The Interrelation of Love and Knowledge

in Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion

A Thesis
Presented to
Dr. John F. Crosby
Franciscan University

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy

By: Chase J. Cloutier

August 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction …1

2. The views of these phenomenologists …2

2A) Scheler's philosophy of love …2

2B) Hildebrand's philosophy of love …5

2C) Marion's philosophy of love …9

3. These philosophers in dialogue on love and knowledge …14

3A) Love is not blind …14

3B) A loving disposition distinguished from the act of love …16

3C) Scheler and Hildebrand on value-response …17

3D) Marion and Hildebrand on reciprocity, thematicity, and value-response 20

4. A proposed synthesis …23

4A) Loving disposition and the act of love proper …23

4B) The dialogical relationship between love and knowledge …26

5. Conclusion …28
 Cloutier 1

1. Introduction

There are, perhaps, no two acts more central to man than the acts of knowing and loving. It is of

utmost importance, then, to understand clearly the nature of these two acts. Suppose Robert meets Jane.

At first, she does not seem that different from any other girl. But for some reason they strike up a

conversation, talk for a while, and then go their separate ways. And what is more, they end up running

into each other again and again, chatting each time. Before long, he realizes that he is deeply attracted

to her. In fact, he loves her. At some point, he came to know her and at another he came to love her. But

which came first? Does love or knowledge have priority in the development of love? Did Robert have

to know Jane in order to love her? Or did he have to love her in order to know her?

The work of three early phenomenologists prove most helpful in this regard: Max Scheler,

Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Jean-Luc Marion. For Scheler and Marion, love precedes knowledge. It is

approaching the beloved with a loving disposition which enables one to know her truly. According to

Hildebrand, the nature of love as a value-response necessitates that a certain cognition come before the

act of love. Otherwise, love would be arbitrary. These philosophers agree that love is not blind. Rather,

love bestows sight. Love enables the lover to see, to know the beloved more deeply.

I shall argue that the key to reconciling these philosophers lies in the distinction between a

loving disposition and the act of love itself. Realizing that these two are not the same, it is possible for

a co-priority to exist between love and knowledge. A loving disposition is required to acquire a genuine

knowledge about the beloved, but this knowledge is, in turn, necessary to elicit the act of love proper.

From this point, there exists a dialogical relationship between love and knowledge. Loving the beloved

opens one to know her more deeply. This engenders ever greater love.

Thus this paper will first present the views of Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion. They will then

be placed in dialogue: their common insight will be explored, the two senses of love distinguished, and

their compatibility considered. Finally, a synthesis of their thought will be set forth developing
 Cloutier 2

Hildebrand's notion of a dialogical interrelation between love and knowledge.

2. The views of these phenomenologists

2A) Scheler's philosophy of love

Scheler's understanding of love may only be fully grasped once his value philosophy is

understood. For Scheler, values are fundamentally qualities intuitively given to the subject.1 Value-

bearing things are called goods. Value is the “first messenger,” as it were, of the nature of the good

which bears it.2 These values are not intuited through the reason but through objective feelings.3 In this

sense, Scheler is reacting to Kant's sharp differentiation between reason, on the one hand, as the

ordering faculty in man by which the formal a priori are realized and emotive feelings, on the other

hand, as chaotic phenomena by which no a priori can be accessed. A key aspect of Scheler's value

philosophy is the assertion that emotions are objective – a priori truth can be accessed through them.4

In other words, true qualities external to the subject can be cognized through feelings – through the

emotions – and prior to the intellect's grappling with them.

The heart plays a primary role in the apprehension of values for Scheler. It is through the heart

that one feels values – that one cognizes values. The subject's relation to the world around him is

experienced firstly, and perhaps most powerfully, in the heart. To describe this phenomenon, Scheler

opens his essay “Ordo Amoris” with the poetic statement: “I find myself in an immeasurably vast world

of sensible and spiritual objects which set my heart and passions in constant motion.”5 This motion is

not unordered. Rather, as the title of the essay suggests, there is an order to love based in the reasons of

the heart.6 The heart “has reasons, that is, objective and evident insights into matters to which every
1 Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, trans. Manfred S. Frings & Roger L. Funk
(Evanston: Northwestern University, 1973), 17: “All values...are non-formal qualities of contents...” Ibid., 14-15. “The
value itself always must be intuitively given...”
2 Ibid., 18: “A value precedes its object; it is the first 'messenger' of its particular nature.”
3 Ibid., 35: “Values are given first of all in feeling.” Ibid., 16: “Values are clearly feelable phenomena.”
4 Ibid., 65: “Hence, contrary to Kant, we recognize an emotive apriorism as a definite necessity...”
5 Max Scheler, “Ordo Amoris” in Selected Philosophical Essays, trans. David R. Lachterman (Evanston: Northwestern
University, 1973), 98.
6 Scheler has Pascal's dictum in mind. From the Pensées, no. 277: “Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît
 Cloutier 3

understanding is blind.”7 Caught in a world full of value, man is continually seeking to cultivate the

proper ordo amoris in his own heart. This consists in preferring among the values according to the

“objectively correct order” – the proper ordered rank of values.8 Because value is the first messenger of

being, the dispositions of one's heart prove fundamental to the way in which one relates to the world.

Scheler defines love as the primal act of man: a stance or an openness to value in which one

moves from the lower to the higher value. Just as Spader observes, in Scheler's thought “love is an act

that opens our hearts to a wider and truer vision of the full hierarchy of values.”9 The world of value as

it is in itself is opened to one who loves. Furthermore, this opening to value figures as the very first

relation of man to the world around him. Love comes utterly before every other act. This is why

Scheler asserts that “Man, before he is an ens cogitans or an ens volens, is an ens amans.”10 Love

comes before even thinking or willing. Love is that most fundamental human act – the most basic

human relation to the world.11 While love is directed to the world as it is already, it does not rest there.

Repeatedly, Scheler refers to love as a movement from the lower value in a being to a possible higher

value.12 There is a kind of expectation in love – a vision of greater value to be present in the beloved.13

This movement must either be toward the higher, in which case it is love, or toward the lower, in which

case it is hate. Hate closes one off from the world of value. It is a kind of anticipation of lower values.

These acts of love and hate are not so much responses, possible only after thoughtful reflection on the

object, but rather the manner in which one approaches the world. One can be sensitive to value in love

point.” (The heart has its reasons, which the reason does not know.)
7 “Ordo Amoris,” 117.
8 Ibid., 98: “It follows that any sort of rightness or falseness and perversity in my life and activity are determined by
whether there is an objectively correct order of these stirrings of my love and hate...”
9 Peter H. Spader, Scheler's Ethical Personalism (New York: Fordham University, 2002), 88.
10 “Ordo Amoris,” 111. That is, man, before he is a thinking being or a willing being, is a loving being.
11 Cf. Manfred S. Frings, Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction into the World of Great Thinker (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University, 1965), 41: “Love is the fundamental spiritual act.” (Emphasis in the original)
12 Max Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter Heath (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954), 152: “...love is a
movement, passing from a lower value to a higher one, in which the higher value of the object or person suddenly
flashes upon us; whereas hatred moves in the opposite direction.”
13 Ibid., 153: “...love is that movement of intention whereby, from a given value A in an object, its higher value is
visualized. Moreover, it is just this vision of a higher value that is of the essence of love.” (Emphasis in the original)
 Cloutier 4

or cut off from it in hate.

