The Place of Love Theory
爱情论的位置
This is Paper 0 of Love Theory: written last, placed first. It lays down no propositions, and does only a few things for those who read this series: it explains where the series stands in SAE; it states how far the series reads and what its main line is; it sets out the method the papers share and the words they share; it lists the forty-eight propositions of the whole series together; and it registers the remainders that are left and not closed.
Love Theory is the first series downstream of SAE Relation Theory. Relation Theory lays down only the part that all relations have; what holds only in one kind of relation it hands to the series on that kind of relation. Love Theory reads the part that lies in love. It reads love between two mature people, from love at first sight, through recognizing the other as an end too, to the instant of mutual non dubito between two people; reproduction and sex are acknowledged but not judged, and marriage is handed to Marriage Theory. The main line is a single sentence: love begins from the inner cannot-not of that moment, this one, at this moment, irreplaceable; love is seen from the subject's side. The six papers are divided by layer, and a layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage of love; Paper 7 lays down no propositions, and presses the propositions of the first six papers with six love stories that have been handed down.
This paper also does three things that are said once for the whole series: an interfacing with Plato, Nygren and the late-Ming debate over qing and li; the endings of the layers, taken together once; and why still love. The last follows Relation Theory's reading: danger and necessity come from the same place; her law is not mine, and is not under my control. This paper proves no object-level proposition.
Introduction
The six papers that follow each read one layer. Paper 1, At First Sight, reads that moment; Paper 2, Longing, the time when she is not before me; Paper 3, It Is I, love's having an owner; Paper 4, No Substitute, the persisting cannot-not; Paper 5, Without Waiting for You, recognizing her as an end too; Paper 6, That Moment, the instant at which two one-way loves meet. Each paper first speaks of its own layer, and where it touches another paper, points there. Paper 7, Stories, reads no layer and lays down no propositions: it takes six stories that have been handed down, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Penelope's waiting, chapter eight of Eugene Onegin, Casablanca and The Bridges of Madison County, and presses the propositions of the first six papers with them, as a pressure test; it also offers, from the side of love, one reading of why these stories have lasted.
Written this way, a few things fall to no single paper: why this series is here, and where its reading stops; the words the papers share, and what one and the same word means in which paper; what the endings of the six papers look like when set side by side; and, since every layer has read out a direction of colonization, why still love. This paper takes care of these.
The method is the same as in the other papers: upstream conclusions are said in plain words, and sources and extensions go in the notes. This paper lays down no propositions and changes no sentence of the papers that follow. Where each item that Relation Theory hands to Love Theory lands is for readers who want to check against upstream, and is set out in the Appendix at the end.
§1 Place: The First Branch Downstream of the Relational Side
SAE has three sides: the subject side, the relational side and the institutional side. The relational side is unfolded by Relation Theory: how two people, and a person and his own yesterday, today and tomorrow, collide with one another, and what these collisions sediment into in dealings and over time. Once Relation Theory is written, there are several branches downstream: Love Theory, Marriage Theory, Parent-Child Theory and Cooperation Theory; friendship is not given a branch of its own, and serves as an example running through all the branches.1 Love Theory is the first branch.
Relation Theory has stated the division of labor between the two layers: Relation Theory in the abstract lays down only what all relations have; what holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue.2 So whatever the layer of relation has already laid down, this series uses directly and does not rewrite: the minimal condition of relation, collision, the two directions of cultivation and colonization, expectation, commitment, the sediment of dealings and ending are all read as Relation Theory reads them. This series takes up only the layer of love.
Which propositions really hold only in love can be known only once love has been compared with other relations by the same unit. This series' propositions write what things look like in love; whether they hold only in love the papers do not separately prove. The first thing to check is Paper 1's distinction of the unit: a moment of love has only one person in it; whether the corresponding operation in friendship or between parent and child also admits only one is to be compared by one and the same operation of cannot-not, and checked separately. Love and friendship have no clear distinction to begin with: the same relation can be friendship at this moment and love at that one; since friendship is not given a branch of its own, this question stays in Love Theory, to be checked separately; the one for parent and child is handed to Parent-Child Theory.
§2 Scope and Main Line
Scope. There are five items.
First, this series reads love between mature people. Maturity is a matter of whether a person has already grown a cannot-not of his own, and has begun to be able to understand that others have cannot-nots of their own. This is a condition of scope: it marks out what this series reads, and does not sort people into layers. It does not ask which layer a person's love can reach; nor does it certify from outside whether a particular person measures up: whether he has grown into it is a first-person matter.
Second, it does not enter marriage. This boundary is not a stage; it is whether there is commitment and institutional protection: there is love after marriage too. The part in which there are both commitment and institutional protection, and in which the institutional protection is not only the law, belongs to Marriage Theory, and this series does not discuss it. An affair outside marriage is read in two parts: the love between the two people is in Love Theory; the breaking of the commitment of marriage is in Marriage Theory. What between lovers has commitment only, without institutional protection, vows and tacit understandings, is in Paper 4.
Third, it reads from love at first sight, through recognizing the other as an end too, up to the instant of mutual non dubito between two people, and stops there. In SAE's levels, the lower bound is 9DD+10DD, and the upper bound is 15DD and the moment of 16DD.3
Fourth, reproduction and sex are outside the range of discussion. When they are present, they are registered as conditions and not read; this has the shape of Relation Theory's "the provisions themselves are acknowledged but not judged".4 What is excluded is a range of discussion, not a stipulation about love, and it is not to be read as "love ought to be without sex". Every paper passes a deletion test: each proposition is checked separately for whether it must presuppose a pairing of the two sexes, the aim of procreation or sexual experience; what the test blocks is the judging, not the origin. Gender is not restricted; the examples use a man and a woman.
Fifth, the kind in which two people are in mutual non dubito at any time and in any place is not taken up. Relation Theory handed this question to the branches: whether and how such mutual non dubito appears in a given kind of relation, each branch argues for itself. Love Theory's answer is not to take it up: it only registers it, and does not prove that it does not exist. Upstream itself, too, only sets it out as a horizon.5 The change that takes place in a person at that instant is not taken up either, in the same terms as Relation Theory.
Main line. There is no clear distinction between love and friendship, and mixed cases certainly exist; yet love begins from the inner cannot-not felt at that moment: this one, at this moment, irreplaceable. From this sentence, four things run through the whole series.
Seen from the subject's side. Whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves; from outside, only clues can be seen. So unrequited love is complete love; when the one loved dies, love does not end because of it.
