The question concerning philosophy of love has been a mystery for philosophers since the very start of the intellectual tradition. Here I shall not give accounts of the limited and historical philosophical approaches to understanding love[1], since they either unjustifiably denigrate or elevate love as a consequence of their metaphysical assertions about the world. If nature of love exists making a claim of love through language can only be done poetically, rather than with limited propositional claims. As such within my philosophy of romantic love I shall refer to the union between two souls as The Intimate Whole or United Spirit to signify we are talking about the whole which includes the two people who share a relationship.
So with the established Intimate Whole I must defend this assertion where it does arise within the world that these two people fundamentally create and maintain through reciprocal recognition which results in a shared life beyond the individuals. Meaning that each person cannot be seen without the relationship, and the Whole cannot be understood without those two. This means that one cannot be excluded or be of higher importance for the Whole to exist. Meaning relationships where the other is excluded or devalued either by their partner or by themselves are doomed to harm the Intimate Whole and thus cause derivations of it. The Whole doesn’t collapse by itself nor does it stop being the whole simply by these deviations however it isn't in an entirely stable state either. Perhaps by some chance most relationships exist somewhere in the middle of instability and the stability.
How is The Intimate Whole even possible?
The founding of the Whole can exist once two beings with a soul enter a state of interaction that becomes more or less permanent. This interaction is already present within the human spirit already from our ability to generate worlds. By ‘world’ I mean psycho-physical totality of one or more conscious beings. Every conscious beings has their ‘own world’ that is comprised of their own ‘inner world’, the world of psycho-physical processes and the external world that they take as given or shown to them in which they act or endure. Multiple beings in interaction create(include) an Überwelt or a sort of co-world which is a combination of more ‘inner worlds’ and external worlds of the other individuals. Meaning the daughter has her own inner world like her sister and mother, and as their family contain a shared world together. This is their world which only they can fully understand on the basis of their presence in it. Which leads us to two families in interaction, which leads to the whole nation, society, culture which form their own worlds of shared meanings. And it goes all the way to world of humanity which according to my understanding must be an effect present in all of us by the basis of the collective unconscious[2] and it is potentially proven by the existence of ‘mirror neurons’[3] through which we become compassionate towards others on the neurological level. However since this is a philosophical essay I will not attempt to make explanations or proofs of the core overly relying on psychoanalysis nor neuroscience(but might take inspiration from), and for us understanding of this built in world-building ability on this level will become helpful for understanding my philosophy of love as is tied to the conception of inter-subjectivity that is assumed by the idea.
The world of the person emerges from their soul. As such when another world interacts with theirs both of those worlds can clash or become intimately tied. Perhaps it is this subconscious tendency that determines if at the interaction between two people will result in a rivalry, friendships, or romantic pursuits. Each interaction is a small glimpse into a world of another, and the person always interprets it through their own world as it has no other reference as it stands that their own phenomenal world is the limit of their cognition. As such we are not the ones who consciously on the basis of reason choose to like or dislike a person. The feelings arise once the worlds have already clashed and vines of connection have either been tied together or chocked each other to death. It is more than evident that people who grow old together, be it in marriage or ‘old friends’ have their worlds so deeply intertwined in a deep inter-subjectivity that they become interdependent with each other that the roots of the other’s world starts growing inside of their own and this is why the loss of that person feels like a part of you is gone forever, because it truly is, every memory you experienced with this person, feeling, the shared meaning built at once becomes locked in the subconscious and cannot be accessed again. This connection emerges through decades of interaction and starts at the very moment of their meeting. The only difference that determined if the two people will ‘click’ or be ‘on the same wavelength’ is if their world are compatible for mutual cohabitation and harmony.
Due to this tendency I might write a philosophy of friendship at some point since it emerges on the same principles yet goes into a different direction because friendship is a philia manifestation of love. It is important to note that for a fettered spirit of the atomised neoliberal world, the words I have used appear dangerous, and perhaps a threat to their conception of the self as they are afraid that this describes is ‘dependence’ rather than ‘interdependence’ which they up until know haven’t conceived of and is substantially different and more healthy to one’s soul. What I am describing from my understanding is a natural state of man for millennia at this point. You have this connection to your own family and parents and friends. A loss of them means fundamentally a loss of a certain part of you, this also includes the enemies and rivals. A certain part of you and them lives inside of each other depending on the rivalry involved. Man is a social creature at their core. This fundamentally doesn’t threaten one’s individuality nor independence in a social sense. Perhaps Nietzsche would connect this conception to the herd instinct where the shared world becomes corrupt and the free spirit must escape those chains and re-evaluate all values and establish a new shared world.