For Scheler, then, knowledge will necessarily depend upon one's loving disposition. Love

engenders knowledge in that “love is always what awakens both knowledge and volition; indeed, it is

the mother of spirit and reason itself.”14 However, this is not to say that love is irrational. Love is not

arbitrary and unconnected to the objects that surround it. Scheler denies any intellectually responsive

character of love not because love is blind but because love is the most “immediate contact” with the

world.15 Love and its counterpart hate are “entirely primitive and immediate modes of emotional

response to the value-content itself.”16 To use the metaphor of sight, one cannot see before he opens his

eyes. Love opens the eyes to value and, in seeing, one knows. Sight is made possible precisely in the

act of opening one's eyes. In this sense, one will only be able to know the beloved to the extent that he

loves. In other words, love circumscribes knowledge.17 True knowledge of another person becomes

impossible to the extent that one is closed off from the world of value by their hate. On the other hand,

the greater one's love, the deeper one's knowledge can be.

Based on his thought on value, the heart, and the role of love in relating to the world, Scheler

ultimately concludes that love has priority over knowledge in coming to the beloved. In saying this, he

is not denying that the lover relates to the beloved as she is in reality. As will be discussed below, love

does not obscure the beloved but rather opens the lover to truly see her. It is significant that in Scheler's

thought man is originally ordered more to love than to hate. This is the reason why love can have a

priority over cognition: because it is love which first directs the heart not hate.18 That first movement of

14 “Ordo Amoris,” 110.

15 Frings, A Concise Introduction, 44: “Love, then, is the presupposition for any act of knowledge about objects, since it
constitutes the immediate contact with the world before all acts of thinking.”
16 Nature of Sympathy, 149. (Emphasis in the original) Love and hate are so immediate that “phenomenologically
speaking, they do not even disclose a process of apprehending value (e.g. feeling, preference, etc.), let alone the making
of a value-judgment.”
17 “Ordo Amoris,” 111: “...his world of essential values circumscribes and defines the being he can know, raising it up out
of the sea of being like an island.” Cf. Scheler, On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing: Selected Writings, ed. by Harold J
Bershady (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992), 163: “All deepening and widening of our worldview is connected to a
preceding deepening and widening of our spheres of interest and love.” (Emphasis in the original)
18 “Ordo Amoris,” 127: “Only to the extent that this 'taking an interest' itself is originally more an act of love than of hate
 Cloutier 5

love enables knowledge – hate has no chance, in the beginning, to hinder that proper cognition.

2B) Hildebrand's philosophy of love

Just as with Scheler, Hildebrand's philosophy of love is caught up in his value philosophy.

While Hildebrand's understanding of value is very similar to Scheler and he adopts much of Scheler's

value philosophy, there is innovation on his part in his understanding of the good.19 He bases his new

articulation of value in the concept of importance and in distinguishing among the different kinds of

importance. In his experience of the world, man is always encountering a variety of objects. These

objects, because they are “endowed with some kind of importance,” are “thrown into relief against

mere neutrality.”20 Importance discloses a thing's quality as a good or an evil (bonum or malum).21 For

man the very existence of a thing is caught up with its importance.22

Hildebrand distinguishes between three kinds of importance. Almost every aspect of

Hildebrand's philosophy is touched by this threefold distinction. In his Ethics, he compares receiving a

compliment to the forgiveness of a grave injury.23 The compliment is something primarily agreeable to

me and as such is subjectively satisfying, but the forgiveness has an importance in itself. The

subjectively satisfying merely gives me pleasure while the important in itself is “something which

ought to be,” “something intrinsically important.”24 Value is just another word for the latter. This

distinction plays a fundamental role in defining man. Will he seek to do that which is valuable in and of

itself or will he do that which merely pleases him?25 When man realizes that something is intrinsically

could we properly speak of a primacy of love over cognition.”

19 John F. Crosby, “Introductory Study” in Dietrich von Hildebrand's The Nature of Love, trans. John F. Crosby with John
Henry Crosby (South Bend: St. Augustine's, 2009), xiv: “In his [Hildebrand's] ethical works he starts from Scheler's
value philosophy and develops an original concept of good and bad...”
20 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Ethics (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1953), 24.
21 Ibid., 24: Importance is described as “connoting that property of being which gives it the character of a bonum or
malum; in short, 'importance' is here used as the antithesis to neutrality or indifference.”
22 Ibid., 73: “The existence of something necessarily calls forth the question of its meaning, its importance.” Also p. 73:
“this question of importance is constantly present for us...”
23 Ibid., 34ff.
24 Ibid., 34 and 35.
25 Ibid., 61: “The great and decisive difference in man's moral life lies precisely in whether he approaches the universe
from the point of view of value or of the merely subjectively satisfying.”
 Cloutier 6

valuable, a demand is placed upon him to respond adequately to this value whether theoretically,

volitionally, or affectively.26 Value-response, then, concerns the important in itself. The third kind of

importance is that of the objective good for the person. There are certain goods such as education or

health which are not only important in themselves but also important in being good for the person.27

Because this good is beneficial to the subject, it takes on a special importance in that it is not merely

subjectively satisfying or important in itself. There is a rightful benefit that the subject seeks in the

objective good for the person.

Hildebrand sees love primarily as a value-response to the beauty of the beloved. He describes it

thusly: “the beloved person stands before me as beautiful, precious, as objectively worthy of being

loved. Love exists as a value response.”28 When Robert got to know Jane, at some point her beauty was

intimated to him. This value of overall preciousness and beauty brought about the response of love in

him. This ensures that it is truly Jane that Robert is loving. It is in response to her and her beauty that

he loves her. As in all value-responses, cognition comes before the response of love. “All responses

necessarily presuppose a cognitive act. The object must first reveal itself, before it can become an

object of our responses.”29 Hildebrand sees value-response as part of the dialogue of man with reality.

That which is beheld must utter the first word. The object discloses itself and only then can we truly

respond to it. This holds too for the value-response of love. For “we must first have a knowledge of a

person before we can love or hate him.”30 The cognitive act is always primary for Hildebrand. While

Scheler sees love as the way in which man opens up to value, Hildebrand regards love as the way in

26 Ethics, 38: “Every good possessing a value imposes on us, as it were, an obligation to give to it an adequate response.”
Cf. Ethics, 197. The three kinds of response are theoretical, volitional, and affective.
27 Crosby, “Introductory Study,” xviii: “Von Hildebrand thinks that a good such as being healthy, or being educated, is not
just important for a person as result of being subjectively satisfying for that person.”
28 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 17. Emphasis in the original.
29 Ethics, 197. Also on p. 197: “...cognitive acts form the basis of all other acts and responses. The primary contact with the
object is always given by one or another kind of cognitive act.” “...only after a thing is known to us, can it motivate a
response in our soul.” “All responses necessarily presuppose cognitive acts; they are essentially based on cognitive
acts.”
30 Ibid., 197.
 Cloutier 7

which one responds to value.

However, for Hildebrand, love is unlike any other value-response and ultimately goes beyond

value-response. To begin with, the beloved is always uniquely thematic in love: “In love the value and

its delightfulness must be of such a kind that it is united with the full thematicity of the person as

person.”31 The beauty of the beloved is never taken in isolation from the beloved herself. The beauty

reveals the beloved. Take, for the sake of contrast, a judge at a sports competition. He must be able to

weigh the objective worth of each athletic feat distinct from the person who performed it. But for the

lover it matters not whether another has greater beauty because the beloved's value has disclosed the

unrepeatable individuality of the person. There is none other who has beauty in this way. Another point

is that love ultimately goes beyond value-response. Hildebrand highlights the gift character of love.

