Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), among modern
philosophers, was one of the first and the very few
to focus on the phenomenon of Love

Schopenhauer's philosophy of love is remarkable in
that it not only addresses one of our most pressing
concerns, love, but it also introduces concepts that
would later become central to the work of Charles
Darwin and Sigmund Freud -

concepts relating to the drive toward propagation,
unconscious factors influencing mate selection and
variation among individuals across generations

Schopenhauer's assertions about love include:

- love is an issue that philosophers have tended to
overlook or dismiss

- love is a central, if not THE central, concern of our
lives; and it is a key aspect of what he calls our
"Will to Life"

- beneath our conscious preoccupation with love is
a powerful, more basic, more important and largely
unconscious desire to reproduce, to propagate the
species

- we are unconsciously driven to seek out a mate
whose attributes, in conjunction with ours, will result
in offspring whose ability to survive and reproduce
exceeds our own

the video below reviews Schopenhauer's assertions
about love in greater detail



the above video is an excerpt from Alain de Botton's
"Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness"