What Can Philosophy of Love and Neuropsychology of Love Learn from Each Other?
摘要
In this chapter I investigate the potential for cross-disciplinary dialogue between the philosophy of love and the neuropsychology of love. Philosophical approaches to love often emphasize its conceptual and ethical dimensions, exploring love as a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing, e.g., romantic, parental, platonic, and self-directed forms. Further, contemporary analytic philosophers may attempt to capture the general notion of love through defining its necessary and sufficient conditions (essential definition). Neuropsychological research, on the other hand, offers empirical insights into the brain mechanisms underlying love, identifying key neural circuits associated with attachment, emotion, and reward processing. Previously, however, the psychologists and neuroscientists within this field have tended to focus on romantic love and maternal love. Here, I argue that philosophy of love and neuropsychology of love can inform and enrich each other. Neuroscience can enhance our understanding of love’s biological substrates and offer empirical support for philosophical theories by showing that different forms of love engage overlapping but distinct neural networks. Conversely, neuropsychology benefits from considering the multifaceted nature of the concept of love. In the light of recent neuroscientific research, I argue that love would be best understood as a prototypical rather than an essential concept, such that the concept of love is characterized by a core set of features shared prominently by central types of love. In all, different types of love form a “fuzzy” continuum from stronger to weaker types in terms of subjective experience and neural activity. The chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part I outline certain recurrent themes in philosophical enquiries to love, focusing on core features of the concept of love as identified by philosophers, including the search for an essential definition of love. In the second part I discuss the current state of neuropsychology of love, drawing especially from two recent studies conducted at Aalto University, Finland, and how they have been informed by and support prototype theory of love. Lastly, I discuss the ways in which a dialogue between philosophy and neuropsychology may lead to a richer and more comprehensive understanding of love, including avenues for future cross-cultural research.