Reasons for Loving a Particular Person: A Personalistic Analysis

Abstract

Why do we love a particular person? This thesis engages with the some of the philosophical problems this question raises. Do we love the qualities of a person, our relationship with that person, some deeper concept of the person's being, or is it all just about commitment? Chapter one lays out these questions, and then Chapter two gives Karol Wojtyla's philosophy of the person as an understanding of the person with which to analyze the questions raised in chapter one. Ultimately, in chapter three, I conclude that based on Wojtyla's understanding of the person any attempt at a universal account of what it means to love a particular person is doomed to fail, as the reason's for love are deeply unique and personal between two persons.