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2010 5 22

99 9 1 100 4 25

40 2 2011 6 55-102

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What Is Love? The Ethical Subject from Eros, Philia,

to Relation as Love

Julian Chih-Wei Yang

Abstract
This article broaches various accounts of love and ethical
subjects so as to examine the ethical texture of love and to extend
the scope of ethics and ethical subject to include love relationships.
The argument divides into five sections: first, I stipulate the
definition of ethical subject in love, and clarify the meaning of
ethics and ethical subject used in the present discussion. Next, in
the following three sections, I remap the discursive encounters of
Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Martin Heidegger with love,
examining different types of love, such as eros-love and philia-love,
the implied ethics of these loves, and the question of aimance, to
provide evidence for my thesis on relation as love and its ethical
subjectivity. In conclusion, I draw upon Virginia Woolfs novel Mrs
Dalloway to illustrate how to apply the proposition of ethical subject
in relation as love and thereby enrich ones reading of the literary
text.
Keywords: the ethical subject in love, the metaphor of love, eros,
philia, aimance, Heidegger, relation as love, Mrs Dalloway

Ph.D. Student, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan

University.

Jacques Lacaneros
Jacques Derrida
philiaaimance
Martin Heidegger

relation
as love
Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway

general
general grammar

57

58 40 2 2011 6

fundamental
love1
philia
fundamental ontology
2

Sein an sich/Being as
such
Fundamentalontologie/fundamental ontology

Michael Inwood147-49 Sein

tre being to be esse

Sein/tre/being/esse
to be To be

What Is Love Is

Peter Walsh
For there she was1653

59

60 40 2 2011 6

normative
ethicsought
norm

being

ontology
Letter on
Humanism4
ethics as a discipline

pre-SocraticHeraclitus

William McNeill
Heidegger Gesamtausgabe
Wegmarken Letter on Humanism
Brief ber den Humanismus

ethos5

271

existentialism

originary ethics

pre-ethical ethics

Charles E. Scott ethea ethos

ethos return
HesiodTheognis
Isocrates
Demosthenessoul
ethos 143-44
ethos
essence
esse to be tre
tre essence
essence esse
-ence -ence

esse
Emmanuel Levinas
Autrement qu tre ou au-del de lessence
68 2

61

62 40 2 2011 6

beingought7

The Fold:
Leibniz and the Baroque
general grammar
subject-copula-attribute
subject-verb-object
predication

attribution53

Michel FoucaultThe
History of SexualityThe Usage of Pleasure
The Care of SelfJean-Luc Nancy
Being Singular Plural

co-existence

ethosessence

1960-1961 Transfert

63

64 40 2 2011 6

Transference9
Symposium Le Banquet
10

11
12

AlcibiadePhdre
Alceste

10

11

12

Jacques Alain-Miller
Seuil

Alcibiade Alcibiades
bertragung transfert

Vocabulaire de la psychoanalyse

bertragung/transfert 533-35

Sminaire VIII 47

211b 212b

Achille
Sminaire
VIII 25

rasts rmnos amant aim

dsir dautre chose

47ce qui lui manque25
celui qui []
est le seul avoir quelque chose47

rmnon
rmnon

11

64

4713
13

agalmataornament

65

66 40 2 2011 6

formule algbrique

53

Patrocle

14

14

parureSminaire VIII 167

agalmata
agalma
lobjet partiellobjet du dsirlobjet
petit a
agalma
agalma objet petit a
agalma
agalma
124-25 agalma
Sminaire VIII 172, 180-81

la mtaphore de
lamour15
53

metamorphosis

a metaphor for love

15

crits

Dylan Evans
An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis
metaphor/mtaphore

515517 889-92 metaphor/mtaphore

187

67

68 40 2 2011 6

lamour
est une mtaphore [love is a metaphor]Sminaire VIII 53

metaphor in itself is a metaphor

for love

crits
557

Cest cette mtaphore qui

engendre la signification de lamourSminaire VIII 69
la signification de lamour

signification as meaning
and as signified

ethos

eros rmnos
rmnon rasts
rasts
rmnos/rmnon

psyche
Psychros

erogenicity
16
eros17
eros-love and erotic love

erotic love
naturalization of eroseroticization of love

phallogocentrism

16

17

69

70 40 2 2011 6

phallerogocentrism

non-eros

M. C. Howatson Frisbee C. C.
Sheffield
sexual desire
erosaffectionadmiration
11 51 philia
eros6818

philia eros
return of love

rasts

18

philia

philia

philia

philia

non-differentiation

philia

philosphilos
my friend

71

72 40 2 2011 6

philia
philen to lovephileisthai
being lovedphilton the belovedphiletikoi

those inclined to love [to kissing, to

caressing] philtimoi Derrida
8, 10

amcus am
I love amour amiti

19 ami
petit(e) ami(e)

friend frond
frond fron
to love
20

19

20

amiti

friend fronMerriam-Webster
OnlineOnline Etymology Dictionary friend
freoganto love
free
freogan to free,
liberate, manumit free fro
fron freogan