Read by moments. A moment is not a second; it is that one occasion. In one and the same moment one cannot love two people; wavering between two people happens in different moments; what at that moment does not exclude others is only appreciation. Love is read by moments, not by the category of a relation.
A layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage. A layer records one operation; it does not record a person, nor a love.6 The moment of love at first sight can come many years after two people have met; within a love that recognizes her as an end too, there may also be moments that fall back to the layer of purpose.
"This one, irreplaceable" takes its own shape at each layer. The right-hand column gives the sentence each aesthetic ray has at the same layer, to be read alongside:7
| Layer | Paper | What is irreplaceable at this layer | The aesthetic ray's sentence at this layer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perception (9DD+10DD) | At First Sight | At this moment, she has weight, and appears to me; only she | "a difference in the world begins to bear on whether a living thing remains"; "the differences that bear on it begin to appear to it" |
| Remembering and anticipating (11DD+12DD) | Longing | She is not before me, and still counts; she has not come, and has arrived first | "A living thing still remembers what is no longer before it, and anticipates what has not yet come." |
| The self (13DD) | It Is I | It is I who love her: love has an owner | "A living thing, when it sees wrongly, does not say the world was wrong; it says: I saw wrongly. Judgment has an owner." |
| Purpose (14DD) | No Substitute | Others also make sense, but I cannot exchange her: she has become where I am going; the cannot-not persists, and can waver | "other paths also make sense, but he cannot exchange his" |
| Recognizing her as an end too (15DD) | Without Waiting for You | She has her own cannot-not; I love her without waiting for her to love me first; persistently exclusive, without asking exclusivity of her | "He recognizes you as an end too, without waiting for you to recognize him first" |
| Two one-way loves meeting (the moment of 16DD) | That Moment | That moment at which two one-way loves have met | "two one-way recognitions meet, and only then is there mutuality" |
This line is not a path that comes steadily nearer to her. Papers 3 and 4 are where it most easily circles back to myself: she becomes my mirror, and my direction becomes her ruler. Only at Paper 5 does it come back to her as her own end. §6 sets this reading against Plato's ladder.
§3 Beside the Aesthetic Rays
Aesthetics Rays 8 to 13 lie on the same set of layers as the six papers of Love Theory, and ask something different. The rays ask about the point that those who look cannot not acknowledge together, that is, the overlap; Love Theory asks how one person's cannot-not toward this one operates in a relation. Love does not enter the overlap, and need not: others need not acknowledge that she is irreplaceable.
So the two can read one and the same encounter, each reading one face of it. The look of a voice arrives, and the one who looks cannot not acknowledge it: that is the beauty of perception; this person, at this moment, is irreplaceable to him: that is Paper 1. The two can be present in one occasion, and still are not one thing; where there is only the former, Paper 1 calls it appreciation.
The traditions the rays have already interfaced with, this series invokes and does not rewrite;8 what the papers of Love Theory take up further is the layer of love.
§4 Method
The whole series is written by the following rules.
A layer records one operation. It does not record a person, nor a love. The papers are divided by layer, not by stages in the development of love; falling back is very likely.
Structure, not good and bad. Love is not graded by layer, intimacy, symmetry or length: love at first sight is not a grade lower, nor is a love that recognizes her as an end too a truer love. "Only appreciation" and "not called love" are structural readings, and judge no one.
Reproduction and sex are acknowledged but not judged. See §2.
Seen from the subject's side. Whether one loves is a first-person matter. What can be said from outside is only direction, position and signature;9 a couple looking at each other, an "I love you", years of not parting, are all only clues.
No third first person. "We" does not legislate, does not pass final judgment on the two people's own laws, and does not stand in for a bearer.10
Cultivation and colonization are taken in the broad sense. The two words name the direction of one effect, not labels stuck on a person or a relation: cultivation goes toward making space, colonization goes toward pouring in and occupying; the direction is read on this one effect, and whether it took hold is seen in the other party's later understanding and action. Violation is another matter, and lies only at the layer of basic rights.11 That effects remain, or that there is a cost, is not used by itself to judge the direction; effect, direction and whether it took hold are read apart.
Words of quantity are checked separately. This series does not say that a love is truer for being deeper or longer; "most" and "the more ..., the more ...", used of love, are checked separately in every case.
Interfacing with tradition. Only thought and philosophy are interfaced with; literature serves as example and is not interfaced with; where a writer of literature makes claims and sets out thought, that counts as philosophy and can be interfaced with. The interfacing at the layer of relation is in Relation Theory; the papers of Love Theory take up only the layer of love, and point back where they touch the layer of relation. For each figure the paper writes faithfully what he sees and why he looks, where he presses on the paper, where they meet and where they part; other traditions appear in their own words, and their words are not turned into this series' words. The figures are taken up question by question, and no philosopher is assigned a layer.
Examples. A man and a woman; each paper uses its own, and examples serve only to illustrate. The examples use made-up people and events, and also literature; the people in an example are within the scope: in choosing an example, one looks for the place in the text where the two capacities can be seen; age alone, loving intensely, a single declaration of love, none of these is enough.
Sources and extension. Upstream conclusions are said in plain words in the body; sources, original wording and the proposition numbers of other papers go in the notes. Where an upstream statement is carried beyond its original place, the note says that this is an extension or a transfer, and this series' own undertaking. Modern works still under copyright are quoted only briefly or summarized.
§5 Shared Words
Several words are written alike in different papers, and their senses must be kept apart.
Cannot-not. The "cannot not acknowledge" of the aesthetic rays belongs to the one who judges; Love Theory's cannot-not belongs to the one who loves; the "his own cannot-not" spoken of at the layer of purpose is the persisting kind.
Owner, and one's own cannot-not. Paper 3 is the cannot-not of that moment coming to have an owner: it is I who love her; his own cannot-not comes only at Paper 4.
Moment. The one occasion, not a second.
Wavering, succession and "anyone will do". Wavering is two directions coexisting, the moments of love taking turns between two people, while it is not yet certain; succession is loving someone else after one love has ended; "anyone will do" is being in love with love itself, where it does not matter who comes, and is in Paper 3. One cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended.
Purpose and end. In the Chinese of this series these are one word. One sense is the direction of the layer of purpose, that is, a direction that has come and that one cannot not follow, not a set target; this edition writes it "purpose". The other is the end of "a person is an end"; this edition writes it "end".
