Filip Buekens

In this paper the author argues that love de re — love for a particular person — is an emotion that is singular in that the beloved person is an external constituent of that emotion. After comparing love de re with other de re attitudes, and distinguishing it from love de dicto, he rejects reductions of love de re to love de dicto. It will be demonstrated the lover must have a dynamic conception of the person he loves which is derived from historical connections with him or her. A merely causal link is not enough. The way the beloved person appears to the lover cannot be reduced to an antecedently available picture or assembly of properties the lover appreciates, as cognitivists tend to claim. The theoretical background of the paper draws on insights of G. Evans and J. McDowell.