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 55
... believe that it is necessary to do all of those things , and indeed that they are all parts of a single philosophical enterprise . The main problem is one of description — description at the shallowest possible level . It is necessary ...
... believe we must distinguish , not two worlds , but two ways of understanding the world , and in particular two separate conceptual enterprises , by which our understanding is formed . The world is more than an object of scientific ...
... believe that we can accept Kant's majestic theory , which ascribes to persons a metaphysical core , the ' transcendental self ' , lying beyond nature and eternally free from its constraints . Nevertheless , his theory was derived ...
... believe that many of these scruples are justifiable , and that the failure to see this stems from a mistaken conception of the nature of desire . Hence my first task will be one of description : what is sexual desire as a phenomenon of ...
... believe , however , that we can understand desire only if we first display the outline of a more passive state of mind the state of arousal , in which the body of one person awakens to the presence or thought of another . Arousal ...
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 |