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Synopsis
West (political theory, Australian National U.) explores three major constellations regarding the relationship between reason and sexuality within the western tradition of philosophy. The first is the transcendent reason and ascetic idealism of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant. The second is the hedonist realism and conceptions of instrumental rationality in ancient Epicurianism, Hobbes, Hume, Bentham, La Mettrie, and Sade. The third encompasses a number of Romantic and post-Romantic approaches that subordinate reason or rationality to some manifestation of passionate love or sexual desire, most notable by Christian mystic St. Teresa of Avila, Rousseau, Friedrich von Schlegel, Schopenhauer, and Freud. He concludes with a series of alternative philosophical perspectives. Distributed in the US by Blackwell Publishing. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR