Sign-In
Cart
The Lost Names of Love. Seven Ancient Ways of Loving-and the Eighth We Forgot
Paperback
Publisher: Wieslaw W Falkowski
Published: Jul 5 2026
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.90
Height: 0.68 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
What if the word love has become too large to see clearly?
In The Lost Names of Love, Wieslaw Falkowski returns to the ancient names of love-storge, ludus, eros, philia, philautia, pragma, and agape-not as a museum of Greek terms, but as a set of lamps. Each name illuminates one way human beings attach, desire, care, wound, forgive, and fail to see one another.
This is not a book of easy consolation. It is not a manual for happiness, romance, or self-improvement. It is an essay about attention: about the language that teaches us what to notice, and about the dangerous ease with which love can become possession, appetite, reflection, administration, or power disguised as goodness.
Falkowski asks whether modern human beings can still distinguish closeness from ownership, desire from consumption, friendship from self-confirmation, self-love from self-worship, care from control, and mercy from moral superiority. He writes about home as both shelter and cage; play as both lightness and manipulation; eros as both revelation and fire; friendship as both freedom and mirror; self-love as both dignity and altar; practical care as both tenderness and management; and agape as both gift and danger.
The result is a literary and philosophical meditation on the most ordinary and most difficult parts of human life: family, desire, friendship, the body, shame, dependence, aging, forgiveness, daily care, and the fragile dignity of being seen. This book does not simplify love into advice. It slows the word down until the hidden questions inside it become visible.
At the center of the book stands one severe question: what happens to the person under our love? Does the other human being become more real-or less?
The eighth kind of love is not another category added to the seven. It is the moment in which the person before us stops being a function, a role, a burden, a mirror, a project, a wound, a problem, or a proof of our goodness-and becomes a person again.
Written in a clear, unsentimental, and deeply human style, The Lost Names of Love is for readers who want a serious conversation about love without sugarcoating or spiritual performance. It is for those interested in reflective nonfiction, philosophical essays, literary meditations, and books that examine language, intimacy, dignity, responsibility, and the difficult art of seeing another person without consuming or erasing them.
Wieslaw Falkowski writes as a poet, essayist, novelist, and visual artist: with image, irony, moral precision, and a refusal to let beautiful words escape the test of reality. The book is tender, but not soft; severe, but not cold. It does not promise that love will fix everything.
It asks whether, without love, anything human can remain whole for long.
Also from
Falkowski, Wieslaw
Świat traci kolory: Eseje o kulturze, zludzeniach i potrzebie odcieni
Falkowski, Wieslaw
Paperback
Wiatr uwięziony w różanym krzewie i inne opowieści nie z tej ziemi
Falkowski, Wieslaw
Paperback
Wiatr uwięziony w różanym krzewie i inne opowieści nie z tej ziemi
Falkowski, Wieslaw
Paperback
Zapiski o braku gwarancji. O obojętności, która nie wygląda jak obojętnośc
Falkowski, Wieslaw
Paperback
Also in
Philosophy
Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Taylor, Astra
Hunt-Hendrix, Leah
Hardcover
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
The Electromagnetic Brain: Em Field Theories on the Nature of Consciousness
Joye, Shelli Renée
Paperback
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Giridharadas, Anand
Hardcover
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Barnes, Jonathan
Julia, Annas
Annas, Julia
Paperback
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Holiday, Ryan
Hanselman, Stephen
Hardcover
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
Bless & Release: The physics of letting go-and wanting what's meant for you.
Laporte, Danielle
Paperback
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Easton, Dossie
Hardy, Janet W.
Paperback
My Big TOE Awakening Discovery Inner Workings: The Complete My Big TOE Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics
Campbell, Thomas
Hardcover
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover
Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan
Yoda, Hiroko
Hardcover
Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing
Smith, James K. A.
Hardcover