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 43
... requires that I make a general remark concerning the trouble that philosophy encounters when it enters this domain . Until the late nineteenth century it was almost impossible to discuss sexual desire , except as part of erotic love ...
... requires gender to be explicit . There are two reasons for this : first , that it is stylistically correct ; secondly , that it is the most effective way of leaving sex out of it - as one must leave sex out of the discussion of desire ...
... require us to understand a kind of perception : to understand what it is to see human beings as persons . And this perception in turn may not be easily disentangled from the culture that is built upon it , or from the ultimate ends of ...
... requires - the focus on another's existence , as a being who can be aware of me . Much has been written about the glance of love , which seems so imperiously to single out its object and so peremptorily to confront him with an ...
... requires . So much by way of method . For the present we may draw an important conclusion , namely that a feature normally regarded as distinguishing erotic love ( which possesses it ) from sexual desire ( which does not ) , is in fact ...
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 |