Is Feeling First? Ideologies of Love from Plato to Happy Ever After

The Department of Philosophy presents: the 2018 Walter C. Murray Public Lecture

Friday, March 16
7:00 pm (reception follows)
Biology Room 106

Speaker: Carrie Jenkins, Canada Research Chair and professor of philosophy

Abstract: The poet e.e. cummings begins one his of his most famous love poems: "since feeling is first ..." But I'm not sure we should grant this. Some approaches to love place emphasis on feelings and emotions, while others prioritize actions and behaviour. My aim is not to declare one better or "first," but to suggest that there is value in both. Along the way, I raise challenges to the contemporary romantic ideology of “happy ever after,” and critique the positioning of love and happiness as simultaneously "things that money can't buy" and the twin goals of a good life.

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