Direction. Three senses, written apart. First, the direction of the layer of purpose (Paper 4). Second, Relation Theory's two directions, cultivation and colonization, read on one effect. Third, when Paper 5 says that a love that recognizes her as an end too "is a direction", it means the place one heads toward and has not yet reached, which is not easy to achieve; Aesthetics Ray 13's "Among many, it is still a direction" means the same.12
Exclusivity and preferential love. Exclusivity belongs to love, not to recognition. Love at the layer of Paper 5 has two things in it: recognizing her as an end too, a recognition that is not exclusive; and the cannot-not toward this one, irreplaceable, which is exclusive. Where two people recognize each other and recognize no one else, Aesthetics Ray 13 calls it preferential love.
Appreciation. What at that moment does not exclude others; it can fall on many at once, and it can also be directed at only one thing.
Breaking a promise. Taken in the narrow sense: the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity; leaving with the books kept, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement do not carry it. See the section of Paper 4 that reads vows and leaving.
Maturity. A term of scope: it records whether a capacity has grown, not the operation of that moment. It is written with the same words as "his own cannot-not": that one records an operation, this one a capacity.
Commitment. Read as Relation Theory reads it:13 what Paper 4 reads is a commitment already made to her, or one that has reached her as a promise to her; implicit commitment counts too, and is still avowal on my side and where I stand.
Crystallization. Stendhal's sense, borrowed, not set up as a term (Paper 2).
§6 Interfacing for the Whole Series
The papers have taken up the figures question by question. A few ask about the whole series, and are placed here.
From one beautiful body to the beautiful itself. In Plato's Symposium, Diotima speaks of the right way of love: for the sake of that beauty, one climbs step by step, "from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from practices to beautiful learnings, and from learnings to end in that learning which is the learning of nothing other than the beautiful itself".14 He looks in order to explain where love leads. What he sees: love starts from one concrete person, and will not stay there. He presses on this series most directly: if the right way of love leads the farther from this one person the higher it climbs, then this series, keeping to "this one" from beginning to end, has stopped on the first rung of the ladder. Vlastos's criticism lands exactly here: on the accounts of Plato and Aristotle, a person is loved only because, and only insofar as, he embodies those excellences; they did not separate disinterested love for the person himself from appreciation of the excellences that person embodies.15 This series and Diotima meet in: love does not stop at one face, and the aspect the papers read changes layer by layer. They part at: what changes is the aspect of asking, not the object; from Paper 1 to Paper 6, what is asked about is this one person throughout. That ladder, the higher it goes, leads the farther from this one person; this line, at Paper 5, comes back to her as her own end. Only the ladder of this passage of Diotima's is addressed here, and it is not widened into Plato's whole account of love; the one passage of the Phaedrus has been taken up in Paper 1.
Two kinds of love, or two directions. In Agape and Eros, Nygren divides love into two kinds: eros is centered on the self and arises from need and desire, aiming to gain and possess what it loves; agape gives itself and seeks no gain of its own, having as its ground God's unconditional love for all creatures.16 He looks in order to tell Christian love from Greek love. What he sees: in love there is seeking to obtain, and there is giving, and the two run different courses. He presses on this series: if love divides into two kinds, are the direction of colonization that Paper 4 reads out and the recognizing her as an end too that Paper 5 reads out simply the two kinds of love? They meet in: loving in order to possess and seeking no gain of one's own do run different courses, and this series too does not mix the two into one. They part at: this series does not divide love into two kinds; what it reads is two directions on one and the same effect, cultivation and colonization; the same act can carry both directions, and can also carry no direction at all. The distinction between two kinds of love and the two directions of relation are not one and the same division: giving oneself does not by itself certify cultivation, and seeking to obtain does not by itself certify colonization; the direction is still checked against what this one act actually did to the other party. This conversation makes its comparison on the strength of a secondary account, and does not claim to have exhausted Nygren's book. The layer at which agape takes God's love as its ground, this series does not take up.
Qing and li. In the late Ming there was a debate over qing, feeling, and li, principle; two figures are taken up here, and written apart. In his Preface to The Peony Pavilion, Tang Xianzu says: "One speaks only of what cannot exist according to li; how can one know what must exist according to qing?" He presses the possibility of qing against the assertion of li. Feng Menglong compiled A History of Qing; one of the prefaces at the front of the book speaks of wanting "to turn the absence of qing into its presence, and private qing into public qing", and the gatha at the end of that preface says: "I wish to found a teaching of qing, to instruct all living beings: let the son have qing toward his father, the subject qing toward his ruler." With the idea of a teaching of qing, he pushes qing toward instruction and order between person and person.17 Both look in order to give qing a place of its own, yet their questions and arguments are not the same, and they are not to be written together as a simple opposition of qing and li. What they see: qing has its own source, and need not be derived from li. This series and Tang Xianzu meet in: the cannot-not of love is each person's own; it is not derived by others, nor judged for him by others. They part at: he speaks of qing against li; this series does not set qing and li on two sides; the layers of love are, from the start, one person's judgment and meaning-conferral operating in different aspects. What can be compared with Feng Menglong is how qing enters life in common; they part at: the teaching of qing sets out to found a teaching, and this series does not issue, from the structure of love, a further set of oughts for a teaching of qing. Of the Preface's other claims, Paper 1 and Paper 4 have each taken up one.
Love as the first form of recognition. Honneth places love first among the three forms of recognition. Aesthetics Ray 12 has already interfaced with him, and Relation Theory has also listed the places in Institution Theory and Value Theory;18 here he is invoked, not rewritten.
Romantic partners as transmission nodes. One of SAE's foundational papers has written: "Relational transmission nodes — parents, mentors, romantic partners, closest friends — influence individuals without passing through rational review, entering the subject's construct directly."19 What is invoked here is the one point that romantic partners are transmission nodes of the relational layer. From here this series questions further: how cultivation and colonization occur along this path. Through what understanding, review and response the two directions take effect is checked separately, against the concrete dealings; this series does not set up, as a general rule of love, that all of it goes "without passing through rational review". Relation Theory, too, takes this sentence only as the source for the relational layer's being a layer of transmission.
A reading the author has already made. In People Have Qing, the author has already set out a reading: "because of qing, a person is never exhausted by being a thing for my use"; and of the whole book: "through qing the book shows each person to be irreplaceable".20 This is SAE upstream; this series invokes it, and it does not count as an interfacing. When Paper 1 extends the beauty of perception's "even unused, it is still as it is" into love, it points the same way as this reading.21
§7 Handing Over the Boundary between Love and Marriage
Wang Shifu's The Story of the Western Wing closes on a single line: "May all the lovers under heaven be joined as husband and wife."22 The lovers are in this series; joined as husband and wife, with commitment and, besides, institutional protection, they have come into Marriage Theory. This line is where this series hands over that boundary. Love does not end because two people have been joined as husband and wife; there is love after marriage too; what is handed over is the part that is commitment and institutional protection.
