What this brings out is that the Greeks have no pure relational concept. It escapes them that love is the side of a relationship existing in the subject. As a reciprocal relationship one categorizes it under friendship (philia). … The unique value-relation which is based on love and counterlove is not taken into account by Plato.

DEFINE: Contrasts the Greek categorization of love under friendship (philia) with a relational concept of love as a subject-side experience of a relationship.

DEFINE: The highlight distinguishes between love as a relational category (which Greeks folded into philia/friendship) versus a pure value-relation existing in the subject.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 581