Philos, Eros, & Agape Love in Religion Essay

Jean-Paul Sartre is a French philosopher who makes his claims based on a combination of two philosophical traditions – existentialism and phenomenology. Sartre himself is an atheistic existentialist. He summarizes his claims regarding existentialism with three words – anguish, abandonment, and despair (25). In this paper, I will talk about Sartre’s definition of existentialism, its relation to essence, Sartre’s views on the moral choices and how they relate to art.

According to Aristophanes, love (eros) – the highest form of love that one human being can feel towards another – is the desire of dissected halves, one to another, for restoring the wholeness of the nature’s origin. I will explain what does Aristophanes mean by his metaphor and why do people fall in love.

Agathon hosted a gathering for a small group of philosophers to talk about how they perceive love and what their own unique ideas are of beauty, virtue, honor, or anything else that may fall under the category of love. Eros, or Love, is a god that the philosophers have decided to praise with a speech of their own perspective. You get to see each philosophers different style and way of thinking within their speeches. All philosophers have agreed to drink while each other is speaking, but there is no pressure from one another or one’s self to drink excessively. The first to kick off the speeches is Phaedrus, an idealist, who believes that being shamed upon who you love most is of the highest caliber of embarrassment, even compared to relatives

In the reading “Existentialism is a Humanism”, the author Jean-Paul Sartre presents the idea of Existentialism. He introduces this idea by stating that man’s plan in this world is not pre-determined, as we only determine who we are or who we want to become throughout life. Sartre states that a person is what a person does. He also uses a metaphoric scenario of a man jumping on a scene before defining himself. These two ideas imply that man has no ultimate meaning, and it is up to us to find it through experience and by taking action. Additionally, Sartre also implies that humans have a huge responsibility on becoming who they want to become as it is only up to them to do so, making us entirely responsible for our existence.

There are certain things that are in the control of the humans, at the same time there are several things, which are not under the human’s control. Thus, to persist a happy life, the humans are required to put an end their desire such that the satisfaction of

Human sexuality is a common phrase for all, and anything, pertaining to the feelings and behaviors of sex for the human race. Sexuality has been a topic that has been discussed and studied for as far back as 1000 years B.C. and is still being studied today. As the discussion of sexuality has progressed through history, theories have been created based on research and experiments that scholars have implemented, based on their own perceptions of human behavior. Out of the many theories that pose to explain sexual behavior, Sexuality Now explained ten that are seemed to be the most overlapped, and built off of theories. Of these theories, two that were discussed in the text were the behavioral and sociological theory. These two theories cover some of the basic ideas of what could possibly influence a person’s sexuality.

In Audre Lorde’s, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”, she addresses about the term “erotic” that holds variations of meanings and implications behind it. It has a broader spectrum which connects the physical, emotional, and spiritual realms. In her interpretation, “The erotic is a resource within all of us that lies a deeply female and spiritual plane, rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling,” (Lorde 54). Erotic means the fullest satisfaction one can feel in life that gives people power, and be in search for that feeling in other aspects of their life. It allows a person to view their life in a different perspective, with more regard to what they desire rather than the demands of the society that connotes erotic

Before commencing a discussion on this quote it may be beneficial to gain an understanding of the key words or concepts suggested by it. Firstly, the two key words are ‘Decisions’ and ‘Important’. A decision can be said to be an “opinion, position or judgement reached after consideration”1. Important is defined as “Of great significance or value and strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant”2 and this is exactly the message Sartre is trying to convey. Our decisions can shape the course of our lives for the better or the worse so the decisions we make about the paths we choose in life can determine the state of our existence and define who we are as human beings and ultimately give us a sense of achievement or loss. A decision is a judgement reached after “consideration” that is, ‘why’ do we make the decisions we make. It is important to understand this process of decision making and various cognitive theories have helped us do this.

Unlike Eros love that is solely based on a strong emotion and only being shown the good quality of each person, Philos love is based on a “give and take” where two people benefit mutually in varies way from each other. Being giving and taking equally is important in this type of love, and the concern that each partner is benefiting is essential to each partner. It can be statement in truth that Philos love is a higher type of love then Eros, where love is not just based on a strong emotion experienced before the understanding and appreciation of both partners that is gained from the pervious and continuing friendship.

In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes

The meaning of sexuality is known in scripture as relating to the companionship and completeness. In the Genesis 1 account of creation, sexuality is one of the first human attributes to be

One of the poem’s main premises as to why having sex is superior to making love is that the participants are not giving in to a “false Messiah” (15). People who claim to be in love or fawn over their sexual partners are missing the true point of the intimate act. The notion of a false Messiah, which is love and affection, argues that love is not a true savior for people, and it is more of an imposter of happiness. The poem states that when people extract love from the act of sex, each person does not mistakenly love the mediator of satisfaction, but instead focus on praising the true “God”. If one spends so much time admiring a person, he or she will ultimately be disappointed or lose time with the real goal of sex. In the words of the poem, to be attached to the person one is having sex with would mean to “mistake the lover for their own pleasure” (17). He or she would then fail in their endeavors to reach true satisfaction.

“We are left alone, without excuse. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free” (Sartre 32). Radical freedom and responsibility is the central notion of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophy. However, Sartre himself raises objections about his philosophy, but he overcomes these obvious objections. In this paper I will argue that man creates their own essence through their choices and that our values and choices are important because they allow man to be free and create their own existence. I will first do this by explaining Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote, then by thoroughly stating Sartre’s theory, and then by opposing objections raised against Sartre’s theory.

Sartre’s The Wall is a very intriguing, yet narrow illustration of the Spanish Civil War. The plot of the story is about the last night of 3 prisoners awaiting their death sentence. The short story does not focus on the details of the War, instead it deeply examines the most fundament element and result of the War: death. Consequently, Sartre’s critique of the nature of the universe and nature of man is viewed through the lens of one who is anticipating death. In The Wall Sartre makes an indirect comment about happiness by depicting the void of happiness that can reside in the anticipation of death. Despite deaths interconnection with the nature of the universe and life, Sartre most direct comment on the basic philosophical –religious questions of life is concerning human nature. Thus, I will begin this preview by analyzing Sartre’s discussion on the nature of man, followed by his comments on the universe in relation to the nature of man. I will conclude by analyzing his inverted critique on happiness.

Again, philia is another level of love and King describes it as “an intimate affection between personal friends, it is types of reciprocal love. On this level you love because you are loved. It is friendship” (King, 400). In another word, Philia doesn’t require the physical attraction and passion that is standard in eros rather depend on standard friendship. Philia love is deeper than eros, but usually non-sexual intimacy between close friends and family members or as a deep bond establishes by soldiers as they fight alongside each other in the battlefield. In fact, philia works on the idea that an individual loves because that individual is loved by someone else. Perhaps, the feeling of love that experiences between soldiers in battle