§8 The Endings of the Layers, Taken Together Once
This series has no separate paper on ending; each paper has a section on how love at its layer ends. Ending comes in four kinds, which can fall out of step with one another: an appearance passes; my love ends; the shared dealings terminate; commitments and effects remain unsettled. These four are read by the propositions in which Relation Theory reads ending.23
At First Sight: that moment has passed. It concerns only that moment, and there was nothing to settle in the first place; the appearance of this moment alone adds no duty for her.
Longing: the remembered her fades, or is rewritten until she no longer pulls at him; the anticipated her falls through again and again, and he no longer waits. Still remembering after parting is an effect that still exists; it does not by itself prove that the shared dealings have not ended, nor does it by itself prove that his love has not ended. The direction of colonization at the ending is to decide, by the remembered her, that the present her is "wrong", to say it out loud and so to fix for her what this stretch amounted to. When the one loved is gone, the remembered her is still there; death is not the same as the ending of love.
It Is I: I was the one who saw her wrongly. An ending in which the mistake folds back onto oneself and an ending that pushes the mistake onto her are two different things; and folding back is not taking everything upon oneself. The part that was seen wrongly has ended; the rest he may love just the same.
No Substitute: the direction has changed, or can no longer be taken up. For love at this layer to end at this layer is for his own seeing to have changed it; where it was pushed away by others, or exchanged as soon as another that made sense came along, what is read is that this share, in that operation, was not after all a direction of this layer; this reading is a fallible look back after the fact, and judges no one. His love has ended, and commitments and effects are not settled along with it: leaving with the books kept carries no direction of colonization, nor does it clear the books on her side; dropping and falsity carry it. Threatening death is refusing to let the other party end it.
Without Waiting for You: she leaves, and I acknowledge her leaving; exit does not delete recognition.24 What her exit ends is the shared dealings; whether his love has ended is his. A love that recognizes her as an end too can end; where one truly recognizes the other as an end, ending too is a sincere choice. Loving someone else after an ending is succession, not wavering; one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended. One who loves unrequitedly need not wait for an ending. When love at this layer has ended, the share of recognizing her as an end too is still there as before.
That Moment: that moment's passing does not by itself end a love; each one's share is still there as before. Only using that past moment to demand the same response of her carries the direction of colonization; hoping to meet again, or arranging together to meet again, is not included. If the two later part, that moment is not on that account re-judged to have been false.
Taken together, ending at every layer is not one thing, but some of the four. Relation Theory has already been compared with Aristotle on how friendships are dissolved: that some regard should be kept for the former friendship answers to "What continues after parting can be the conditions and effects that still exist"; this series does not require exit to have reasons, and issues no ought.25
§9 Why Still Love
Every paper has read out the direction of colonization at its layer: using the way she appears to fix for her who she is; by the remembered her, discerning that the her before me is "wrong"; taking her in as my mirror; taking my direction as her ruler; judging her law for her in the name of love; using that past moment to demand the same response of her. These directions all come from love. Why, then, still love?
Relation Theory has written: "The danger of relation and the necessity of relation come from the same place: the other party's law is not mine, and is not under my control".26 So it is in love too, and closer. At the moment of love, what pulls at me is this one person; she has her own cannot-not, and I only recognize that it is there, and cannot read out its content. It is precisely because her law is not under my control that my love can pour in and occupy the step that her own law should take; and it is precisely because it is not under my control that she is an avenue I cannot monopolize. At the layer of Paper 5, one face of her irreplaceability falls exactly here: exchange her for someone under my control, and it is no longer she. The irreplaceability of each layer has its own shape (the table in §2), and this face is not read backward into the moment of first sight; why the one loved is this one, and why another person just as independent still will not do, must still be read from the cannot-not that begins in Paper 1, and is not derived from "her law is not under my control" alone. Danger and necessity, in love, come from the same place.27
This question issues no ought. Relation Theory writes it as a conditional: "wherever the remainder 'the other too is an end' is at work in a subject, looking toward the other is its cannot-not"; it also keeps the modal blank, and does not claim that this necessarily happens in every operation.28 In the kind of love Paper 5 reads, the cannot-not of looking toward the other is present together with the share for which this one person is already irreplaceable; this is a joining of two things in one and the same love: the latter does not follow from the former alone, nor is the former used to redefine the entrance to the layers before it.29 Love is not a duty, nor is it a lack: a person who has no love, or who loves and gets no response, is not thereby short of anything;30 unrequited love is complete love.
So this series does not urge anyone to love, nor does it urge anyone not to love. It only reads how one who loves, at each layer, goes toward making space for her, and how he goes toward pouring in and occupying; whether either took hold is seen in how she afterward understands and what she does.
§10 Remainders
A few matters this series registers and does not close.
First, the boundary cases in which, as it is put, "the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation": a person asleep across from one on a train, a photograph she does not know was taken, a person in a dream. They are kept open as in Paper 1; in each case the act, what has been left and the bearer side must still be checked separately. The minimal condition of relation is not changed by them.
Second, whether the other side is a bearer: a pull toward an AI. When Relation Theory drew the range of bearers it said nothing of AI,31 and this series does not judge it.
Third, the unit of the moment: whether the corresponding operation in friendship or between parent and child also admits only one is to be compared by one and the same operation of cannot-not, and checked separately.
Fourth, the kind in which two people are in mutual non dubito at any time and in any place is not taken up; the change that takes place in a person at that instant is not taken up. They are only registered, and it is not proved that they do not exist.
Fifth, when love is gone and one goes on giving the acts of love as before: what effect this has on her, and whether it carries a direction. This question comes from Paper 4's interfacing with Nietzsche. Where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets that semblance hold up her arrangements in his place, this is read, as in Paper 4, as the structure of dropping; the other cases this series does not judge.
Sixth, the range of entrusted deliberation, and later objections. That a person asks the one she loves to think for her is her own step; how the one entrusted understands and uses this entrustment, and whether it still leaves a place for her later objections, changes of mind and withdrawal, are to be read apart. If, later, this request is used to seal the objection she has at that time, what was a taking up has turned into a direction toward occupying; whether it took hold is seen in her afterward. This question comes from Paper 7's reading of Casablanca. Papers 1 to 6 read judging for her, accommodation and using a past sentence to lock the other party, but did not read these steps together; this series does not judge the request itself in advance to be accommodation, nor take being entrusted as grounds for passing final judgment for her.
