Love can seem a primal force, an intoxicating mix of desire, care, ecstasy and jealousy hard-wired into our hearts. The polar opposite of philosophy’s measured rationality and theoretical speculations.
Yet if you take any topic in the world, and keeping asking deep questions of it, you will ultimately wind up doing philosophy. Love is no different.
Indeed, many famous philosophers— Kant, Aristotle, De Bouvier — wrote about love and how it fitted into their larger theories of human reason, excellence and freedom.
Unsurprisingly, their historically-situated views tended to mirror the culturally valued types of love in their time. The Greeks eulogised the love of friendship. Scholars in the middle ages ruminated on the love of God. With the Renaissance, romantic love moved centre stage.