The full investment in the other transcends that which is obliged or demanded in justice: “the giving of

one's heart in the case of love goes beyond that which is due in response to these values.”32 It is a gift

above and beyond, given freely. Furthermore, love becomes the source of the highest objective good.

The two lovers become great goods for one another.33 Here self-giving is compounded with a deep

fulfillment. Thus, while Hildebrand considers value-response to be the basis and root of love, he sees it

burgeoning forth in a superabundance.

In Hildebrand, love retains an objective quality even as emphasis is placed on the heart. A great

role is given to the heart in his philosophical anthropology. The heart is the “center of affectivity.”34

While the will is the true self in the moral sphere, in several key instances the heart is the true self.35

31 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 18.

32 Ibid., 78.
33 Crosby, “Introductory Study,” xxiv: “the beloved person, and our relationship, is an eminent case of something
objectively good for me. At the same time I become something objectively good for the beloved person... But this self-
giving, though based on what is objectively good for a person, is a dimension of transcendence towards the other all its
own; it is a transcendence that goes beyond the transcendence of value-response; it is that which makes love a 'super
value-response.'”
34 Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Heart (South Bend: St. Augustine's, 2007), 21.
35 Ibid., 67: “In many other domains, however, it is the heart which is the most intimate part of the person, the core, the
real self, rather than the will or the intellect. This is so in the realm of human love: conjugal love, friendship, filial love,
parental love.”
 Cloutier 8

This is especially the case with love. Unless one reaches the heart of the beloved, he has not been

touched at his core.36 Out of all the value-responses, it is love which is the most affective.37 Though it is

the most affective response, rather than causing an obfuscation of the beloved, love achieves a new

level of objectivity with respect to the beloved. This is based upon his understanding of love as a

spiritual affection – a kind of rational affectivity in which one is related to the object intentionally and

spiritually.38 Hildebrand, like Scheler, seeks to interpret Pascal's understanding of logique du coeur –

the logic of the heart. While Scheler saw this logic in an order of love preceding all willing and

thinking, Hildebrand sees it in the response to cognized value: “There is a logique du coeur displayed

in the value response: the meaningful spiritual character of the value response and its rational

structure.”39 The response is meaningful and rationally structured precisely because it is on the basis of

the cognized beauty of the beloved that one loves her. This beauty is not something invested in the

beloved, for the lover knows that “the beloved is objectively lovable.”40

The value-responsive character of Hildebrand is the basis for an interpenetration of love and

knowledge such that they both grow, but it always must go back to an original cognition of value.

Hildebrand admits that, on one level, a certain kind of loving disposition is necessary to cognize the

beloved's beauty. Here he is conceding somewhat to Scheler in that he is acknowledging the need for a

kind of openness to value. However, Hildebrand denies that this is love proper – it is a more generic,

analogical sense of love.41 In another sense, love can be seen to bring about new values in the beloved.

36 Ibid., 67: “...love aims at the heart of the beloved in a specific way. ...he wants to affect his heart, to fill it with
happiness; and only then will he feel that he has really reached the beloved, his very self.”
37 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 43: Love is “the most subjective value-response (in an entirely positive sense of the term
subjective, which forms no contrast at all to true objectivity).”
38 Cf. The Heart, 37: “Spiritual affective responses always include a cooperation of the intellect with the heart.” And p. 25:
“intentionality...implies the presence of a rational element, of a structural rationality.”
39 Ethics, 241.
40 Ibid., 218.
41 Nature of Love, 23: “The priority of love over the value datum can be interpreted in different ways. It can mean that love
is presupposed for understanding the other person in his beauty. … We have here a special case of the general relation
between love and knowledge.”
 Cloutier 9

There is a creative character of love which is in keeping with its nature as value-response.42 Love

contributes to the growth of the person in higher values which are elicited by the lover. Love both

opens the lover to see the depths of value in the beloved and brings about those greater depths of value.

The greater knowledge enabled by love will then engender even greater love. This mutual relation will

be discussed further below. Ultimately, for Hildebrand, love must be preceded by a first cognition of

value. It is this cognition which evokes the value-response of love.43

It is clear that for Hildebrand, love always presupposes knowledge, at least in the first instance.

This is based on his understanding of value philosophy. Unlike Scheler, he sees value-cognition as an

intellectual act.44 The act of cognition must always come before the act of love because, in Hildebrand's

thought, love must be value-responsive in order to retain its intentional and rational character. This

ensures the priority of the beloved in love. Love is not merely something brought about by natural

causality (as if blind) but is motivated by the beloved's beauty.

2C) Marion's philosophy of love

Marion begins the Erotic Phenomenon by pointing out some of the most distinctive features of

his philosophy of love. For Marion, love is central in the origin of philosophy as well in anthropology

in general. Prior to philosophy's apprehending any truths about reality, it must first desire to apprehend

– it must love.45 In fact, strikingly similar to Scheler's claim that love circumscribes knowledge, Marion

holds that “philosophy comprehends only to the extent that it loves.”46 In his thought, love plays a key

role in the wonder which lies at the root of philosophy. Without love, philosophy can never truly

42 Nature of Love, 24: “love actualizes new values in the beloved person. ...New levels of depth in the person are actualized
in loving and in being loved. ...this last conception of the priority of love to value clearly stands in no contradiction at all
to the value-response character of love.”
43 Ibid., 25: “At the origin of love, however, there stands an apprehension of value that is presupposed by love and which
in fact awakens it.”
44 The Heart, 37: “The intellect cooperates insofar as it is a cognitive act in which we grasp the object of our joy, our
sorrow, our admiration, our love. Again, it is a cognitive act in which we grasp the value of the object.”
45 Jean-Luc Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007), 2:
“philosophy...must in effect begin by loving before claiming to know.”
46 Ibid., 2.
 Cloutier 10

commence. As for his anthropology, it is significant that he is reacting to the Cartesian definition of

man in which thinking and willing are stressed while love finds no place at all.47 Again, very akin to

Scheler's statement on man as ens amans, Marion finds love to be more fundamental in defining man

than even thinking or willing. Man realizes, from his earliest self-knowledge, that he is “already caught

within the tonality of an erotic disposition – love or hate, unhappiness or happiness, enjoyment or

suffering...”48 There is a primacy of the disposition to love over that of knowledge. One's love is the

context, the foundation for one to obtain knowledge. Moreover, in Marion's understanding, love cannot

be divided into multiple kinds, for “univocal, love is only told in one way.”49 A passionate love cannot

be differentiated from an intellectual love. To do so would be to denigrate passionate love as confused

by emotion and to sterilize intellectual love as heartless. According to Marion, the nature of love must

be told under one aspect.

Similar to Scheler and Hildebrand, Marion sees a rationality in the erotic disposition itself.

“Love falls under an erotic rationality.”50 This does not mean that love is infused with an intellectual

rationality but rather that there is a rationality unique to love. There is a kind of knowledge which only

becomes possible in love itself. In response to those who would separate knowledge from love, Marion

says “we will attempt to think of love itself as a knowledge – and a preeminent knowledge to boot.”51

This is not so developed as Scheler's notion of the heart enabling value-cognition itself, but it does

follow after that Pascalian idea of the reasons of the heart. Love makes knowledge possible in that the

world of the beloved opens up to the one who approaches in love. To understand Marion's articulation

of this, one must follow his interpretation of the so-called “erotic reduction” that happens in man's love.

