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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... understanding of our condition ) , but against the moral and philosophical impulse that leads us to assign sexual desire to the animal part of human nature . In the course of my argument I shall try to explain why sexual desire has so ...
... understanding the world , and in particular two separate conceptual enterprises , by which our understanding is formed . The world is more than an object of scientific curiosity . It is compliant to our purposes : everywhere we confront ...
... understanding , are not ( or not primarily ) explanatory . Their function is to divide the world in accordance with our interests , to mark out possibilities of action , emotion and experience which may very well be hampered by too ...
... understanding is the concept of the person . It is a well - known thesis of philosophy - expressed in countless idioms and in countless tones of voice — that human beings may be described in two contrasting ( and , for some ...
... understanding : scientific understanding , which aims to explain the world , and ' intentional understanding ' , as I shall call it , which aims to describe , to criticise and to justify the Lebenswelt . The second is an attempt to ...
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 |