The Philosophy of Love

Soul Gum

by Victoria Hutchins

Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.9 • 560 Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Everyone wants love, but no one can tell you exactly what love is. In this episode, we deep dive into seven philosophical perspectives on love, ranging from the Ancient Greeks to the existentialists. If you’re curious whether Plato thought soulmates were real or Kierkegaard would tell you to text your ex, this episode is for you.

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00 Intro (the philosophy of love)

03:19 What even is love? (hypotheticals on love)

07:07 Ancient Greek philosophy on love

07:35 Origins of the concept of soulmates (Plato’s The Symposium)

09:03 Socrates’ ladder of love

13:03 Enlightenment thinkers on love

13:15 Love as social performance (Rousseau)

13:58 Rousseau’s two types of self love

15:22 How self love affects how you love others

17:31 The humanity formula (Kant)

19:49 Practical vs. passionate love (Kant)

22:07 Love as a trick (Schopenhauer)

24:04 Why do opposites attract? (Schopenhauer)

24:28 Is love just biological encouragement to reproduce? (Schopenhauer)

26:06 Existentialists on love

26:14 The tension between love and freedom of choice (Sartre)

27:50 Love as an objectifying force (Sartre)

30:32 Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s non-monogamous love story

31:40 The relationship between love and possession (de Beauvoir)

33:06 How your fear of being seen impacts your ability to give and receive love (Sartre, Doestoevsky, de Beauvoir)

36:54 Kierkegaard’s Works of Love

37:22 Unreasonable standards in love (Kierkegaard)

42:24 Lightning round recap

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Plato, The Symposium (c. 385–370 BCE)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762)
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1818)
Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)
Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit (1944)
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
Gordon Marino, The Existentialist’s Survival Guide (2018)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've ever been in love, you know it's messy. And if you've ever read philosophy about love,
0:06.8	you know it's even messier. The philosophy of love. Let's talk about it.
0:14.6	Sogum. Welcome back to Soulgum, the self-development podcast with philosophical, psychological, and spiritual flair.
0:23.5	I'm your host, Victoria Hutchins.
0:26.1	My goal is to give your soul something to chew on.
0:30.2	And today, we are talking about love.
0:34.9	Love is arguably the engine of humanity. It is the driver for art, for wars, for the birth
0:43.0	and collapse of whole civilizations. But interestingly, even though we are obsessed with love
0:50.1	and we have been since the dawn of humanity, no one knows exactly what it is.
0:57.5	It's very hard to pin down.
0:59.7	So today, we are going to sift through seven different philosophical perspectives on love,
1:05.6	and hopefully you will come out of this episode with a clearer sense of what love means to you.
1:12.7	We are going to talk about Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard, and more, and hopefully their thoughts
1:19.1	will help you answer your questions about love.
1:21.8	Like, should I text my ex?
1:23.9	Should I tell the person I like that I like them?
1:26.1	Why am I so afraid to let anyone get to know me? If you're new here, hi. Welcome to Soul Gum. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Victoria. It's really nice to meet you. If you're not new here, hey, I'm so glad you're here too, obviously. If you like this episode as you're listening, consider sharing it. Share it with
1:45.8	someone you're talking to romantically. That might be cute and cheeky, right? Or if you want
1:50.8	to loudly and proudly identify yourself as a sweetie and a lover, maybe you pop it on your
1:56.1	Instagram story. Maybe you take a screenshot and put it in your next dump. You know that thrills me.
2:03.1	Tag me if you share on social media. I am at the Daily Victorian on TikTok and Instagram.
2:09.0	And I love to try to thank you. Also consider subscribing to SoulGum if you like this episode.
	...

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