The C.S. Lewis "division" of "love" is, FTR, a profoundly Anglocentric process. It's not so much that the Greek language has "four different meanings for 'love'" so much as Greek having four different words/concepts which, in some cases, may all be translated into the English word "love".
Except that the ancient Greeks did in fact use 'philia' in all these contexts; it is a very wide-ranging word, which can cover almost any modern English use of 'love', from loving one's country to loving strawberries. 'Philia' is used of family affection: 'storge', a rather obscure word which means something like 'care', has been straitjacketed into standing for this kind of love by modern theorists who want a word for each category. 'Philia' isn't actually used of sexual passion - that's 'eros' - but one can speak of having philia as well as eros for one's lover. 'Agape' is a post-classical word, and seems to have been deliberately co-opted by early Christians to stand for the kind of love they were interested in, but 'philia' is used in the New Testament as well, at least without any obvious differentiation. So I don't think it's particularly Anglocentric; there's a long history of putting these things together. |