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Immanuel Kant

Kant & Love

Ivan Iyer has a beautiful Kantian understanding of love.

There are many ideas around love, and much has been said on the subject. What I wish us to briefly meditate upon here, is the idea of love as something inexplicable or unreasonable.

I suggested to a friend a while back that he didn’t need to be somebody else in order to be loved by the girl whom he adored, because the reasons why he loves her, and the reasons why she may (or may not) love him, are equally inexplicable. Sure, one can list the things that one likes (or loves) about someone: her intelligent eyebrows, a lonesome grey tooth, a piercing intellect, a lightning-like voice… But, is this why I love my beloved; or am I simply describing things I love about my beloved, with the reason why I love her still being unexplained? Accordingly, I argued that there is nothing one can do to be loved by a specific person. One is who one is, and one hopes for the best – that one is loved inexplicably, without reason, simply for who one is (which may not always be reducible to what one is).

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