The erotic reduction is a movement back to the original and fully authentic meaning of love. It

47 Ibid., 7: “Man, as ego cogito, thinks, but he does not love, at least from the outset.”
48 Ibid., 7. “Man is revealed to himself by the originary and radical modality of the erotic.”
49 Ibid., 3. Cf. Jean-Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity trans. Stephen E. Lewis (New York: Fordham, 2002), 156. Here
Marion compares passionate love to intellectual love in a false dualism of love.
50 Ibid., 3.
51 Prolegomena to Charity, 160.
 Cloutier 11

refers both to the subject's maturation of love as well as the attempt of philosophy to apprehend this

motion of love. In this process, the subject proceeds through certain stages, moving from a vain, selfish

focus to a love of self-gift. Ultimately, one realizes that another lover has preceded him. The erotic

reduction revolves around three typical stances which are expressed as questions. The first question,

“Does anyone love me?”52, refers to that stage in which one realizes that he seeks an assurance about

reality that goes beyond mere being. There is a certainty about his own existence that is only obtained

when the meaning of his existence is grasped – when he knows that he is loved. As Robyn Horner puts

it, “the question of whether or not I am...is less important than the question of whether or not I am

loved by another and therefore worthwhile.”53 Thus in the first stages of the development of the erotic

disposition he looks in vain for some other to love him. He looks for that which can give him meaning

and that can let him know he is worthwhile: he looks for love. This looking to the other for love is

characterized by a problem of reciprocity. There must be someone else to love me, otherwise I will not

find meaning. This reciprocity is characterized by an “economy and calculation”54 which seeks that

other.

The second question, “Can I love first?”55, shifts away from the limiting principle of reciprocity.

The possibility of being the initiator of love occurs to the subject. It is in this stage that the gift of self is

made possible without expecting a return. There is a vulnerability here, for one does not calculate the

costs of being rejected nor the viability of pursuing a certain other. For Marion, this movement of love

is guided by the Principle of Insufficient Reason. There is no reason that can explain the lover's

advance. His act of love rises above a commercial reciprocity. This principle will be key for

understanding the relation between love and knowledge. But before more closely analyzing this

52 Erotic Phenomenon, 29.

53 Robyn Horner, Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-logical Introduction (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), 136. Also: “We shift from
the task of establishing certitude in being to that of establishing assurance in love.” Cited as JLM from here on.
54 Erotic Phenomenon, 69. “Of course, one could immediately respond that reciprocity has nothing to do with love and
befits only the economy and calculation of exchange.”
55 Ibid., 71.
 Cloutier 12

principle, the third point, “You loved me first,” ought to be addressed.56 He sees it as a prerequisite of

one's love that another lover precede him: “it was necessary for another lover to have gone there before

me, a lover who, from there, calls me there in silence.”57 There is a realization that there is always

someone there who loves me. If the lover has not yet met them, then at least there is the potential for a

lover in the future.58 In the end, the absolute assurance of love rests in God having loved us first. This is

his “À Dieu” in which the lovers commend each other to God. God comes in with a twofold guarantee:

“as a witness to the faithfulness of love, and as the first lover who enables all other loves.”59 This is

where the ultimate assurance lies. Now the principle just mentioned can be more closely considered.

Marion asserts a Principle of Insufficient Reason in the erotic disposition such that, if all sense

of commercial reciprocity and selfishness is to be overcome, the lover must advance without a basis of

reason. If reciprocity in this sense of economic exchange is present, then it “attests to the condition of

love's impossibility.”60 The lover, when focused on who will love him, cannot love at all. If he stays at

this point, then he will withhold his love. In moving on to the second question of “Can I love first?” he

abandons reciprocity. Because Marion associates reasons for loving with commercial reciprocity, he

asserts that “in loving without reciprocity, the lover lovers without reason, nor is he able to give

reason...He renounces reason and sufficiency.”61

This is based upon a radical priority of love. Love must precede knowledge of the beloved.

Thus Marion rallies against any notion that some knowledge of the beloved elicits love: “Knowledge

does not make love possible, because knowledge flows from love. The lover makes visible what she

loves and, without this love, nothing would appear to her. Thus, strictly speaking, the lover does not

56 Ibid., 214.
57 Ibid., 215.
58 Horner, JLM, 142: “if I have not been loved in the past then someone may at least love me in the future.”
59 Ibid., 142.
60 Erotic Phenomenon, 70.
61 Ibid., 79.
 Cloutier 13

know what she loves – except insofar as she loves it.”62 Love is the access to an authentic knowledge of

the beloved. Without that access, knowledge falls short. Knowledge of the other as other is not possible

without love. There might be some semblance of knowledge, but this is not a genuine knowledge of the

other. Thus he says “only love opens up knowledge of the other as such.”63 It is by love that the

phenomenality of the other is opened up. This is true of both sexual love and neighborly love.64 The

other leaves the realm of indifference when she is loved: “the phenomenality of the other does not

precede my (good) will with regard to him, but instead is its result.”65

In the end, Marion affirms that one reason suffices for love. “From the lover's point of view

(and his alone), love becomes its own sufficient reason. The lover thus makes love by producing the

reason according to which he has good reason to go without every other reason.”66 Through love,

insight into the beloved is made possible and it is only the love of her that provides the reason. She is

the reason in herself – without thought of reciprocity or comparison to another.

Thus, overall Marion is seen to uphold a radical priority of love over knowledge. This is rooted

in his understanding of love's primordial role in philosophy, the seeking of wisdom, as well as in his

characterization of the rationality inherent in love. Specifically, it comes to light in the threefold erotic

reduction the movement from reciprocity to an advance of the lover first. Love then makes knowledge

of the beloved possible.

62 Ibid., 87.
63 Prolegomena to Charity, 160.
64 Marion's treatment of a neighborly love (first coming to know the other) focuses on the counter-gaze of the face. Cf.
Prolegomena to Charity, 166: “either I refuse the counter-gaze of the other and thereby hold him in place as an
object...or I accept not only the moral law and the face of the other, but above all that there is an other and that his
counter-gaze is as valuable as my own.” Also he says “To accept the other's face...depends on my willing it so.”
Compare this to his treatment of sexual love in Erotic Phenomenon. There he references this idea of the face of the other
(pp.97-101) but he goes further, detailing the phenomenality achieved in the meeting of flesh in conjugal union (pp.112-
120).
65 Prolegomena to Charity, 163. Here Marion is seen to differ from Scheler in that he sees the beginning of love to be a
matter of the will. Scheler sees it all but exclusively as a matter of the heart.
66 Erotic Phenomenon, 82.
 Cloutier 14

3. These philosophers in dialogue on love and knowledge

3A) Love is not blind

One commonality underlying everything that Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion write on love

and knowledge is the notion that there is a seeing made possible in love. Love is not blind. While

Scheler and Marion hold that there is rationality to love completely distinct from the intellect,

Hildebrand affirms that the sight of love is a kind of ennobling of the intellect. Yet they all stand

against that familiar saying that love is blind. In the spirit of the phrase, it is claimed that the

involvement of the affections blinds the lover, making it impossible to see the beloved as she really is.

No, these three would reply, there is a kind of knowing that only becomes possible in love.

These philosophers were keenly aware of this maxim and actively sought to counter it.

