Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought

Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought
Author :
Publisher : Polity
Total Pages : 243
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780745624211
ISBN-13 : 0745624219
Rating : 4/5 (219 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought by : David West

Download or read book Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought written by David West and published by Polity. This book was released on 2005-05-06 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the genealogy of ideas of reason, self and sexuality in the West, opening the way to a richer and more diverse understanding of sexual experience. Western philosophy and religion have distorted and continue to distort our experience of sex and love through three far-reaching constellations of reason, self and sexuality. Thinkers like Plato, Aquinas and Kant helped to fashion an ascetic ideal of reason hostile to bodily pleasures and sexual diversity. By contrast, philosophical hedonism advocates a less demanding conception of rationality and defends sexual pleasure. But this approach of thinkers like Hume, Bentham, La Mettrie and de Sade is still one-sided and limiting. A third constellation, Romanticism avoids the limitations of both forms of rationalism, but in the name of a religion of love and passion that ultimately threatens the integrity of the self. In Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought, a richer understanding of sexual experience is traced to a dissident philosophical tradition. In their different ways Montaigne, Spinoza, Hegel and Kierkegaard, Marcuse and Foucault contribute to a more holistic, multi-layered and open conception of reason, sexuality and the self. This book will be essential reading for all students of philosophy and gender studies.


Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought Related Books

Reason and Sexuality in Western Thought
Language: en
Pages: 243
Authors: David West
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-05-06 - Publisher: Polity

GET EBOOK

This book traces the genealogy of ideas of reason, self and sexuality in the West, opening the way to a richer and more diverse understanding of sexual experien
The Man of Reason
Language: en
Pages: 170
Authors: Genevieve Lloyd
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2002-11 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibliographical essay assessing the
Sex and Culture
Language: en
Pages: 700
Authors: Joseph Daniel Unwin
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1934 - Publisher:

GET EBOOK

Sex Before Sexuality
Language: en
Pages: 236
Authors: Kim M. Phillips
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-04-24 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

GET EBOOK

Sexuality in modern western culture is central to identity but the tendency to define by sexuality does not apply to the premodern past. Before the 'invention'
The History of Sexuality
Language: en
Pages: 177
Authors: Michel Foucault
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 1990-04-14 - Publisher: Vintage

GET EBOOK

Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why