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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... natural science ' of man . By the time that Freud had introduced his shocking revelations disguised once again as neutral , ' scientific ' truths about a universal impulse - the language had been settled in which the vii Preface.
... truth of Bernard Shaw's remark , that it is impossible to explain decency without being indecent . I only hope that the benefit , in terms of moral understanding , will outweigh the moral cost . Earlier versions of the text were read by ...
... truth in these descriptions . I shall also give the philosophical grounding for a sexual morality , and argue that moral consideration cannot be subtracted from the sexual act without at the same time destroying its distinctive ...
... truth to nature is the result of interests that have no necessary relation to nature's laws . He still bears no comparison with the anatomist , who , forswearing all interest in appearances , explores nature's secrets in the order in ...
... 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 , in order to provide dogmatic support for conceptions which are , in truth ...
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 |