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 49
... possess a belief is to be committed to the pursuit of truth , and hence to the construction of scientific theories , and to the consequent classification of the world in terms of natural kinds . Yet there is no reason to suppose that ...
... possess and are motivated by that concept . The implications of this will be seen to be enormous . In addition to the basic phenomena , there is the condition from which they derive : the condition of sexual existence , with its ...
... possess . ( Thus sexual fantasy is no more ' undirected ' than is fear felt in response to the image of danger — as in a daydream . ) Of course , as I have recognised , there are non - intentional pleasures connected with the sexual act ...
... possess ' another in his body , you cannot possess the body alone : necrophilia , like rape , involves no fruition of desire . ) Sexual arousal has , then , an epistemic intentionality : it is a response to another individual , based in ...
... possessing a penis , or towards a human body considered independently of its agency , viewpoint and will - if , in other words , sexual arousal is represented as an urge or appetite , focused on certain parts of the body , and ...
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 |