Sexual Desire: A Philosophical InvestigationA&C Black, 5. märts 2006 - 448 pages A dazzling treatise, as erudite and eloquent as Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and considerably more sound in its conclusion - TLS "He is an eloquent and practised writer" - The Independent (UK) When John desires Mary or Mary desires John, what does either of them want? What is meant by innocence, passion, love and arousal, desire, perversion and shame? These are just a few of the questions Roger Scruton addresses in this thought-provoking intellectual adventure. Beginning from purely philosophical premises, and ranging over human life, art and institutions, he surveys the entire field of sexuality; equally dissatisfied with puritanism and permissiveness, he argues for a radical break with recent theories. Upholding traditional morality - though in terms that may shock many of its practitioners - his argument gravitates to that which is candid, serene and consoling in the experience of sexual love. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 86
... becomes mysterious to me , since those classifications do not capture the intentional object of interpersonal emotion . The point is a general one : the scientific attempt to penetrate to ' the depths ' of human things is accompanied ...
... become too much a symbol of the sexual act to be regarded easily in other terms . Consider , however , a strict Islamic society , in which any such display of sexual feeling would be shocking , and indeed so shocking as not to offer ...
... become acquainted with the pulsing of the spirit in the flesh , which fills the body with a pervasive ' I ' , and transforms it into something strange , precious and possessible . The penis which hardens and the vagina which softens to ...
... become mechanical dolls , in the laughing eyes of those who suffer their attentions . The laughter expresses the incongruity of the act , when it is divorced from the sentiment of arousal . The personal has been made public , and in the ...
... become appetite only by losing its characteristic intentionality . Before saying more about that intentionality , it is necessary to make a point about method . Questions about the nature of mental items are to be answered , not by ...
Contents
1 | |
16 | |
36 | |
4 Desire | 59 |
5 The individual object | 94 |
6 Sexual phenomena | 138 |
7 The science of sex | 180 |
8 Love | 213 |
11 Sexual morality | 322 |
12 The politics of sex | 348 |
Epilogue | 362 |
Appendix 1 The first person | 364 |
Appendix 2 Intentionality | 377 |
Notes | 392 |
Index of Names | 419 |
Index of Subjects | 424 |