Hildebrand frankly states it so: “Nothing is more mistaken than the adage, 'Love is blind.' Love is that

which gives us sight, revealing to us even the faults of the other in their full import and causing us to

suffer because of them.”67 Here is highlighted Hildebrand's understanding that even the faults of the

beloved are realized in love. He sees the denial of the beloved's faults or the superficial treatment of

them fundamentally as a problem of naivete on the part of the lover.68 It is an immature love which is

characterized by this naivete. On the contrary, true love enables the fullest sight of the beloved. One is

able to acknowledge the faults but see them as compromises to the beloved's true self.69 Scheler too

specifically broaches the dictum. In the same breath, he acknowledges that both love being based on

knowledge, on the one hand, and love enabling knowledge, on the other, deny that love is blind.70

67 Hildebrand, Marriage (Manchester: Sophia Institute, 1991), 12. Cf. Nature of Love, 28: “Love as such is not blind.”
68 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 28: “But love turns to the other in such a way as to, as it were, draw out this line of
perfection into all the corners of the being of the other and to do this without necessarily falling into illusions. We say
'not necessarily' because there are naïve persons who are just as naïve in their love as in their trust, in their gullibility,
and in their way of knowing.”
69 Ibid., 69: “all the worthy traits of the other are seen as the authentic other, as that which makes up the real self of the
other, whereas his faults are interpreted as a lack of faithfulness to his true being.”
70 Scheler, On Feeling, 147: “for Goethe the movement of love grounds the act of knowledge, whereas for Leonardo [da
Vinci] the movement of knowledge grounds the act of love. However, both contradict the common, and as far as I can
see, specifically modern bourgeois judgment, prevalent since the Enlightenment, that 'love makes one blind,' that all true
knowledge of the world can rest only on holding back the emotions and simultaneously ignoring differences in value of
 Cloutier 15

Insisting upon the lover's special contact with reality, Scheler posits “it is the lover who actually sees

more of what is present than the others, and it is he and not 'others,' who therefore sees what is

objective and real.”71 For Scheler, love is that vision that connects the lover with the world of values

around him. It enables him to see the world as it is. Marion too characterizes love as bestowing sight.

“The lover alone sees something else, a thing that no one other than he sees – that is, what is precisely

no longer a thing, but, for the first time, just such an other, unique, individualized.”72 The lover alone is

afforded this sight. For Scheler and Marion, a new kind of rationality is actualized here. In Hildebrand's

thought, a new depth of intellectual rationality is enabled.

In this new sight of love, these philosophers agree that the beloved stands out as unique and

unrepeatable. Only the lover is able to realize the full individuality and unrepeatability of the beloved

because only to him is granted this singular vision. This is evident in Marion's words just quoted. The

new knowledge enabled by love grants a new insight into the beloved. There is a depth opened to the

sight of the lover not shared by any other. Here it is not so much a specific aspect or quality that stands

out as it is the whole individual. This individual cannot be replaced by another. So too Hildebrand

speaks of the full thematicity of the beloved in love. The overall preciousness of the beloved is

communicated to the lover.73 It is primarily this perception of the beloved's uniqueness that elicits the

response of love.74 It is her whole person which is thematic in love. Scheler as well will insist on love's

focus on the unique person: “Love and hate necessarily fasten upon the individual core in things, the

core of values...”75 This unique being is wholly unlike any other at the level of the individual core of

value. Beyond all the values of the beloved, she is an unrepeatable person, possessing a preciousness
the objects known.”
71 Scheler, Nature of Sympathy, 160.
72 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 80.
73 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 22: “love has to do with the overall beauty and preciousness of this individuality, which is a
fundamental value datum.”
74 Ibid., 23: “What grounds and engenders our love for the other person is the beauty and preciousness of this unique
personality as a whole.”
75 Scheler, Nature of Sympathy, 149. Emphasis in the original. Cf. p. 148: “It is never values we love, but always
something that possesses value.”
 Cloutier 16

that cannot be reproduced. This uniqueness of the beloved is accented by each of these philosophers.

3B) A loving disposition distinguished from the act of love

Much of the disagreement between Hildebrand, on the one hand, and Scheler and Marion, on

the other, turns on the question of what love is in the first place. In order to better understand the

compatibility of these conceptions of love, they must be adequately distinguished. Here an insight of

Hildebrand proves helpful. In speaking of Scheler's notion of the ordo amoris, he contrasts loving

openness with love itself. “One can speak of the ordo amoris in a general sense, in which case one is

not considering love in the narrow and proper sense, but only analogously.”76 It is love as a value-

response that Hildebrand regards to be love proper. This is an act relating to a particular person that one

has encountered. The ordo amoris is more general because it refers to the way in which one approaches

all of reality. It is the ordering of the loving disposition such that one prefers values rightly.

This distinction between a loving disposition and love itself seems to be phenomenologically

sound. It would be strange to say “I am in love” without a beloved to love. The image of a man “in

love” in which his whole heart is invested requires a beloved with whom he has become entranced. In

other words, the personal act of love is necessarily intentional. Nevertheless, it is quite coherent to

speak of love in another sense. One can say “I need to become a more loving person,” or, “I want to

have a greater love for life.” In the first case, being a “loving person” connotes an ability to love. This

“loving” dimension entails a readiness and an openness to love that which is lovable. This seems to

coincide with many of the statements of Scheler and Marion on the nature of love as preceding

knowledge. An unloving person will not be fully open to experience all that an object has to offer. In a

similar sense, having a “greater love for life” refers to loving the good things in life. It carries with it

the meaning of being open to love anything that is worthy of love. With these two kinds of love

delineated, it will be easier to understand these philosophers' analysis of love and how they are

76 Nature of Love, 349.

 Cloutier 17

consistent with one another.

3C) Scheler and Hildebrand on value-response

Throughout his writings, Scheler anticipates the question of whether love is a value-response.

Hildebrand, for his part, often directly addresses Scheler's concerns regarding this aspect of love. It will

be worthwhile then to reflect on what they can speak to one another. One criticism that Scheler raises is

that the lover always fails to produce adequate reasons for loving the beloved. He points to the

“extraordinary perplexity which can be seen to ensue when people are asked to give 'reasons' for their

love or hatred.”77 There is a failure here because, in Scheler's view, “the value is not envisaged

beforehand.”78 Hildebrand responds that this does not disprove the value basis of love. Rather, it shows

how significant this value really is: “The fact that we cannot easily point out as the basis of our love

things like the reliability or the honesty...of the other, proves nothing against the value-response

character of love, but only shows us what a deep and central value datum love presupposes.”79 Because

the value datum to which love responds encapsulates the whole beauty of the other, the search for

specific reasons often turns up empty handed. The specific values which instigate love act as

ambassadors of the whole person. The focus, then, is on the beloved person herself. Lovable attributes

are not to be taken in isolation from the beloved who exudes them. The lover's most adequate answer as

to the reason for his love is “because she is who she is.” There are few words which can ably articulate

the incommunicable preciousness of the beloved.

Another objection that Scheler poses concerns the role of love in revealing value. If love is so

crucial in enabling knowledge of value, how can it also be a response to this knowledge? For Scheler, it

is difficult to rectify these two dimensions of love.

“I do not mean to say that the nature of the act of love is such that it is directed in a
'responding' fashion to a value after that value is felt or preferred; I mean, rather, that
77 Scheler, Nature of Sympathy, 149.
78 Ibid., 149.
79 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 23.
 Cloutier 18

strictly speaking, this act plays the disclosing role in our value-comprehensions, and that
it is only this act which does so.”80

Scheler is right to say that love enables one to perceive value. Without the loving disposition, there

would be a kind of value blindness to the world which would block an authentic contact with it.

Hildebrand recognizes that approaching the other with love enables a knowledge not possible without

it. However, he still sees a preliminary knowledge as imperative. Thus he will affirm love as a factor

which will deepen one's knowledge of the beloved.