Two further points, brought out by Paper 7, are written into the papers concerned and are not remainders. The first is written in at the end of the section of Paper 2 that reads testing: testing love must be kept apart from verifying who a person is. The second is written in at the end of the section of Paper 3 that reads how love at this layer ends. Seeing wrongly and folding back may also happen before love: what then shows in the folding back is still the owner of the judgment, not the owner of love; that instant may make room for a love, and love still begins from that moment's cannot-not.
§11 The Propositions of the Whole Series
The propositions of the papers are listed together below as worded in the body of each paper, with only a period added at the end; the arguments and qualifications are in the papers themselves. Paper 7 lays down no propositions.
Paper 1, At First Sight (perception, 9DD+10DD)
L1 Love begins from the inner cannot-not of that moment: this one, at this moment, irreplaceable. Love is seen from the subject's side; whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves.
L2 One cannot love two people in the same moment. A moment is not a second; it is that one occasion; wavering between two people is a matter of different moments.
L3 What at that moment does not exclude others is only appreciation; appreciation can fall on many at once, and can also be directed at one thing only; love, at that moment, has only this one. What is claimed as loving every one at this moment is not called love.
L4 A moment of love has only one person; whether the corresponding operations of friendship and of parent and child also admit only one is compared on the same unit, a single operation of cannot-not, and checked separately, without first cutting moments up by the number of people they are directed at. Love and friendship cannot be separated as relations: in the same relation, this moment can be friendship, and that moment can be love.
L5 Love at first sight is that moment at 9DD+10DD: a small difference of hers begins to bear on my going or staying, and appears to me; this appearance becomes, on that occasion, an irreplaceable pull. The appearance is not limited to a face; it can also be the look of a voice or of handwriting; if the pull needs the meaning of language, or memory, in order to hold, it is read separately with the corresponding layer.
L6 Love at first sight asks something different from the beauty of perception. This series reads only love between mature subjects; for a relation already established, the other side is a bearer. A portrait, a photograph, a screen are media, and do not replace the person. What must be told apart is whether I am directed at this one person, or at a look that can be replaced by the same appearance; the latter is appreciation. Cases in which the other bearer side and the actual effect are still to be checked are checked separately under L8, and are not judged in advance by the name of the medium.
L7 The cannot-not of this layer concerns only that moment; it has no owner yet, and no purpose yet; that moment need not come first: for those whose love grows over time, that moment can come many years later.
L8 In ordinary love at first sight, her being there, moving about, speaking, is action at its minimum, and a relation is already established; boundary cases in which the starting point of love is earlier than the starting point of relation are kept as remainders.
L9 A glance in itself lies only with the one who looks; only after it has entered her conditions of occurrence by way of words and deeds is a direction read. To take the look in which she appeared and fix for her by it who she is, so that from then on that look becomes the ruler she is measured by, slides in the direction of colonization.
Paper 2, Longing (remembering and anticipating, 11DD+12DD)
L10 Longing is her still counting with me when she is not before me; the remembered her is not the original, and each time I think of her, I take her up again.
L11 The anticipated her can fall through. When it does, what moves in return is the remembered her, in one of two ways: revising it, or not revising it and by it discerning that the her before me is "wrong." Rewriting is with me first; only when, by way of words and deeds, it actually leaves space for her later understanding and action does it point in the direction of cultivation. Not revising, and saying aloud that she is "wrong," fixes for her who she is and slides in the direction of colonization; whether that takes hold is seen in her later understanding and action.
L12 Rewriting the remembered her in longing is with me, and is not colonization; only when it lands on her by way of words and deeds is direction read.
L13 Crystallization in itself carries no direction: the remembered reaches forward, and often reaches into ways she is not. Only when crystallization or the first meeting is used to measure the her who is later before me, fixing for her by way of words and deeds who she is, is the direction of colonization read.
L14 Resembling someone: if what is loved is the person she resembles, anyone who resembles that person will do; she is then replaceable, and this love is not for her. Changing her after the remembered one is how the direction of colonization shows itself clearly at this layer.
L15 Expectation is what I arrange on the strength of dealings and point at her later conduct, and it does not turn into a duty of hers; her response is material, not a settling of the account. "If you loved me, you would ..." attaches a qualifying condition to an expectation, fixing for her what something means to her, and slides in the direction of colonization.
L16 Testing love is a demand arranged in advance; a response obtained this way can become material, but cannot certify the love in her heart.
L17 When the one loved is gone, the remembered her is still there; death is not the same as the ending of love.
Paper 3, It Is I (the self, 13DD)
L18 At this layer love has an owner: it is I who love her, not she who made me love her, and not fate.
L19 When I see her wrongly, this judgment is mine, even if she kept something from me; her keeping it from me is a separate entry. Pushing this judgment itself away, saying "It was you who made me see wrongly," does not show the folding back here; from outside, a sentence of blame does not certify that self-awareness was not operating on that occasion.
L20 The beloved is looking too: as this layer asks, she too has her own looking and judgment, and can also see wrongly; she is not only the way she appears.
L21 I cannot fully say why I love her; this layer cannot read the purpose that drives it.
L22 A former life and destiny are readings given to that instant after the fact, an account I give myself, not a component of that instant.
L23 The direction of colonization read from this layer is taking her in as my mirror: what I love is the I who loves her, the I who is loved by her. Wanting her to reflect me and confirm who I am is at this layer; wanting her to become something according to my plans is in Paper 4. Being in love with love itself, where anyone who comes will do, stays with me; so long as it has not entered her conditions of occurrence in word or deed, no direction toward her is read; only when the demand that she play a role in my story has entered her conditions of occurrence is a direction toward her read.
Paper 4, No Substitute (purpose, 14DD)
L24 Love at this layer is a direction: others also make sense, and I cannot exchange her; with purpose, this cannot-not persists.
L25 What persists is the direction, and it does not fill every moment: two directions can coexist, and there is much wavering at this layer, but at any one moment, too, one loves only one. Wavering is not yet being certain; it is not that anyone will do; that those moments do not operate at 15DD does not say that she is a means; so long as no commitment is broken, it carries no direction of colonization.
L26 A direction is not a target: treat a person as a target to be won, and once she is won it is over, and offered another who makes sense, she is exchanged. Enthusiasm is not a direction either: a direction is there even when one is not burning.
L27 Conferring meaning for love is the business of this layer. Pledging oneself in life and death, if it is taking on a direction for one's own action after becoming aware of finitude, can be read as one scenario of conferring meaning for love in the face of death; it is not the whole of this layer, the layer is not judged by this phrase, and love is not ranked by it.
L28 Others' ruler and compulsion can both pass themselves off as direction: what one still acknowledges once that ruler is taken away, and can also change on one's own, is one's own direction; what one does not acknowledge, or acknowledges and cannot change, is not. Only the difference that can be seen is spoken of; no judgment is passed on being ill or not.
