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
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... philosophers suggest that they have tended to avoid the experience of desire as scrupulously as they have avoided its analysis . I leave it to others to offer theories as to why this is so . But the subject requires that I make a ...
... anyone who finds himself obstructed by Chapter 3 should pass at once to Chapter 4 , where the discussion of sexual desire is continued . I THE PROBLEM Modern philosophers have described sexual desire and X Advice to the reader.
A Philosophical Investigation Roger Scruton. I THE PROBLEM Modern philosophers have described sexual desire and erotic love in surprising and paradoxical ways . For Kant , sexual desire can be understood only as part of the ' pathology ...
... philosophers . So seriously , indeed , did he regard it that he could permit his characters to discuss it fully only ... philosopher - poet Boethius , whose philosophy of love was to have such a profound effect on the literature of ...
... philosophers , I am suspicious of phenomen- ology . I am suspicious , in particular , of the ' Cartesian ' method of Husserl : the assumption that experience should be described from the first - person point of view . ( My reasons for ...
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 |