His research interests include German idealism, metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of nature, philosophy of culture, and the philosophy of law, and he has written extensively on the work of Hegel and Whitehead. He has also written on the work of Kant, Kierkegaard, Freud, Ortega y Gasset, Heidegger, Plessner, Horkheimer, Adorno, Hans Jonas, and Scheler.
His books include Whiteheads Synthese von Kreativität und Rationalität: Reflexion und Transformation in Alfred North Whiteheads Philosophie der Natur (2000), Liebe - Zukunft einer Emotion (2008), and Die Idee des Lebens: Zum Begriff der Grenze bei Hegel und Plessner (2016).
He has also published German translations of the writings of José Ortega y Gasset (José Ortega y Gasset, Der Mensch ist ein Fremder: Schriften zur Metaphysik und Lebensphilosophie, 2008) and Alfred North Whitehead (Alfred North Whitehead, Denkweisen, 2001).
In Liebe - Zukunft einer Emotion (Love - The Future of an Emotion), Rohmer asks, "What are the primary motivating drives or forces in human beings?" He proposes hunger, thirst, and the desire for sexual fulfillment as possible candidates for these primary drives or forces. However, he explains that the fulfillment of the need for love may be just as important a motivating force, and that love may function not only as a ground of human existence, but also as a foundation for human freedom.
Love may be experienced by human beings in profoundly subjective, distinctive, and intimate ways. The subjectivity of love doesn't mean that love doesn't also exist objectively as a ground for the social dimension of human existence, and as a foundation for human freedom. As a foundation for human freedom, love unites autonomy and selfhood, so that the self experiences the other not as a limit, but as a condition of the possibility of its own realization.
The question of whether love is indispensable for human existence--whether human beings are just as dependent on loving and being loved as they are on physical nourishment and sustenance--is also the question of whether love constitutes an ontological necessity. Is human existence possible without love? Is the continued existence of humanity possible without such a motivating drive or force?
Rohmer contends that love has a fundamental role in human generativity, and that it establishes a basic sphere of social mediation, which is both intergenerational and intersubjective. At the same time, love may appear in infinitely many forms, and it transcends any finite determination. Thus, it cannot truly be grasped or objectified, and its ontological necessity lies precisely in our understanding of it as a force constitutive of the continuous progress of human life.1
With the progress of modern reproductive technology, love can no longer be seen as essential to human reproduction. The biological process of procreation may be possible without the intervention of love and may be achieved through technological interventions such as in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. However, love cannot be controlled and manipulated in the way that biological cells can be controlled and manipulated. Love has an aspect of freedom that makes possible the cohesion, harmony, and solidarity of human beings. Love also creatively overcomes death by binding successive generations together.2
However, just as love cannot be conceived in purely biological terms and cannot be placed wholly in the service of procreation, it also cannot be conceived as wholly divorced from procreation. The ideality and universality of love consist in the way that lovers may face each other and may be mirrored by and united with each other, thus creating a relation in which each lover sees their ideal in the other and has their being in the other.
The objective existence of love may be revealed by examining its relation to a comprehensive ideal of universality that is also an ideal of reason and justice. Love makes it possible for us to realize that we are all interconnected, and it enables us, in our finiteness, to transcend ourselves. Love is like a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected as others and others reflected as ourselves. Indeed, a relationship between two lovers seems to function only as long as they succeed in discovering in each other the pivotal point of their own selfhood.3 Even under the conditions of modernity, love seems to be based on an experience of immemorial commonality (unvordenkliche Gemeinsamkeit), and thus it cannot be understood as merely a product of willfully controlled or calculated behavior on the part of those who supposedly want to fall in love with each other.4
According to Rohmer, love is the fundamental and driving force in the structure of human generativity.5 The question then is "Why is human reality so characterized by lovelessness, irrationality, and injustice?" Why is human reality so characterized by disunity, as manifested by brutality and fascism, crime and hatred, deception and exploitation, war and genocide?