L29 A vow is where I stand today; it does not sign for tomorrow. Of the ways of breaking a promise, only dropping and falsity carry the direction of colonization. Falsity is when what was put in was empty from the start. Whether it is dropping turns on whether there is a commitment in the relation, an implicit commitment included: where there is none, quietly setting down is exit, and carries no direction of colonization; where there is one, quietly setting down carries the potential of breaking the commitment, and leaving must be entered on the books and must also come with an exit declaration that she can clearly understand; with such a declaration, it is leaving with the books kept; quietly setting down without such a declaration is dropping; what is read is the declaration and the structural effect of that promise on her, not whether I owned the change in my heart. The direction of dropping falls not on the withdrawal itself but on the promise I left with her; effect, direction and whether it took hold are read apart.
L30 The direction of colonization read from this layer, which Ray 11 calls the most refined colonization: taking my direction as her ruler. For me there is no one but you, so for you there should be no one but me; I will never change in all my life, so you may not change your heart either. My cannot-not is not your must.
L31 Threatening death hangs a consequence on her exit; it raises the cost of exit outward and carries the direction of colonization; what structurally seals off her exit violates the exit right (its basic component), and at the layer of basic rights is a violation.
L32 That she too confers meaning cannot be constructed out of my meaning-conferral: from there being no one but her for me, it does not follow that there is no one but me for her.
Paper 5, Without Waiting for You (recognizing her as an end too, 15DD)
L33 Love at this layer has both the cannot-not toward this one, irreplaceable, and the recognition of her as her own end; I love her this way without waiting for her to love me this way first. That it holds one-way means that these two hold on my side; it does not mean that recognizing her as an end on its own constitutes love.
L34 Inwardly, I do not need her to tell me that I love rightly; outwardly, I do not wait for her to love me first. My eyes need not keep returning to myself.
L35 She has her own cannot-not; I only recognize that it is there, and cannot read out its content; loving her is not reading her through: observation and communication can approach it; reading it out is not possible.
L36 Love at 15DD is persistently exclusive and does not waver, because she is recognized as an end too and is not my means of obtaining love; this "because" is not read as deriving "does not waver" from "not a means": 15DD is not easy to achieve to begin with; it is a direction. Persistence means: in each moment in which 15DD operates, the one loved is always she, not alternating between two people; operation may be interrupted, and when it is, it is entered separately by the operation of that occasion and is not on that account called wavering; if the moments of love alternate between two people, it is still entered as wavering; falling back is very likely.
L37 Love at 15DD does not demand exclusivity of her; whether she is exclusive can be decided only by her. When each side operates at 15DD and each is exclusive, two one-way exclusivities have met; this has the same form as the mutuality Relation Theory speaks of, and is not obtained by exchange; mutual exclusivity in itself does not certify 16DD. Each pledging exclusivity, or coming to an agreement on it together, is commitment; using one's own love to set up a duty of exclusivity for her goes back to Paper 4.
L38 Love at 15DD has two things in it: recognizing her as an end too, a recognition that is not exclusive and does not grow smaller because one loves this one; and the cannot-not toward this one, irreplaceable, which is exclusive.
L39 My cannot-not is not her must: her not loving me does not diminish my share of recognizing her as an end too; my loving her does not add a duty for her either. Leaving to her is not submitting to whatever harm she does.
L40 The direction of colonization read from this layer is judging her law for her in the name of love, and demanding endless endurance in the name of love. The counterfeit that borrows this layer's name is accommodation: one's own share handed over; it is not 15DD; it is not having stood. A long absence of quarrels is not evidence of cultivation.
L41 Love at 15DD can end; where the other is truly recognized as an end, ending too is a sincere choice. She leaves, and I acknowledge her leaving; exit does not delete recognition; loving someone else after an ending is succession, not wavering; one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended.
Paper 6, That Moment (the moment of two one-way loves meeting, 16DD)
L42 The moment this paper reads is two one-way loves at 15DD meeting; loving each other is not exchange, and "I love you, so you ought to love me" writes love as exchange.
L43 That moment does not fall on one party by way of the other's expectation; an "I love you too" obtained by demand or by prior agreement alone cannot constitute this moment and cannot certify it.
L44 That moment is not fusion: the two are still two; the experience of fusion is left to each person.
L45 That moment does not make later dealings mutual automatically, nor does it let one party demand that it come again; measuring what comes after by the remembered moment falls back to the layer of longing.
L46 Between two people who love each other, both branches of "we" may occur, and which one occurs is checked case by case; the mutual recognition of that moment belongs to the branch of mutual recognition. "We" does not legislate, and does not pass final judgment on either party's own law; "We love each other, so you have to agree" borrows mutual recognition to pass final judgment on a matter done together.
L47 From outside, only clues can be seen: two lovers looking at each other is not a criterion, and mutual knowledge does not yield mutual non dubito.
L48 This series takes up only the moment of 16DD; a 16DD that holds at any time and in any place it does not take up.
§12 Drawing Together
This paper lays down no propositions, and proves no object-level proposition. What it says is this. Love Theory lies downstream on the relational side, and reads the part that lies in love. Its scope is love between two mature people, read from love at first sight to the instant of mutual non dubito between two people, with reproduction and sex acknowledged but not judged, and marriage handed over. Its main line is the cannot-not of that moment, this one, at this moment, irreplaceable, seen from the subject's side. The six papers are divided by layer, and a layer is an aspect of asking. Ending, at each layer, is some of the four kinds. In love too, danger and necessity come from the same place. In the kind of love Paper 5 reads, recognizing her as an end too and the cannot-not of loving this one are joined in one place. Paper 7 has pressed these propositions with six stories, and what the pressing brought out is registered in §10.
