

…or at least only non-romantic love. I’m learning about history of western philosophy and understand that Plato’s Symposium describes his theory on love and that a person initially desires physical love, but then eventually grows to love things that feel fulfilling, and eventually love the ideal form of beauty itself. It seems like more of a spectrum/progression that includes romantic/physical love, not abstaining from it. “Platonic love” would seem to include physical love and doesn’t seem consistent with the dictionary definition of “friendship love.”

Any thoughts on that?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

I think that’s a great way to put it, “Platonic ideal love.”

And I somewhat agree that there is a use for distinguishing from romantic love, but I think it would be even more helpful if there were more descriptions for the different kinds of love, like one for companionship love, loving a family member, loving a passion, etc. They somehow all get lumped together to “love.” Maybe that’s a limitation of English as a language too.