What does James Phillips do that helps people better understand Catherine Earnshaw's relationships of "love"?

This article, "The Two Faces of Love in Wuthering Heights", (found on Academic Search Complete) greatly helped me to understand and have insight into not just the specific scene in which Heathcliff overhears Catherine discussing her love of Linton, but her relationship and outlook on her love for Linton and Heathcliff throughout the novel. Phillips describes the two loves of Catherine in different terms: Heathcliff as the transcendental face of love, and Linton as the empirical face. Phillips defines the two types of love, empirical and transcendental in terms of the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant: Kant believes that empirical thinking is based off of a background of the transcendental. It cannot exist alone, and it must exist if transcendental thinking (how things appear to us, not necessarily what they actually are) occurs. Phillips describes transcendental as "the necessary and universal structures of experience". Although the occurrences and time line of Catherine's love life were very clear in the novel, I found that at times, it was hard to understand the reasons for her actions. For example, although she marries Linton, she says that she is in love with Heathcliff. Understanding this proved to be difficult through merely interpreting Catherine's words, and this article offered some good insight.

In chapter 9, Catherine puts into words how she feels about each of her loves. She says that ‘My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary’. Phillips suggests that the reason Catherine never considers having two loves as a highly immoral situation is because Catherine relates the two as separate types of love - empirical and transcendental.

In Catherine's relationship with Linton, Phillips says that 'Catherine’s love is determined empirically: it presupposes a scrutiny of experience and an evaluation of the relevant data.' Basically, she loves him in the now because he is beautiful and has money. If these circumstances were to change, it's as if she thinks she has the right to retract that love. Phillips suggests that Catherine does indeed love Linton, but only because of his "lovability". He says that in order to qualify for traditional "true love" circumstances, however, Catherine would need the love to be two-fold: empirical and transcendental. He says that the love for Phillip can never exceed the empirical realm so long as the transcendental love for Heathcliff exists: to happen would blur the separation of the two, perhaps causing Catherine to actually feel guilt.

Heathcliff perfectly fits Kant's idea of the transcendental: he has to exist for Catherine in order for Linton to. He is to her "a source of little visible delight, but necessary". Phillips asserts that this love is not dependent simply on the two's infatuation with each other's individuality, but because, as Catherine says, Heathcliff is the same person as her. Close to the end of the novel, Heathcliff expresses his feelings towards Catherine as she is dying. He scorns her, saying that she has killed herself, and that she deserved to die. He feels as if she has ultimately betrayed him by marrying Linton. Phillips thinks that Catherine does not feel the same at all: from analyzing her words, he feels that she cannot possibly abandon Heathcliff, because their love exceeds that of Linton, which relies on physical facts such as his wealth and appearance. He says that their relationship is "indissoluble", and suggests that Catherine treats Heathcliff badly simply to prove to herself that the relationship is bullet-proof. Phillips thinks that her torture of Heathcliff is in fact a necessary part of their relationship; the cruelty is 'in the service of the transcendental aspect of love because it is the test of empirical destructibility from which the bond between Catherine and Heathcliff is to emerge triumphant. Catherine never pauses to consider that there might be a point of no return. She puts their love to the test, not because she doubts it, but because she glories in the spectacle of its indubitability. Everyone around her takes this for capriciousness." This is the statement that made her ill-treatment of Heathcliff finally understandable to me: she does it because she knows she can. In my opinion, this makes her not only extremely greedy, but a bit of a sadist.

The combination of Catherine's two types of love somehow does not make her insane, but work in harmony. Since part of her love capacity is occupied by each of the men, the two cannot occupy the same realm, making each balance the other out. Phillips sums this up as following for Catherine: "No choice can be made without overthrowing the distinction on which Catherine's loves stand. She must love both in order for the love she feels for Heathcliff to be what it is and in order for the love she feels for Linton to be what it is." To me, viewing Catherine as such makes her seem like the least moral character in the story. Heathcliff is bent on revenge, but only because he has been wronged continually by the one he truly loves. While one could argue that his marriage makes him equally as bad of a person, Catherine seems perfectly content to torture both men she "loves", only so that she can feel personally fulfilled.

Phillips, James. "The Two Faces of Love in Wuthering Heights." Brontë Studies 32.2 (2007): 96-105.