ABSTRACT
Hobbes, Descartes, and Hume all see desire as essentially concerned with what the desirer does not yet “have,” while love can be directed at what the lover “has.” Their views are examined to see what might be plausibly claimed about the relations between desires and emotions or passions such as love. The views of these philosophers are invoked to resist any attempts to make desire, along with belief, the central psychical phenomena, or to reduce passions to them. The paper tries to put desire in its place.