Every once in a while two worlds collide in such a specific way that inside both of them a sensation arises in which each of them is simply drawn towards each other that consumes each of them, an Eros, agape, perhaps even mania. This force connects the two worlds rapidly and here intersubjectivity arises and soon the two worlds merge into one hence the Untied Whole. The two souls become one world. A so the Intimate Whole slowly builds as two worlds become closer to each other. Neither of them fully outside of it.
You fell in love…. now what?
Once you enter the Intimate Whole it becomes a world that shows itself up to you only once you are inside of it, your being is encompassed through the experience of the life inside of the world. The world becomes intimate since it is comprised ideally of an equal part from your world’s essence and the significant other’s world’s essence.
The essence is sort of different from your soul, since despite the union of two souls each of you retain your individuality in a psycho-physical sense you are two separate beings however that isn’t the whole picture of the situation as the world shows to us. The essence could be understood as what we are, as that which defines our nature and so those two are compatible and form the essence of the relationship which is like colors. Imagine you being blue, and your partner yellow, then the essence of the relationship is painted green. It is a totality of each one of you.
This is the perfect balance between each of our essence’s that holds the relationship together and as such we can call the two soulmates if they match, since if they don’t the relationship never enters the stage where essence unification occurs and as such they break up. However a breakup doesn’t imply the incompatibility of essences, since the unification process can fail due to other reason’s as well and it can occur once more if the drives keeping the two together still strive for one another which again neither one can influence consciously. So the end result is never achieved it is a state of constant becoming, the essence unification is one that lasts the whole life of the relationship. Similarly friendships too exist just with a lesser intensity.
The unification process is never fully complete yet enters a close stage of completion and exists as a constant process of becoming where two worlds become one. However issues can arise at this point as any person who has been in a romantic relationship can tell you. As will become evident the problems can be traced back to understanding that it can’t be just reduced to merely two separate people dating, instead it becomes a whole web of connections that ties the two together. A breakup does mean that the Intimate Whole has been shattered yet the shared world between the two still exists just in another form different from it as the Intimate Whole is a special type of world, a romantic being. Instead the world can take but is not limited by friendship or enemy status or anything else humans are capable of.
When the love shatters…
Main issues are presented in the way we interface with the Intimate Whole and in the manner it presents itself to us likewise. In one case the person only perceives the other person through their own world at a stage at which their intimate whole hasn’t gone through the significant stage of the process of unification, the damage which stays for the duration of the relationship and it fundamentally means that the breakup is inevitable. This issue is only possible because we have the ability to exist in our own personal world temporarily to view the relationship mediated by the lens of the Intimate Whole. However the exit is not a full exit since we can only view the outside through our own mediated phenomena as it shows itself to us. What I mean by is the refusal to look into the shared world which opens as a gateway into perceiving the other. The self self becomes overly absorbed into their own world which prevents the merging of a shared world and as such the phenomena cannot appear to them and they cannot observe it nor see the other through it. As such they do not perceive the other through shared presence, rather they perceive the other as fundamentally distant from themselves. So the relationship has been faced with a barrier towards unification.
Certain misunderstandings emerge since we cannot fully accept the other in a substantial way which hinders the unification process. Likewise a person can erase themselves from the relationship as well this too hinders the unification process in the other direction. The person doesn’t add themselves into the relationship and only pleases the other in every way possible which hinders the move towards the Intimate Whole as the presence of the other becomes dominating in the relationship and attempts at overwriting the world of themselves. However as much as these cases seem to not involve a sense of intersubjectivity they do. Which is what allows for the pain to emerge in the relationship.
We can add in a Kantian sense that there is the Noumea of the self meaning we can never fully cognize ourselves (in other words our unconscious) then exists the other’s noumenal self which means we can never cognize the whole life of the other person. And likewise the shared noumenal Intimate Whole itself meaning we cannot even see the sacredness of the relationship fully. Yet we do in fact experience it on a level which we are fully aware of, with the drives that move us in all directions. As such those movements that tear apart our shared worlds might come from there, as we ourselves sometimes do not fully understand why we do certain actions, especially when we are in love, it is almost as if those drives emerge from a deep ocean and manifest through us in our unpredictable actions. This is what makes any full philosophy of love difficult and incomprehensible. I can only ever find what exists on the surface of the phenomenal world.
