Overview

Bringing sex and philosophy together on a blind date, Anne Dufourmantelle\u2019s provocative study uses this analogy to uncover and examine philosophy\u2019s blind spot. Delightful and startling comparisons spring from the date: both sex and philosophy are dangerous, both are socially subversive, and both are obsessions. Although sex and philosophy have much in common, however, they have scarcely known one another until now. Socrates and Diogenes had little to say about sex, and although it was notoriously explored by the Marquis de Sade, this study explains why philosophy has never been fully sexualized nor sex really philosophized. Blind Date highlights the marked deletion of sexual topics and themes from philosophical works, while also opening doors for their union. Inviting readers to remember that thought does not require repressed desire, Dufourmantelle argues that sex is everywhere, and it affects all kinds of thinking.

Full Product Details

9780252032639

Table of Contents

Reviews

... the occasional insights that she wants to bring to the subject--that sex can be a part of love, that sexual desire is not reducible to appetite, that there are deep connections between eros, philosophy and God--are entirely lost, and we are left wondering why we shouldn't simply return to the infinitely deeper and much sexier musings of Plato, St. Augustine, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Sartre. --Times Literary Supplement, 25 APril 2008 This wide-ranging and provocative book is partly philosophical, partly a literary evocation of the pleasures and difficulties of sex and of thinking. -Alison Stone, senior lecturer in philosophy, Lancaster University and the author of Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference (2006) and An Introducation to Feminist Philosophy (2007).

Author Information

Anne Dufourmantelle's books include (with Avital Ronell) Fighting Theory and (with Jacques Derrida) Of Hospitality. Catherine Porter is a professor emerita of French, SUNY Cortland.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available