The Rationale Behind Erotic Love in Vladimir Solovyov’s Thought

Abstract

Vladimir Solovyov’s concept of erotic love represents a rather original theosophical vision of this issue for his theory of love is closely connected with eschatological matters and, in addition to that, constitutes the product of materialistic (strictly biological) and spiritualist presentation of the subject in question. Solovyov’s philosophical analyses of sexual love demonstrate that intercourse is not so much an act that exceeds purely biological level as the one that causes transformation of our biological nature and consists in over-spiritualisation and divinisation (deification) of our nature. The meaning of erotic love, as construed by Solovyov, lays in creating a widely understood unity based on attaining a spiritual and bodily integrity as well as overcoming disintegration connected with the existence of gender, that is integrating the female and male principle of human existence.