Appendix: What Relation Theory Hands Down
The passage Relation Theory wrote for Love Theory runs: "Love Theory: Aesthetics Rays 12 and 13; Value Theory P6 V76, and V77 on mutual recognition; F5 §4.1, romantic partners as transmission nodes; Laughter IV §7.2; the General Methodology §1.7; Psychoanalysis IV §2.2 to §2.4. What Relation Theory gives first: the minimal condition of a one-way relation; the moment of 16DD (Paper 4, H39 to H41); expectation and attribution; the third-person upper bound; that a long absence of conflict is not evidence of cultivation; implicit commitment; the two branches of 'we', which branch occurs being checked case by case. The interfacing at the layer of relation is in §§5 to 14 of this paper; each paper of Love Theory takes up only the layer of love, and points back to this paper where the two meet, without rewriting."32 Where each item lands is as follows. This table is for readers who want to check against upstream; a reader of this series for its own sake can skip it.
| Item | Source in Relation Theory | Where it lands in Love Theory |
|---|---|---|
| Ray 12: non dubito, one-way | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 5 |
| Ray 13: mutual chiseling, preferential love, "Fusion is left to each person too" | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 6; for preferential love, see Paper 5 |
| Value Theory P6 V76, and V77 on mutual recognition | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 6 |
| F5 §4.1, romantic partners as transmission nodes | Ready-made upstream piece | This paper, §6 |
| Action Theory Paper 8, D45, D46 | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 6 |
| Conflict Treatise §18: the yield of mutual chiseling is written as a possibility | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 6 |
| Laughter IV §7.2 | Ready-made upstream piece | Paper 6 |
| General Methodology §1.7 (the section on 13DD to 16DD) | Ready-made upstream piece | The 15DD sentence lands in Paper 5; the 16DD sentence in Paper 6 |
| Psychoanalysis IV §2.2 to §2.4 | Ready-made upstream piece | §2.2 in Paper 5; the two postures of §2.3 in Papers 4 and 5; §2.4 in Paper 6, registered only |
| The minimal condition of a one-way relation | H1, H5, H38 | Paper 1 (a one-way first sight, of which she does not know; the boundary cases in which love comes before the relation are a remainder); Paper 5 (unrequited love) |
| The moment of 16DD | H39 to H41 | Paper 6 |
| Expectation and attribution | H10, H33 to H37 | Paper 2 |
| A person and his own yesterday, today and tomorrow | Relation Theory Paper 2 | Paper 2 (rewriting the remembered her enters my own later conditions of occurrence); Paper 3 (the section on interfacing with tradition) |
| The third-person upper bound | H21, H37, H41 | Every paper; Paper 2 (testing); Paper 6 (looking at each other) |
| That a long absence of conflict is not evidence of cultivation | H46 | Paper 5 (accommodation) |
| Implicit commitment | H29; H23 to H28, H56, H57 | Paper 4 (vows, tacit understandings, dropping and the exit declaration) |
| The two branches of "we", which branch occurs being checked case by case | Relation Theory Paper 0, §7 | Paper 6 |
| Ending | H52 to H58 | The section of each paper that writes of ending; taken together in §8 of this paper |
| Why still relate | H59 to H64 | §9 of this paper |
| Interfacing with outside traditions (at the layer of relation) | Relation Theory Paper 0, §§5 to 14 | The papers point back: Aristotle on the threshold of friendship (§5.1) in Paper 1; Sartre (§9) and commitment (§11) in Paper 4; Kant on love and respect (§8.1), and closeness not serving as a criterion (§4.3, the second line), in Paper 5; Mauss, the Book of Rites and Mozi on whether returning carries a duty (§12) in Paper 2; Buber (§5.2), and Gilbert and "we" (§7), in Paper 6; Aristotle on ending and need (§13) in §8 of this paper |
When a paper points back, the limits stated at that place come along too. For instance "we": in the conversation with Gilbert in §7 of Relation Theory Paper 0, it is stated that the body constituted by a joint commitment does not, by the name alone, amount to the position that passes final judgment on each party's own law on their behalf; when Paper 6 takes up Nozick, it first sorts out the senses by this.
Acknowledgments
This paper is signed by Han Qin alone; the author decided every argument and choice and bears sole responsibility for the text. Models from Anthropic and OpenAI assisted with drafting and review; the author thanks them. The English edition is an independent rewrite of the Chinese text, not a translation; where the two differ, the Chinese governs.
Notes
- Relation Theory Paper 0, The Place of Relation Theory, §16: "Once Relation Theory is written, Love Theory, Marriage Theory, Parent-Child Theory and Cooperation Theory are to be unfolded. Friendship is not given a series of its own but serves as a running example (Paper 3)." In the quotation, "Paper 3" is Relation Theory Paper 3. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "Relation Theory in the abstract establishes only what all relations have; a proposition that holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue." ↩︎
- Following the correspondence given in the Revision Notes of From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito, which "splits 9D into 13DD law of self-awareness + 14DD law of meaning, and 10D into 15DD law of unilateral non dubito + 16DD law of bilateral non dubito"; so what this series reads is 7D, 8D and 9D, plus 15DD within 10D, plus the moment of 16DD. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 1, H11: "the provisions themselves are acknowledged but not judged". Reproduction and sex are 7DD+8DD. For the deletion test, see the section of Paper 1 on L5. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "whether and how 16DD that can hold at any time and in any place appears in a given kind of relation, which that branch argues for itself". Information Theory XIV, Abstract: "From the standpoint of any single individual, the mutual non-doubt of 16DD is the thing-in-itself; here the paper holds to via negativa and sets it out only as a horizon." The change in a person at 16DD is not taken up, in the same terms as Relation Theory Paper 4, H39. ↩︎
- Second Critique, Rules of the House, Eleven. ↩︎
- In order: Aesthetics Ray 8 §2; Ray 9 §3; Ray 10 §3; Ray 11 §3; Ray 12 §3; Ray 13 §2. ↩︎
- Ray 8: Plato's Greater Hippias, Aquinas, Hutcheson, Kant, Liu Xie, Wang Guowei and others; Ray 9: Augustine, Proust; Ray 10: Kierkegaard, Montaigne; Ray 11: Frankfurt, Confucius; Ray 12: Kant's three maxims, Levinas, Murdoch, Honneth; Ray 13: Aristophanes, Aristotle, Montaigne, Hegel, Rilke. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 4, §6: the third person speaks only of direction, position and signature. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §4.3, the third line: a relation is a construct; it is not a bearer, nor does it stand in for a bearer's constitution. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 1, H8; for violation, see Relation Theory Paper 1, H9. ↩︎
- Aesthetics Ray 13 §9. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, H23, H25, H29. "Reached her" means entered her conditions of occurrence. ↩︎
- ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἀπὸ δυοῖν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ καλὰ σώματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλῶν σωμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ μαθήματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ᾽ ἐκεῖνο τὸ μάθημα τελευτῆσαι, ὅ ἐστιν οὐκ ἄλλου ἢ αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ μάθημα (Symposium 211c). The English rendering is this paper's own. ↩︎
- Vlastos, "The Individual as Object of Love in Plato", per the account in SEP, "Love", §6; the original has not been checked. ↩︎
- Per the account in the Wikipedia article "Agape and Eros"; the original has not been checked. That the same act can carry both directions, and can also carry no direction at all: see Relation Theory Paper 1, H8. ↩︎
- Tang Xianzu, Mudanting tici [Preface to The Peony Pavilion]: 第云理之所必无，安知情之所必有邪 (English rendering this paper's own); the text is collated between the Project Gutenberg #23849 text and the Daizhige text. Feng Menglong, Qingshi [A History of Qing], preface: 无情化有，私情化公; the gatha at its end: 我欲立情教，教诲诸众生：子有情于父，臣有情于君 (English renderings this paper's own); the preface follows the Wikisource transcription, and has not been collated against a woodblock edition. ↩︎
- The invoking table of Relation Theory Paper 0, §14.2. ↩︎
- How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible (Foundational Paper 5; cited as F5), §4.1. The section of Relation Theory Paper 1 on H8 also takes this sentence only as the source for the relational layer's being a layer of transmission. ↩︎
- People Have Qing §1.2; Abstract. ↩︎
- Aesthetics Ray 8, The Beauty of Perception; Paper 1, the section on L5. ↩︎
