ABSTRACT
Aristotle is known for having coined an account of philia as friendship: friendship is visible, reciprocal benevolence. His conducting serves as the grounds for the Care Theory of Love but also for a sort of love that might best be labelled by the term communal love: loving means togetherness in an actual community. Since the differentiation between philia, eros and agape is still in use, it might be of interest to bring this terminology together with the Aristotelean concept(s) of love. But this is not easy. After all philia includes friendship as well as romantic love, and in contemporary discourse romantic love includes eros. The author pursues the thought that communal love underlies all other varieties of loving relations between individuals and deserves specific attention, for it might shed light on at least two pressing questions. These questions are particularly present in societies, in which for instance divorce, patch work families, friendship with benefits, polyamory, individualism, multi-generational living or welcoming culture have their standing: what is the point in differentiating kinds of love? And how and with whom do we want to live?
