"The fact that English has only one word to cover what other languages use at least three words to name complicates the attempt to distinguish different types of love.
The Greek triad of
eros, philia, and agape,
and the Latin triad of
amor, delictio, and caritas,
name three distinct types of love that can only be designated in English by such phrases as "erotic or sexual love",
"friendly love",
"divine love"
or
"the love of God and of one's self and others as creatures of God".
Though we do have single English words
- "Friendship" and "Charity" -
for the second and third types of love, our over-broad and over-narrow usage of them, together with a prevalent tendency to over-stress the sexual or erotic aspect of love,
often obscures or distorts our understanding of the kinds of love and their relation to one another."
- Mortimer J.Adler and Charles Van Doren
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