Even though value perception is prior to willing, the question arises – is it truly prior to thinking

and knowing as well? A closer examination of Scheler's account of the primacy of value-feeling is

necessary here. Two characteristic examples which he uses to indicate the priority of value-feeling over

knowledge are the meeting of an agreeable man and the gazing at a beautiful work of art.81 At first in

meeting someone who is agreeable, it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly what is agreeable about him

– the specific knowledge of those agreeable traits may be achieved later. So too with a beautiful

painting. The qualities in which the beauty inheres elude explication. Perhaps an expert artist is able to

explain that which the amateur can only feel. Scheler uses these and similar examples to claim that

feeling the value inherent in some good precedes knowledge of that good. But, as Potter points out, “in

all of these cases there is still some presented content of the object given.”82 Some sort of general

knowledge of the object always seems to precede the value perception, at least in the concrete

examples he gives. It seems, then, that if Scheler is held to his examples, a certain, albeit incomplete,

knowledge is the basis for the value perception of specific objects.

Understanding that point, Scheler and Hildebrand would be in agreement that the loving

80 Scheler, Formalism, 261.

81 For the agreeable man and the work of art, cf. Formalism, 17.
82 Joel M. Potter, “Arguments from the Priority of Feeling in Contemporary Emotion Theory and Max Scheler's
Phenomenology,” Quaestiones Disputatae: Selected Papers on Early Phenomenology: Munich and Gottingen, vol. 3,
no. 1 (2012): 226: “In all of the cases that Scheler mentions the contents of the objects towards which feelings are
directed are not completely empty or obscured...”
 Cloutier 19

disposition toward the other enables an authentic knowledge of the beloved. If the first basis of value-

response is recognized to be a kind of knowledge, even if an indifferent knowledge, then Hildebrand

readily asserts that “love sharpens our vision of value, so that when we approach someone lovingly we

grasp values in him that we did not see as long as we approached him indifferently.”83 This implies that

one apprehends certain values even in an indifferent knowledge. In love, however, new values spring

up to which the apathetic observer was blind. Though the possibility of this kind of indifferent

knowledge is not emphasized by Scheler, he does speak of it more than once. For instance, at one point

in the Nature of Sympathy, Scheler admits that an awareness of the values in the beloved such as beauty

and goodness is possible “without any love at all.” In this place he concedes that love as a movement

can follow upon “values already acknowledged as 'real.'”84 While Scheler strongly insists upon the

priority of love over knowledge, it must be concluded in light of these statements that this priority

holds only for that knowledge of the beloved which has ceased to be indifferent. With these details

brought to bear, it seems, if the author of this paper is not mistaken, that Hildebrand's account of love

finds room in the Schelerian model.

It is significant that both Scheler and Hildebrand stress the movement character of love. In

addressing this aspect of love, Scheler holds that the value-responsive view cannot do justice to this

movement character: “Those who treat love as a merely consequential 'reaction' to a value already felt,

have failed to recognize its nature as a movement...Love does not simply gape approval, so to speak, at

a value lying ready to hand for inspection.”85 Scheler repeatedly underlines this movement from lower

to higher values in which the lover looks to those greater values which might exist in the beloved.

However, it is not the case that a value-responsive view cannot appreciate this movement in love. For

83 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 24.

84 Scheler, Nature of Sympathy, 153-4: “Of course there is an awareness, in love, of the positive value of the things loved,
for instance, the beauty, the charm and the goodness of a person; but we can also be aware of this without any love at all.
Love only occurs when, upon the values already acknowledged as 'real' there supervenes a movement, an intention,
towards potential values still 'higher' than those already given and presented.” (Emphasis added.)
85 Ibid., 153.
 Cloutier 20

Hildebrand, there is a credit extended in love which plays a key role in the lover's apprehension of the

beloved.86 Hildebrand explains the credit of love in terms of “interpreting another 'from above.'”87 This

is a slightly different metaphor than Scheler uses, but a similar concept is being evoked. For Scheler,

the movement is described in terms of an ascension, an upward surging, by which higher values are

both envisaged and brought into existence.88 In Hildebrand's elucidation, there is a looking upon the

beloved from a point above her. This is to signify that the lover expects higher values to exist in the

beloved before he expects lower values. In both Scheler and Hildebrand, there is an expectant hope of

there being a richer and deeper value datum in the beloved than has already been apprehended. But

there is also a clearheaded awareness of the faults of the beloved.89 Perhaps Scheler would respond that

Hildebrand does not give enough emphasis to this phenomenon in the terminology of movement. Here,

though, the issue would turn on the precise usage of terms, acknowledging that Hildebrand does

adequately capture the basic sense of this sight of higher value.

3D) Marion and Hildebrand on reciprocity, thematicity, and value-response

Marion's primary motivation for denying reciprocity in love is that he sees reciprocity as

necessarily characterized by commerce. When one is primarily focused on answering the question

“does anyone love me?”, there tends to be a selfish focus. Within this question there is an implicit

demand to be loved. In Marion's understanding, this notion of reciprocity must lead to a justice-based

exchange where one will not love the other until he has loved first. Now there is certainly a possibility

86 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 67.

87 Ibid., 68.
88 Scheler, “Ordo amoris,” 109: “love is the tendency, or as it may be, the act that seeks to lead everything in the direction
of the perfection of value proper to it – and succeeds, when no obstacles are present. Thus we defined the essence of
love as an edifying and uplifting action in and over the world.” (Emphasis added)
89 Cf. Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 71: “Love makes me more sensitive to the faults of a beloved person, because the
beauty of the person as a whole has been revealed to me and because I am concerned that he remain faithful to his own
most proper being and fully develop his true self.” Cf. Scheler, Nature of Sympathy, 154: “These additional values are
not yet manifested as positive qualities, being merely envisaged concurrently as potential ingredients of a corporate
structural pattern. In so doing, love invariably sets up, as it were, an 'idealized'' paradigm of value for the person actually
present, albeit conceiving this at the same time as an embodiment of his 'true' nature and 'real' value, which only awaits
confirmation in feeling. To be sure, this 'paradigm' is implicit in the values already disclosed empirically in feeling...”
(Emphasis in the original) This being implicit ensures the idealization is not delusional.
 Cloutier 21

that the longing for a return of love can turn to selfishness, but it is far from being concomitantly

present with the desire for a return of love. To Marion's notion, Hildebrand responds that “all love

certainly desires a reciprocity which is free from every shade of egoism.”90 This sense of reciprocity

does not need to fall into a kind of exchange. The focus is always on the beloved and her beauty. While

the lover can hardly help desiring that the beloved return his love, the beloved is not seen merely as a

means of satisfying a need to be loved. If this were the meaning of reciprocity, Hildebrand would speak

against it as forcefully as Marion.91 Rather, for Hildebrand, because love is based in the beloved's value,

it “excludes any possibility of looking upon the beloved person as a means for my happiness and

delight.”92 The focus is always on the beloved.

