Building on Robert Frost’s phrase, this chapter examines devotion in terms of “loyalty and love or care for someone or something” (Cambridge Dictionary). The first half explores foundational considerations about love as devotion through clarifying (a) language and (b) various understandings of love. Devotion is viewed, first, in the context of love as a universal phenomenon that finds expression across cultures, within committed relationships, families, and between parents and children. Second, devotion is discussed in relation to agape, eros, and philia. “Robust concern” (carefully understood) is suggested as a possible description for devotion, underpinning devotion’s social function as a deeply held loyalty to a cause or organization. The limits of loyalty, as in whistle blowers, are also considered. Devotion can also denote a bond between animals and humans. The chapter’s second half illustrates devotion in daily life expressed in works of art using the framework of power-based relationships as in master-servant, kinship systems and social class. Such settings, found in selected modern films and literary texts (both ancient and contemporary), enable us to investigate the life-giving, ambiguous, and, finally, life-denying aspects of devotion. In the process, the various forms, benefits (and limits) of devotion emerge together with its necessary relationship to moral wisdom.

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Devotion: “Being Shore to the Ocean”

  • Thomas Ryan

摘要

Building on Robert Frost’s phrase, this chapter examines devotion in terms of “loyalty and love or care for someone or something” (Cambridge Dictionary). The first half explores foundational considerations about love as devotion through clarifying (a) language and (b) various understandings of love. Devotion is viewed, first, in the context of love as a universal phenomenon that finds expression across cultures, within committed relationships, families, and between parents and children. Second, devotion is discussed in relation to agape, eros, and philia. “Robust concern” (carefully understood) is suggested as a possible description for devotion, underpinning devotion’s social function as a deeply held loyalty to a cause or organization. The limits of loyalty, as in whistle blowers, are also considered. Devotion can also denote a bond between animals and humans. The chapter’s second half illustrates devotion in daily life expressed in works of art using the framework of power-based relationships as in master-servant, kinship systems and social class. Such settings, found in selected modern films and literary texts (both ancient and contemporary), enable us to investigate the life-giving, ambiguous, and, finally, life-denying aspects of devotion. In the process, the various forms, benefits (and limits) of devotion emerge together with its necessary relationship to moral wisdom.