ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the possibility of love as another ethical model of positive recognition, and then, makes reference to Hegel's discussions of love and partnership from his early and late works, from the early Jena manuscripts to the Philosophy of Right. The main focus is therefore on love as close partnership in the way one observes it in a marriage or similar relationship, although the chapter also argues that love can be the basis of other ethical partnerships. Hegel begins his discussion of marriage in the Philosophy of Right with a discussion of love, a clear sign that love, for this later Hegel, is not a formal kind of construct but rooted in emotion. The chapter also explores the relation between Hegel's various concepts of love and recent discussions in the philosophy of emotion. Finally, it argues on metaphysical and epistemological grounds against a portrayal of Hegelian recognition as an ontology which ultimately reduces all difference to an identarian totality.