Both Marion and Hildebrand see the need for the beloved to be thematic in love. This

agreement is crucial for understanding their compatibility with regard to the Principle of Insufficient

Reason. Thematicity is a concept that permeates all of Hildebrand's work on love. As discussed above,

while love is a response to the values of the beloved, it is always the beloved which shines through in

each of these values.93 The value is not so much a reason separated from the beloved as that by which

the overall beauty of the beloved is communicated. In claiming that the beloved person is thematic in

the value-response, Hildebrand is saying that, in the end, love is a response to the beloved. While

Marion affirms that the lover first advances without a reason, one reason does emerge in the end. In

loving the beloved, it is realized that “the other, become unique, herself occupies, by virtue of her role

as focal point, the function of the reason that the lover has for loving her.”94 It is fully in accord with

90 Hildebrand, Marriage, 8.
91 Cf. Hildebrand's distinction between appetitus and value-response found in Nature of Love, 28-35. Here Marion's
concern of an inappropriate desire for reciprocity is addressed by Hildebrand in writing against the concept of approaching
love as if it were merely the fulfillment of an immanent desire or need. He concludes a type of appetitus can co-exist with
value-response but it should never be the primary element in love.
92 Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 19. Cf. Crosby, “Introductory Study,” xxxiv: “my value-based interest in the other coheres
entirely with a radically other-centered approach to the other.”
93 Cf. Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 18: “In love the value and its delightfulness must be of such a kind that it is united with
the full thematicity of the person as person.”
94 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 81.
 Cloutier 22

Marion's thought, then, to assert that the beloved is thematic in love. The beloved is the only reason

that can be given for one's love. It is understandable that Marion so underscores that the beloved can be

the only reason in love. Certainly, one should not approach a relationship as if one is “shopping” for

someone who is the most beautiful or the smartest or the most talented. Rather, the beloved as beloved

is the reason for one's love.

Perhaps an additional affinity on this issue is found in Hildebrand's notion of love going beyond

value-response. Marion objects to the idea that the qualities of the beloved provide reasons for loving

her. He objects because the lover is unable to enumerate these reasons.95 Hildebrand might proffer that

there is a lack of reasons because the lover goes beyond the demand of the values in the beloved. Love

is characterized as a gift. The lover gives of himself such that no obligation or demand of value can

explain it.96 This resonates with Marion's assertion that it is only in the “figure of gift” that love

“abolishes economy,” i.e., a selfish reciprocity.97 In Marion's conception of the lover's advance, the gift

character of love is emphasized as the lover gives his love without a calculating reason – without

counting the cost. For Hildebrand, the gift character blossoms out of the root of value-response. Yet

even as they both affirm the gift character of love, Marion holds that the knowledge of the beloved

follows upon the gift character of the lover's advance while Hildebrand posits that the gift character

flows out of a preceding apprehension of the beloved.

Indeed, for Marion the beloved becomes the reason for love following and not preceding the

lover's initiation of love. In Marion, there is a joining between Scheler's loving disposition which

precedes authentic knowledge and Hildebrand's response to the preciousness of the beloved. Marion

says, “The lover has no reason to love the one that he loves other than, precisely, the one that he loves,

95 Cf. Ibid., 79: “in loving without reciprocity, the lover loves without reason, nor is he able to give reason – counter to the
principle of sufficient reason.” Emphasis added.
96 Cf. Hildebrand, Natural of Love, 78: “love goes beyond all other value-responses. It contains a decision for the other, a
kind of self-donation, which is not obligatory in the setting of the natural categories of love.”
97 Marion, Erotic Phenomenon, 78: “The lover appears when one of the actors in the exchange no longer poses prior
conditions, and loves without requiring to be loved, and thus, in the figure of gift, abolishes economy.”
 Cloutier 23

insofar as he, the lover, makes this one visible by loving him or her first.”98 The first disclosure of the

beloved as beloved only occurs after one has approached her with a loving disposition. Even so, once

the beloved is disclosed, she becomes the reason for one's love. The lover remains indifferent to the

beloved prior to the decision to love. But once the lover opens himself up to the beloved in love, her

worth and preciousness is communicated to the lover. His love becomes a response to that worth.

There is a subtle sequence here. First, an indifferent knowledge of the other gives way to a

loving disposition toward them. In making the decision to love, the full worth of the beloved is

revealed. It seems that love undergoes a transformation. Whereas the initiation of love lacked a reason,

now the beloved in her individuality has become the reason. If Hildebrand's distinction between a

loving disposition and the act of love proper can hold here, perhaps this transformation in Marion's

sequence of love can be described with it. It seems that one can choose to open oneself in a loving

disposition to fully perceive the value present in the beloved. However, at some point, this would give

way to a response to the value in the beloved – the beloved becomes the reason for the love. It is

unclear whether Marion's concept of the univocity of love would allow for such a distinction in love

even if this distinction is quite unlike the categorization of love into passionate and intellectual which

he specifically writes against. Nevertheless, it appears that a kinship is possible between the views of

Marion and Hildebrand on the reasons for love.

4. A proposed synthesis

4A) Loving disposition and the act of love proper

The two main considerations to be offered in this synthesis are the distinction between loving

disposition and the act of love proper, on the one hand, and the dialogical relationship between love and

knowledge, on the other. Once the two kinds or moments of love are distinguished, it appears that the

accounts of Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion become more compatible. Each of these philosophers

98 Ibid., 82.
 Cloutier 24

gives their own emphases in the relation between these two kinds of love. Scheler focuses much of his

work on one's loving disposition towards all of reality. Marion considers especially the advance of the

lover and the role that changing to a loving disposition plays in it. Hildebrand focuses on the act of love

proper as responsive to the apprehended value while still allowing room for a loving disposition. As

shown in the previous section, many issues raised by each philosopher concerning the system of

another are anticipated and specifically addressed by that other philosopher. The question remains – to

what extent would each philosopher be receptive to the suggestions and criticisms of the others?

Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion have each carefully considered and chosen the emphasis of

their philosophy of love such that none would be willing to alter it significantly. With the ordo amoris

playing such a fundamental role in the subject's life, especially considered within Scheler's ethics, it is

highly unlikely that Scheler would be amiable to shifting his language to that of value response. Yet

value-response is so integral to Hildebrand's entire philosophical system that he surely would not let it

fade into the background and he certainly would not abandon it. And Marion's Principle of Insufficient

Reason appears at such a pivotal junction in his philosophy of love that, though it could possibly be

reconciled with value-response, he would, without doubt, avoid using any other language to describe

the reasons in love. It is clear, then, at least with regards to terminology, that any synthesis of these

three will make notable compromises. However, in dialogue, a basic compatibility among these

philosophers seems to emerge such that a new synthesis is possible.

The richest insights these phenomenologists have to offer are precisely in those areas in which

they place their emphasis. Scheler's work enlightens the nature of the loving disposition in relating to

the world at large. Marion's writings are edifying especially in the moment of turning toward this

person with a loving disposition. Hildebrand offers the most fruitful reflection on the response offered

once the value of the beloved has been cognized. This synthesis will seek to incorporate these insights

in one view.
 Cloutier 25

The sequence in love to be taken from these thinkers seems to be this: first, an indifferent

knowledge of the other; second, a loving disposition toward her; third, the overall value of the other is

made known to the lover; fourth, love responds to the value in the beloved. Scheler, Hildebrand, and

Marion each seem to admit some sort of indifferent knowledge preceding even the loving disposition.

There are certain values acknowledged even here when one is indifferent to the other. A potential does

exist, then, to be propelled into the third and fourth stages without consciously turning toward the other

with a loving disposition. In such a case, the values perceived in indifference would strike the heart of

the lover such that even then the overall preciousness and beauty of the beloved (stage three) would

break through and elicit a response of the lover. However, it seems that the loving disposition will in

most cases be necessary in order to perceive the value of the beloved at a deeper level. There is truth

both in Scheler's notion that love circumscribes knowledge and in Marion's concept of the need for a

love of goodwill to see the beloved.