The shared world manifests itself no matter the circumstances as long as the social soul exists and fundamentally this inner interaction and interplay between the two beings is what determines if the unification process can be ‘completed’ perhaps one string doesn’t add up to the other, or certain strings become too stretched and it pops the ‘bubble’. The fate of the relationship is already within the two worlds of these people before they start the unification process, however, one cannot cognize it at the very start, only reflect or reminisce on the aftermath of the relationship. Yet our conscious understanding of why the relationship failed, and broke apart is something one can be tormented for years since the after the breakup. We can attempt to post hoc attribute the causes into the past retroactively, yet we may never comprehend fully why we even fell in love. Some may never get over their past loves, some may get back together, others would avoid it fully suppressing it till it comes out the other side unexpectedly. This becomes a beautiful tragedy of life. Since one cannot fully understand the attributes of these drives nor for that even themselves. Yet all those factors play in the success of the process.
The psychology behind problems
Lastly the attachment styles can briefly be mentioned through the way they manifest in this framework. The anxious person has tendencies of obsession and mania more strongly as their drives, so they become obsessed with the other and enter too deeply into the other’s world whilst to their own detriment and of the United Spirit’s long lasting stability. Hence they erase their own soul’s effect in the relationship and their world becomes overbearing to the other person as they enter too close to this person. The problem is that they have become too invested into the person rather than the relationship as a whole, they viewed the world through the significant other rather than the Intimate Whole. However since their drive is fundamentally pro-relationship this can be dealt with if the person views the world more through the shared intersubjective experience of both of them including themselves and the other person, rather than just through mania. This way its not too much of a distance as if they were forced to view it from their own self exclusively.
On the flip side we find the avoidant attachment which likewise manifests in many different ways. However their problem is evident in over reliance on their own world and view the relationship fundamentally as only two separate people, completely being unable to conceive of the shared world fully. In some cases they might become transactional which prevents them from entering the Intimate Whole fully, a part of them is always outside; always seeking a way out when they get too close. This likewise harms almost unfix-ably the Intimate Whole which is required on the shared presence. Hence the unification process has been hindered from the very start inside of this person’s psychology. Meaning it is doomed to fail due to fear of closeness to another being.
It is important to note that attachment styles may vary in complexity and different manifestations which are endless in human beings. However this is an attempt at trying to find an essence in the two different attachment styles that can be viewed as a harmed relationship that has the Untied Whole as its blind spot and reduces the meaning of the relationship only to its parts.
Hence the secure attachment is a perfect balance in between the two, since they perceive each other through their own shared meaning which grows stronger over time, and aren’t afraid of letting each other into their own worlds whilst maintain the Intimate Whole together and having a focus on maintaining its protective membrane which holds them together. One of my greatest contributions to the conception of love is this very concept. Since it completely removes the need to focus purely on the two people and places the focus on a balance of the whole in harmony and balance. This is the only way one can fully embrace the other, because they are not idealising the other by the means of gazing solely into their world, nor fully devaluing the other by the means of fully focusing on their own world. Since both worlds are present always it is just a matter of where our focus lies between the 3 elements. One overly focuses on their own world, the other on the other’s world and the third on the emerged shared world.
Conclusion
Hence the Intimate Whole unification process requires the shared presence experience moves which moves in stages. Once we move from the initial emergence of the world and tightening of the bonds where most relationships are doomed to fail from the start, we then enter the second phase. Where the two are building things in a shared intersubjective way, they might get married, they might own a home together and build a lifestyle together and in some cases a new life emerges from the bond and enters the warm embrace of the Intimate Whole. Each partner has their own space inside of this shared space that doesn’t get violated nor trampled on. Since trust emerges from the very fact that the personal space already exists within the shared context, rather than a context where the person is ‘hiding something’ by being outside of the Intimate Whole which can lead to disintegration of the United Spirit. As such this whole emerges in a balanced manner between the two souls. As each of the two worlds continues to exist on their own they too are intertwined in a shared presence of the Intimate Whole.