Love: a messy feeling

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Book cover

Love: A messy feeling is a non-fiction book published in 2009 by the German philosopher and publicist Richard David Precht .

content

The book links the scientific-biological side of sexuality and love with the psychological and social-cultural circumstances of the human understanding and behavior of love. Precht's main thesis is that sexual love did not arise from sexuality, but from the parent-child bond. The need for attachment and closeness comes from the child's relationship with the parents and later looks for a correspondence in the sexual partner. Love is therefore a projection of (early) childish love needs and love experiences in the partner of sexual love.

Popular success

From March 2009 to December 2009 the book was on the SPIEGEL bestseller list.

Reviews

Katja Schwab wrote in a review that Precht knows how to "convey knowledge in a charming and amusing way". The book is aimed at inexperienced readers and is suitable for bathtub, train journeys and bar discussions.

Susanne Schmetkamp judges in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit that Precht's "offensively presented theses" are "sometimes [...] exciting", but there is "nothing groundbreaking". Important philosophers would, however, "appear too briefly or not at all."

Malte Dahlgrün, research assistant at the Institute for Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin , described the book as a "pseudoscientific disgrace" in a review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung . Precht "did not even begin to understand" the theories from evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology criticized by him. He continues to attest him to "false statements" and "half lies".

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thoughts on Love . Brain and Mind, May 14, 2009
  2. ↑ Die Zeit: Das Prechtige Lied der Liebe , March 13, 2009
  3. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: bestselling author Precht Unbelievable , from May 17, 2010
  4. ↑ Perlentaucher: Review note on Süddeutsche Zeitung , accessed on July 20, 2013