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
... important , and most misunderstood , of vital phenomena ? I believe that it is necessary to do all of those things ... importance in phenomenology , and which is only belatedly gaining recognition among the practitioners of ' conceptual ...
... important not to be hasty with remedies , not to seek either to deny the truths of science taking refuge , for example , in some delusory metaphysic of human freedom or to run impetuously to the protective sanctuary of religious faith ...
... important concepts which inform our sexual experience , and which exist because they serve a human interest other than the interest in scientific truth ( for example , the concepts of innocence and guilt , normality and perversion ...
... important expressions of sexual feeling : glances , caresses and the act of love itself . I shall try to account for the place and value of those dispositions — chastity , modesty and shame — which have provided a uniquely human ...
... important part of the experience ; in particular their capacity to ' overcome ' the subject , so that he is ' mastered ' by them , acquires an important role in the intentionality of desire . For the Freudian , these pleasures are the ...
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 |