A theory of love as a basic driving force that seeks to reconcile the real and the ideal, the individual and the universal, and the separated and the conjoined seems to also require a theory of evil as a basic driving force that causes the division, brokenness, and disintegration of humanity.6 However, Rohmer contends that from a standpoint that transcends the present, the structure of human generativity embodies in its universality the realization that whatever is subjectively experienced as love is manifested objectively as rationality, order, and justice. The chain of successive generations overcomes decay and death, and it has no definable beginning or ending.
FOOTNOTES
1Stascha Rohmer, Liebe – Zukunft einer Emotion (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 2008) p. 33.
Love may be experienced by human beings in profoundly subjective, distinctive, and intimate ways. The subjectivity of love doesn't mean that love doesn't also exist objectively as a ground for the social dimension of human existence, and as a foundation for human freedom. As a foundation for human freedom, love unites autonomy and selfhood, so that the self experiences the other not as a limit, but as a condition of the possibility of its own realization.
The question of whether love is indispensable for human existence--whether human beings are just as dependent on loving and being loved as they are on physical nourishment and sustenance--is also the question of whether love constitutes an ontological necessity. Is human existence possible without love? Is the continued existence of humanity possible without such a motivating drive or force?
Rohmer contends that love has a fundamental role in human generativity, and that it establishes a basic sphere of social mediation, which is both intergenerational and intersubjective. At the same time, love may appear in infinitely many forms, and it transcends any finite determination. Thus, it cannot truly be grasped or objectified, and its ontological necessity lies precisely in our understanding of it as a force constitutive of the continuous progress of human life.1
With the progress of modern reproductive technology, love can no longer be seen as essential to human reproduction. The biological process of procreation may be possible without the intervention of love and may be achieved through technological interventions such as in vitro fertilization and genetic engineering. However, love cannot be controlled and manipulated in the way that biological cells can be controlled and manipulated. Love has an aspect of freedom that makes possible the cohesion, harmony, and solidarity of human beings. Love also creatively overcomes death by binding successive generations together.2
However, just as love cannot be conceived in purely biological terms and cannot be placed wholly in the service of procreation, it also cannot be conceived as wholly divorced from procreation. The ideality and universality of love consist in the way that lovers may face each other and may be mirrored by and united with each other, thus creating a relation in which each lover sees their ideal in the other and has their being in the other.
The objective existence of love may be revealed by examining its relation to a comprehensive ideal of universality that is also an ideal of reason and justice. Love makes it possible for us to realize that we are all interconnected, and it enables us, in our finiteness, to transcend ourselves. Love is like a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected as others and others reflected as ourselves. Indeed, a relationship between two lovers seems to function only as long as they succeed in discovering in each other the pivotal point of their own selfhood.3 Even under the conditions of modernity, love seems to be based on an experience of immemorial commonality (unvordenkliche Gemeinsamkeit), and thus it cannot be understood as merely a product of willfully controlled or calculated behavior on the part of those who supposedly want to fall in love with each other.4
According to Rohmer, love is the fundamental and driving force in the structure of human generativity.5 The question then is "Why is human reality so characterized by lovelessness, irrationality, and injustice?" Why is human reality so characterized by disunity, as manifested by brutality and fascism, crime and hatred, deception and exploitation, war and genocide?
A theory of love as a basic driving force that seeks to reconcile the real and the ideal, the individual and the universal, and the separated and the conjoined seems to also require a theory of evil as a basic driving force that causes the division, brokenness, and disintegration of humanity.6 However, Rohmer contends that from a standpoint that transcends the present, the structure of human generativity embodies in its universality the realization that whatever is subjectively experienced as love is manifested objectively as rationality, order, and justice. The chain of successive generations overcomes decay and death, and it has no definable beginning or ending.
FOOTNOTES
1Stascha Rohmer, Liebe – Zukunft einer Emotion (Freiburg/München: Karl Alber, 2008) p. 33.
2Ibid., p. 48.
3Ibid., p. 65.
4Ibid., p. 67.
5Ibid., p. 230.
6Ibid., p. 232.
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