Beyond Friendship and Eros: Unrecognized Relationships between Men and Women

by John R. Scudder Jr., Anne H. Bishop

Explores deep intimate personal relationships between men and women.

Genres: Philosophy

Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

Reviews

[Andrea S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was really excited to read this book. But I learned nothing from it.
This book was written to explain a relationship the authors call, "dialogical love". The particularity of names and labels is fine and all. But maybe due to my life experience, I don't understand why this topic needed to be studied at all. I have a relationship like theirs and have never had the struggle of questioning the extent of my love for the other person. The society around us is the same as the one around the authors. The difference is, we don't question why society doesn't understand our relationship. Instead, we ask ourselves why we question the way our relationship is.
I also feel that this philosophical exploration needed to go in different directions. They explain how similar a "we-relationship" (a semantic I'm not fond of, but I digress) is to marriage or other relationships, and then justify it. That's what most of the book does. I feel that this book could instead answer the question of what separates dialogical love from marital love. Why wouldn't you marry that other person?
I do like that this conversation is being had. Maybe I need to look at this book again some other day to fully understand the nuance. But the arguments made seem only to serve people preoccupied with labeling complex emotions within relationships.

[Skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quietly revolutionary.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is partly an attempt by the authors to call upon others who study relationships to try to expand their considerations beyond Eros and friendship and consider dialogical love. This is also an attempt on the authors' part to explain their relationship with each other. They talk about how previous scholars and philosophers (mainly from the 20th century) wrote about or experienced--or didn't experience, as was the case with Ralph Waldo Emerson--dialogical love.

As a friend pointed out to me while I was reading this monograph, the characterization of dialogical love here could be seen as an example of Aristotle's broader notion of philia. The idea of philia encompasses relationships that include what we normally consider friendships or love relationships and is close to dialogical love in that they both involve a mutually shared experience that isn't necessarily dictated by social, cultural, and religious prescriptions.

As I understand it, dialogical love is characterized by the enjoyment and acceptance of the each person as a person; gender roles, social positions, religious considerations, and the like should not interfere with the dialogical relationship. There is a closeness, an intimacy and depth to the relationship where sexual matters are not necessarily of great concern. How the authors have described dialogical love is similar to when you go to a party and you meet someone and you two start talking. And talking and talking well into the night and you two find yourselves looking at the start of a new day. And it feels as if you two have known each other before, haven't met in decades, and you're all now rediscovering each other. And the best part is that you two can't wait to experience each other again later that new day.

In the end, this book has given me a better understanding of how I've been in some of my relationships and how I try to treat friends of any gender.

[Tori]

2003-Bland writing...Not to mention the fact the authors seemed to write the book to convince themselves that their close relationship was ""okay"". I didn't really like the conversational structure of the book, and it was annoying when they brought up a philosopher before giving the reader any idea of what they were going to talk about. A letdown that isn't in touch with the younger generation (the authors are in their 50+'s).