In turning to the other in a loving disposition, a new kind of knowledge is made possible – a

knowledge which looks into the world of value present in the beloved. Scheler, following Pascal,

would say it is clear that the heart has reasons which the reason cannot know. Marion would agree in

that there is an erotic rationality not equatable with intellectual reason. Hildebrand, too, acknowledges

that a new depth of apprehension of the beloved is made possible through love. Each claims that reason

alone, without the enlightenment of love, cannot attain to this deeper knowledge of the beloved. It is in

this stage that one is most open to apprehending the value of the beloved. The readiness to see what is

valuable in the beloved that characterizes the loving disposition makes it possible to apprehend that

value which is the presupposition of value-response. Moving from the second to the third stage, the

overall preciousness of the beloved is communicated to the lover and he is struck by her beauty. This

moment necessarily follows a loving disposition for Scheler, it comes in the midst of the advance of the

lover for Marion, and it precedes the full response of love for Hildebrand. In being particularly touched
 Cloutier 26

by the value of the beloved, it is always the beloved which shines through. The beloved is always

thematic, now being the sole reason for love.

Finally, the act of love proper (the value-response) is made possible. The indifferent knowledge

gives way to a loving disposition toward the world and especially the beloved. In this disposition, the

intrinsic beauty of this person is given to the lover. Then the lover can make a mature response to the

beloved. It is because the beloved is this unique individual that the love is engendered. This preceding

knowledge of the beauty of the other ensures the intentionality of the act of love. While the loving

disposition does not necessarily need to be directed to a single person, the act of love proper must be.

This is why love must be a value-response. In the sequence up to this point, an interplay of knowledge

and love has already been shown. With respect to the apprehension of the unique beauty of the beloved,

love both precedes in the loving disposition and follows in the value-responsive act of love. In the

value-response of love, a new depth and intensity of the loving disposition is made possible. In

responding to the beloved by virtue of a proper act of love, there emerges a new level of interaction

between love and knowledge.

4B) The dialogical relationship between love and knowledge

Perhaps the most remarkable insight that comes from the synthesis of these authors is the great

power for love and knowledge to build each other up – to interpenetrate and bolster one another. The

acts of knowing and loving are so closely related that, in asserting the priority of knowledge over love,

almost in the same breath one must also posit a priority of love over knowledge.99 This dialogical

relationship in which knowing begets loving and loving begets deeper knowing was first formulated

(among these three thinkers) )by Hildebrand. This point of his comes out most clearly in his addressing

Scheler's notion of love in his work The Nature of Love. In one section he speaks of the apparent

99 Crosby, “Introductory Study,” xxxiii: “the priority of love over knowledge would seem quickly to yield to a certain
priority of knowledge over lover. Of course, once his love is engendered by apprehended beauty, the lover would seem
to be empowered thereby to see more deeply into the beauty of the beloved.”
 Cloutier 27

“paradox of love presupposing value knowledge while at the same time empowering us to see value

more clearly.”100 Ultimately, it comes to light that if one is so preoccupied with one of these relations

that the other is obscured, the fullest account of love will not be attained.

Hildebrand himself assimilates Scheler's notion of the disposition of love but always puts it in

the service of love as value-response. On the one hand, he affirms that “love sharpens our vision of

value, so that when we approach someone lovingly we grasp values in him that we did not see as long

as we approach him indifferently.”101 With regard to the synthesis just offered, this would correspond to

the loving disposition coming after an indifferent knowledge and preceding an intimation of the unique

preciousness of the beloved. He then goes on to uphold that “love itself presupposes an apprehension of

values and that it by its very nature responds to these values or is engendered by them.”102 While

Hildebrand himself does not highlight a distinction between two senses of love in this statement, his

description seems to correlate more so with the act of love proper than with a loving disposition. He

most clearly espouses this view of the dialogical relation between love and knowledge in stating the

following.

“Some apprehension of value is presupposed for the awakening of love, but love enables
us to reach a new and deeper apprehension of value, which in turn grounds a new and
deeper love, which in turn grounds a new and deeper apprehension of value.”103

Here there is a movement back and forth between love and knowledge. The ultimate basis for the

beginning of this exchange is the first knowledge of the beloved's unique preciousness. This brings

about the value-response of love proper. Yet love proper does not abandon the loving disposition which

preceded. Rather, this disposition of love towards the beloved is matured and deepened in the value-

response. This enables not only a greater knowledge of the beloved but also, because one's loving

disposition impacts how one approaches the world, a deeper knowledge of the world. And, in turn,
100Hildebrand, Nature of Love, 24.
101Ibid., 24.
102Ibid., 24.
103Ibid., 24.
 Cloutier 28

because the act of love does not cease to be value-responsive, the greater the value perceived the deeper

the love will be for the beloved. There is a mutual strengthening here which characterizes this interplay

between love and knowledge of the beloved.

5. Conclusion

Having engaged Scheler, Hildebrand, and Marion in dialogue on the philosophy of love, let us

now reconsider the case of Robert meeting Jane. At first, he is rather indifferent toward her even

though he acknowledges certain values she has. They get to talking and over time Robert has a change

of heart. He turns toward her with a loving disposition and has some intimation of the preciousness and

beauty that is uniquely Jane's. In the end, he realizes that this beauty of hers has engendered a response

on his part. He loves her – he is responding to her value. Prior to knowing her preciousness, he would

not say he truly “loves” her. There is something definitive about the value-response of love which

enables Robert to take a stance and say “I love you.” When Robert professes his love, he discovers that

Jane loves him too. In their relationship, his loving her deepens his knowledge of her incommunicable

and unique beauty and this deepening knowledge makes him love her even more.

Thus it seems that the loving disposition of Scheler, the Principle of Insufficient Reason of

Marion, and the value-responsive love of Hildebrand can each form part of a coherent system. The

possibility of this compatibility becomes apparent once one has distinguished between loving

disposition and the act of love itself. This system integrates several of these philosophers' richest

insights: the rationality that is engaged only in love, the priority of dispositional love to knowledge, the

thematicity of the beloved in love, and the responsive character of love proper. Now this is not the only

synthesis possible among these three philosophers. However, this view does show that it is at least

possible to accommodate some of these thinkers' more diverging points.

It remains to place these phenomenologists in dialogue with the earlier philosophical tradition.

Perhaps their strong focus on the experience of love and knowledge would have much to bring to bear
 Cloutier 29

in philosophical dialogue. The idea that knowledge must precede love is clearly present in Augustine

and Aquinas.104 Yet they both also hold, after Aristotle, the necessity of good moral character for moral

knowledge.105 Comparing their views with these phenomenologists would certainly prove fruitful. The

dialogical relation between love and knowledge seems to find a parallel in Aristotle's account of

virtuous action. The virtuous man is able to act virtuously because he is virtuous but in acting

virtuously he also becomes virtuous.106 Knowledge, too, seems to be both the cause and effect of love

but in different senses. Further dialogue with the tradition would assuredly be worthwhile.

104Cf. Augustine, De Trinitate, accessed July 20, 2013, <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1301.htm>, x, 2, 1: “For

certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, accessed July 20, 2013,
<http://www.newadvent.org/summa>, I-II Q. 27, Art. 2, Respondeo: “love demands some apprehension of the good that
is loved.”
105Michael S. Sherwin, By Knowledge and by Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 2005), 64: “Thomas remains faithful to two apparently contradictory
Augustinian assertions: that love depends on knowledge (for we cannot love what we do not know), but that moral
knowledge depends on well-ordered love as the principle that moves all the powers of the soul to act.”
106Aristotle discusses this especially in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics. Cf. Crosby, “Introductory Study,” xxxiii:
“Virtuous character is, in relation to action, both cause and effect.”