- Xixiang ji [The Story of the Western Wing], Book Five, Act Four, the aria to the tune Qingjiang yin 清江引: 愿普天下有情的都成了眷属 (English rendering this paper's own), from the Wikisource transcription; the Project Gutenberg #23906 text reads 有情人的. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 6, H52 to H58. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 6, H57. "Exit does not delete recognition" originally speaks of the party who exits; what is read here is the party left: nor is his recognition deleted because she exits. This is this series' own extension (own undertaking); see Paper 5, note 33. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §13; "What continues after parting can be the conditions and effects that still exist" is Relation Theory Paper 6, H58. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 7, H59. ↩︎
- This step carries Relation Theory Paper 7, H59, into love; it is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 7, H61; the same section quotes the first layer of Value Theory P1 V14: "does not claim it inevitable to every fourteenth-level running". ↩︎
- This reading is this series' own extension (own undertaking). ↩︎
- This carries Relation Theory Paper 7, H62, "someone who finds no one is not thereby short of anything", into love. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 1, H2, draws the domain of bearers following Value Theory P1 V14, and says nothing of AI. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16. In the quotation, "this paper" means Relation Theory Paper 0, and "Paper 4" means Relation Theory Paper 4; in the table, "this paper" means this paper. ↩︎
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. Quotations are checked item by item in the accompanying audit table.
I · SAE works directly cited in this paper
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 1: At First Sight [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627762
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 2: Longing [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627766
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 3: It Is I [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627774
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 4: No Substitute [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627776
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 5: Without Waiting for You [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627779
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 6: That Moment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627781
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 7: Stories [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627784
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Perception (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22988390
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Cognition (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 9) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22989143
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of the Self (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 10) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22990079
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Purpose (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 11) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22991142
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Non Dubito (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 12) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22992615
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Mutual Non Dubito (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 13) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23000910
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Information Theory XIV (Closing Paper): 15DD Information, the Other as an End [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20581957
Qin, H. (2026). From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito: Completing Kant (9D–10D) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18808584
Qin, H. (2026). People Have Qing: Origins, Method and Conclusions of an Interpretive Reconstruction of the Last Thirty Chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22985375
Qin, H. (2026). How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible: The Subjective Conditions and Emergent Structure of Freedom (SAE Foundational Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19297847
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 0: The Place of Relation Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545115
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 1: What a Relation Is, and What It Is Not [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545047
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 2: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23541778
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 3: Commitment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545023
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 4: Dealings and Expectation [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545057
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 6: Asymmetry, Divergence and Ending [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545087
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 7: Why Still Relate [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545097
II · Upstream items listed in the Appendix table and not developed in this paper
Qin, H. (2026). General Methodology: The Chisel-Construct Cycle (SAE Methodology) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18842449
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Psychoanalysis (IV): Cert and Unification — The Self Beyond Doubt and the Four-Layer Framework [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19321534
Qin, H. (2026). On the Source of Value (SAE Value Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21405207
Qin, H. (2026). On Value and the Other (SAE Value Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22191071
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
Qin, H. (2026). Finding One Another (SAE Action Theory, Paper 8) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22970783
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Laughter · IV: The Laughter of Despair and the Knowing Smile [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23287669
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 5: The Sediment of Dealings [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545076
III · External works
Classical texts are given in simplified characters; the Greek follows the PerseusDL text, with Stephanus numbers.
Plato. Symposium. In Platonis Opera, ed. J. Burnet, vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901. (English translation consulted: W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb, 1925)
Nygren, Anders. Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna: Eros och Agape (1930–1936). (English translation: Agape and Eros; cited here from the account in the Wikipedia article "Agape and Eros"; the original has not been checked)
Tang Xianzu 汤显祖. Mudanting tici 牡丹亭题词 [Preface to The Peony Pavilion] (1598). (Collated between the Project Gutenberg #23849 text and the Daizhige text; not checked against a standard annotated edition)
Feng Menglong 冯梦龙. Qingshi 情史 [A History of Qing], preface. (Wikisource transcription; the signatures of the two prefaces and the woodblock edition have not been collated; not checked against a standard edition)
Wang Shifu 王实甫. Xixiang ji 西厢记 [The Story of the Western Wing], Book Five, Act Four. (Wikisource transcription; the Project Gutenberg #23906 text reads 有情人的, a variant; not checked against a standard annotated edition)
IV · Secondary literature
Vlastos, G. (1981). The Individual as Object of Love in Plato. In Platonic Studies (2nd ed., pp. 3–42). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (First published 1969; cited here from the account in SEP, "Love", §6)
Agape and Eros. In Wikipedia (English edition, read October 2026).
Helm, B. (2021). Love. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Relation Theory Paper 0 (§16; §4.3, "the four lines"; the conversations of §§5 to 14, see the last row of the table in the Appendix); Relation Theory Paper 7 (H59, H61, H62).
- Also used: Relation Theory Paper 1 (H1, H2, H8, H9, H11), Paper 2 (the paper on time), Paper 3 (H23, H25, H29), Paper 4 (H39; §6), Paper 6 (H52 to H58); Aesthetics Rays 8 to 13; Information Theory XIV (Abstract); From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito (Revision Notes); People Have Qing (§1.2, Abstract); F5 (§4.1); Second Critique (Rules of the House, Eleven); listed in the Appendix table: Value Theory P1 and P6, Action Theory Paper 8, Conflict Treatise, Laughter IV, General Methodology, Psychoanalysis IV, Relation Theory Paper 5 (H46).
- This series: Papers 1 to 7; this paper lists together the propositions of the whole series (§11), the shared words (§5) and the remainders (§10).