Talk:Eros (concept)

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--- Έρως ---

The article is completely wrong. The Freudian view of Eros is completely distorted from what the Hellenes were meaning. The comments of the user Skookum1 are right in some aspects however is wrong in 2 fundamental things

Γαμώ is the sexual act, regardless the sex, as eros is not applied only to homosexuals...έλεος!! It is truth that they are no sexual connotations...absolutely truth.

Removed the 'some scholars' clause as it's sloppy writing. Cite sources, otherwise they're opinion.

Especially in classics. Although citing opinions but treating them as facts is popular, too. For what I'm weighing in about, I'd have to dig out cites, and it's still controversial in classics. And there are those classicists who can read the Symposium and still only indirectly discuss the overt predilections of those partaking at the "drinking party"; embarrassing stuff, and very politically incorrect nowadays (the Greek words pedagogy and pedophilia were complementary and often synonymous, as the core of the Greek education system was the partnership with older males that educated bright, handsome young boys/men .... well, I won't go on, as that's not the point so much as the way the Greek meanins of eros can be uncomfortable to deal with. As from what I remember in my stumbling studies of ancient Greek and various writings, the verb ero (written erow, with the w an omega) doesn't mean heterosexual love at all - which is simply gamo (a vulgarity in modern Greek) - but the magnetic love and bond between men, even otherwise straight men but often enough the love-bonding so famously celebrated of the Spartans and Thebans and various Athenian gentlemen. Something as "soft" and still macho as Aussie "matehood", perhaps, or the ways primos are in Latin culture. I'd have to find cites on this in order to put it in the article but I'm fielding it here for discussion, or maybe somebody might know their Greek material enough for a cite or two.Skookum1 08:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Eros in Hellenic thought. That actual Hellenic meaning of the word Eros had nothing to do with "erotic love." It had to do with Metis and Logos. There were no sexual connotations to that concept at all.

2007-02-1 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 11:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Additions .

I added the section on Eros and C.G. Jung as this artical is cited as being linked to psychology. I will work on expanding it as i have time. Cheers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Suener (talk • contribs) 16:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Requested Move

I propose renaming this article to Eros (concept), since it encompasses more than just "love", but also creative drive, as seen in Jung and Freud. Besides "love" isn't a category like you see in other like-named articles like "(series)" or "(film)" or "(mythology)", for example. We could also then start the Thanatos (concept) article as its opposite and be consistent, since "Thanatos (love)" obviously makes no sense. Godheval (talk) 19:30, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge From Freud

Eros (Freud) should be merged here because it fits under the general discussion as Eros the concept. As of now there is very little information in the Freud article - only enough to fit within Freud's psychological articles or in Eros (concept). Once merged here, the section should be expanded. —Godheval^{T C H} 19:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of Eros

THE ETYMOLOGY OF EROS. I think this should help. A professional paper about this could be beneficial for this article. Komitsuki (talk) 11:24, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Problem with the "Judeo-Christian Tradition" Section .

As it stands, the section in the article titled "The Judeo-Christian Tradition" appears to be just one long, misinformed quote from a non-profession source. I changed the content of the quote to at least mention the fact that the word, "eros," does not appear in the "Song of Songs." However, the whole section needs to be rewritten to be less editorial and more scholarly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by an IP editor • 15:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Expand Lead

Since there is a distinct difference between the Eros concept of love and the concept that is presented by modern psychology and philosophy would it be beneficial to expand the lead a bit more to explain more of what the page is and how there are distinct differences in the two subjects. Or keep it the same and just remove the quote from C.S. Lewis since there isn't anything that expands the topic or definition that C.S. Lewis presents. Tyreltg (talk) 03:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree the Lead needs to be expanded to give a better concept of what modern thoughts are. It mentions mostly the Greek ancient philosophy but not updated data or information from new ideas that may have been presented.Sambaz97 (talk) 22:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Modern invention?

I'm wondering if this idea that eros referring to romantic love comes from ancient Greece is original research. I looked into this notion for another article, and I don't have sources that state exactly this in my personal reference library.

This is what appears to be true based on what I've encountered, during my research writing articles on romantic love:

• Eros was a god of love in Greek mythology.
• Plato had a concept of eros or erotic love; however, while Plato's ideas influenced the tradition of romantic love in Western philosophy, Platonic eros was not romantic love in a way that a modern reader would recognize it (see Eros (concept)#Plato and Platonic love).
• The term "eros" has then been used by modern authors (e.g. C. S. Lewis, Denis de Rougemont, Irving Singer) to refer to something like romantic love or the romantic tradition.

I'm not sure that it's correct to think that eros corresponds with a Greek idea of romantic love. I have not seen scholarly (very reliable) sources clearly saying that eros was actually used this way (referring to an idea of romantic love) in ancient Greece.

However, my expertise is romantic love, not ancient Greece or Greek philosophy. ShiveryPeaks (talk) 23:34, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Other authors who are actually borrowing the term are Freud and John Alan Lee (i.e. Colour wheel theory of love). ShiveryPeaks (talk) 02:13, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Let me also specify the specific kind of claim I'm questioning: "Eros is a concept in ancient Greek philosophy referring to sensual or passionate love", which is uncited in this article. What I can source would be something like "Eros is a term borrowed from ancient Greek philosophy to refer to sensual or passionate love".

For what it's worth, I also asked Claude (AI) about this, and it seemed to be just making stuff up, then admitted to confabulating when I pointed it out.

So my question here is whether there are sources corroborating the claim that the ancient Greeks themselves really used "eros" to mean erotic, passionate, romantic love, or whether that is actually a modern use. Clearly, to the Greeks, Eros was a god associated with romantic love and Plato borrowed the term for his concept. Modern romantic philosophy is descended from Plato (see Romance#Philosophy; hence why the term is being borrowed), but that is not exactly what is claimed in this article. ShiveryPeaks (talk) 01:57, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

This is the closest thing I've seen to a source while poking around about this (but not one suitable for a Wikipedia citation). The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy says that:

‘Eros’ originally meant love in the sense of a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual passion (Liddell et al., 1940).

Liddell (1940) is a Greek-English lexicon which states on page 694 that ἔρως is "love, mostly of the sexual passion". ShiveryPeaks (talk) 07:27, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

The claim made by the Stanford encyclopedia also hinges a lot on what they might mean by "originally". I think neither source unambiguously supports the idea that the ancient Greeks used "eros" to mean something that a modern person would recognize as passionate love or romantic love. ShiveryPeaks (talk) 07:34, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

Here is a source (a high-quality scholarly WP:SECONDARY source by our standards) I stumbled upon which seems to corroborate my idea here, that the Greek idea of eros was actually Plato's idea, not something more "modern". This is again some academics comparing the concepts, while not equating them.

The notion of Eros began with Plato, who defined love as the desire for the possession of the good or the beautiful. Plato thought that everything strove to achieve the good and that human love was a vehicle toward that end. ... The interesting thing about Plato is that the good or the beautiful were considered as ideals or platonic forms toward which one should strive. Plato was actually rather puritanical about sex, believing that carnal pleasures distracted one from the pursuit of the good.

Platonic Eros has little relevance to the love of humans; however, an element does remain, and it is identified most closely with what today we would call passionate love, in which an individual idealizes valued attributes of the other, develops a strong sense of romantic attachment based on those values, and "falls in love" with great and intense passion. (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992, pp. 34–35)