-philia
philosophy
philosophy philo-

philosopher
bibliophile
morphology-philia

-phile
21

21

fetishism
paedophilia

73

74 40 2 2011 6

just

being-friend
8

state
of being lovedthe act of loving
9

22

formmatter
actualityvirtuality potentiality
existenceessence723

Abdelkeir Khatibi aimance

Aimance aimerto love aimant
loving
being-in-love24
aimance

22

23

24

present
absent

aimance/being in love

Verliebtheit

Verliebtheit 111-16

75

76 40 2 2011 6

2525

finitude
putting to death and putting of death [mise de mort]
123

25

decision and passion

passion passion
passive pati passio pati passio
decision
and passion

philia
aimance

philia

philia philen
non-erotic love26
26

philia
philia

77

78 40 2 2011 6

philia
good
relationsaffectiondevotion
philia68
Roger Crispphilia

familial
relations of non-humans as well as humans
business partnerships
the natural kinship207
philia philia

philia

fundamental grammar

philia

philia

mode

species

fundamental ontology
Being and Time
Seinsfrage/the question of Being

questionability of SeinsfrageFrege 42

Introduction
to Metaphysics
archetype
the highest idea
ought to be

210-11
Franois RaffoulDavid Wood

Raffoul 144-46Wood 15627

27

79

80 40 2 2011 6

thinking
the truth of being269

the truth of being

ethos anthropo daimon

Mitsein MitdaseinSeinco-Sein

ontologyco-ontology

Altrui
Raffoul Wood

ethics as first
philosophy

269
269

Grundstimmung
Dasein human Dasein28

Mitsein Mitdasein Being-with

Dasein-with Dasein Dasein
Seinsverhltnis/a relationship of Being162

Dasein 162
sichverhlt
sichverhalten

HarperJohn
28

dasDasein the
being of humansthe entity or person
who has this being human Daseindas menschilche Dasein
the being of humans or the
human being42
Dasein this entityman himself [] we can
denote by the term Dasein32 Dasein

Dasein

81

82 40 2 2011 6

MacquarrieEdward Robsinson
comport itself (or oneself) toward

behave/conduct itself (or oneself) toward

relate itself (or oneself) toward
sichverhlt
Verhltnis

Verhalten162 129

Mitsein
29

A Heidegger Dictionary Inwood 134-35

sich
oneself itself
Verhltnis Verhalten

sichverhlt sichverhalten
comport oneselfsichverhalten
halten
Dasein
rush headlong sichverhalten Verhltnis

comport/comportment
relate/relation/relationship

Inwood 134-35
Verhltnis Verhalten
Verhltnis sichverhalten
Verhalten

Verhltnis Verhltnis
30 Verhltnis

Verhltnis

das Vermgen

the thinking of being

30

Google

83

84 40 2 2011 6

genitive

Thinking is
in a destinal manner
thing

Mgendas
Vermgen

let it be24131

Verhltnis

31

let it be

let it be

1950 6 6
Das Ding

Immanuel Kant
Ding-an-sich/Thing-in-itself

177

Dingkeit/thingness
jug
jugness

transcendental egointentional object

85

86 40 2 2011 6

es gibt/there is

32

es gibt
es gibt

32

es gibt it gives

es gibt there is il y a it
gives Inwood 68

thing is thing-ingman is man-ing

sky is sky-ingearth is earth-ing
god is god-ingworld is world-ing

let it be

87

88 40 2 2011 6

33

33

165

1923

Septimus
Warren Smith

89

90 40 2 2011 6

34
4

35

36
34

35

36

For Heaven only knows why one loves it

it
it one

Being Singular Plural on

das Man
das Man
one
on das Man
they 195 8 one
Dasein/Mitdasein
2620

one

537

37

Lilienfeld
BishopFultonFultonSmith

HarrisRachel Hollander
Luce Irigaray
infinity
intimacyJacobs Room

Joshua
KavaloskiTo
the LighthouseT. Virginia Gillese
The Years

Heidi Storl
1927

supplementary

David Bradshaw
the Hanoverian Dynasty
George IGeorge IV
167 5

91

92 40 2 2011 6

338

affirm
38

For
Lucy have her work cut out for herOxford English
Dictionary Onlinehave ones work cut out
Wikitionary
The Free Dictionary

19

25

man is man-ing

439

25

39

For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making
it up [] creating it every moment afresh one it
32

93

94 40 2 2011 6

157

158

138-39

138, 139, 140

For there
she was

to beto exist
14740

40

having that gift still; to be; to exist; to sum it all up in the moment as
she passed gift gift

95

96 40 2 2011 6

enact
actively

145

everyone
14541

42

41

42

one everyone

43

44

43

44

Befindlichkeit
res

imagination

image

Flix Guattariaffect
mans
nonhuman becoming173

97

98 40 2 2011 6

Lucrezia

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Voyage Out. Twentieth Century Literature 27.4 (Winter 1981):
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Woolf. 1925. Ed. David Bradshaw. London: Vintage, 1992.
166-85.
Crisp, Roger. Glossary. Nicomachean Ethics. By Aristotle. Ed.
Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 205-08.
Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. 1988. Trans.
Tom Conley. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P, 1993.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. What Is Philosophy. 1991. Trans.
Graham Burchell and Hugh Tomlinson. London: Verso, 1994.
Derrida, Jacques. The Politics of Friendship. 1994. Trans. George
Collins. London: Verso, 1997.
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Sigmund Freud. Ed. and trans. James Strachey. Vol. 18. London:
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Jean Laplanche J-B
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Dylan Evans 2009