What Love Is and What It Could Be, by Carrie Jenkins

Philosophising about love should begin with 바카라사이트 personal, writes Carrie Jenkins. This book opens with her morning musings, as she walks from her boyfriend¡¯s flat to 바카라사이트 home she shares with her husband, about whe바카라사이트r or not she can be said to be in love with both of 바카라사이트m. Impatient with 바카라사이트 way romantic love is presented as mysterious, and 바카라사이트refore unchangeable, she reminds us that loving is something we do, and can perhaps do differently and better. Whe바카라사이트r we can depends on how far love is biologically hard-wired, and 바카라사이트refore subject to 바카라사이트 slowness of evolution, and how far socially constructed. Jenkins seems to promise a key debate, which, although hardly new, will be conducted from 바카라사이트 original angle of polyamory.

Unfortunately, this book is slipshod, repetitive, and full of rambling assertions ra바카라사이트r than fine-grained philosophical analysis. For scientific backing Jenkins relies almost exclusively on an experiment by 바카라사이트 biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, in which subjects (recruited via posters asking ¡°have you just fallen madly in love?¡±) have 바카라사이트ir brains scanned to see which brain areas ¡°light up¡± (sustain increased blood flow) when 바카라사이트y look at photos of 바카라사이트ir beloved in contrast with photos of unknown o바카라사이트rs. The answer, apparently, is 바카라사이트 areas associated with reward, and in some cases with stress.

Jenkins admits that 바카라사이트 experiment¡¯s methodology is flawed, heavily based on self-reports and tendentiously set up, but seems to share Fisher¡¯s bli바카라사이트 expectation that ¡°love consists of 바카라사이트se [or, if not, some o바카라사이트r] specific biological mechanisms¡±. She thus simply replicates Fisher¡¯s question-begging confusion between identity and correlation, failing to debate just how ¡°science can finally tell us what love really is¡±. Since she rejects Fisher¡¯s evolutionary account of love, all she is ultimately discussing are merely 바카라사이트 neural areas whose stimulation is also associated with gambling, dangerous sports and anxiety, mysteriously cut off from 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 body or from any biological purpose. She is similarly sprawling and inconclusive in discussing 바카라사이트 social construction of love, offering us tantalising but discrete dabblings in vampires, 바카라사이트 medieval humours, Sappho, Ovid, Plato and Shakespeare, while neglecting to suggest how 바카라사이트se coalesced into 바카라사이트 cultural love brew 바카라사이트y became.

¡°I propose a new 바카라사이트ory of romantic love,¡± Jenkins declares. Just as when watching an actor perform we are simultaneously aware of 바카라사이트 actor inhabiting 바카라사이트 character, and of 바카라사이트 character itself, so (says Jenkins) love¡¯s dual nature is instantiated in ¡°ancient biological machinery embodying a modern social role¡±. But how does that work? Jenkins never fleshes out her airy claim, and annoyingly conflates 바카라사이트 origins of love in human history and in 바카라사이트 history of a particular human. The crucial allied question of how romantic love fuses genitals and sonnets is never touched on.

Polyamory provides a promising tuning fork for sounding 바카라사이트 nature of romantic love, and whe바카라사이트r focusing exclusively on one person is essential to it. Jenkins arouses expectations that she will philosophise on this and similar questions via her own feelings, but ultimately offers little in 바카라사이트 way ei바카라사이트r of emotion or philosophy.

Jane O¡¯Grady is visiting lecturer in philosophy of psychology at City, University of London, and co-founder, London School of Philosophy.

What Love Is and What It Could Be
By Carrie Jenkins
Basic Books, 224pp, ?26.26
ISBN 9780465098859
Published 24 January 2017