Customer Reviews

Philosophy and Sex

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I first encountered this book during a philosophy course in college. This course and the book were some of the first experiences I had that challenged me to open my mind and become more than I was. The book offers several different views on sex, criticizing or approving various sexual acts, fetishes, and preferences from such the likes of notable feminists, the Pope and many other so called experts but always allowing you as the reader to think and decide as to what is the truth. Its also a great book to enter the study of philosophy which can sometimes be bland and holier than thou. There's nothing else more racy and controversial than sex. Its entertaining subject matter, but at the same time will spark that fire in the mind.

Book was well worth it, has a number of writings on the listed topics from a range of view points. I bought this for personal interest but as chance would have it I have an opportunity to use it as a source for a college paper on the social history of the family as a unit, and sex.

This book was required for a class and some of the stories were old writings that were biased but some of the stories were thiught provoking. It has papers and essays on Marriage, homosexuality, fidelity, language, sexualt assualts abortion and adultery. The subject of thepapers range so there is something to fit anyones preferences.

Robert Baker's third edition of the anthology "Philosophy and Sex"(1998) is a poorly organized collection of essays by marxists, feminists, social-constructionists, liberals and libertines on a variety of subjects pertaining to sexual ethics, sexuality, and the history of sexuality. Although some few prominent intellectuals are included in the anthology (notably Robert Solomon, Linda Martin-Alcoff, Thomas Nagel, Lucy Irigaray, Michel Foucault, and Helene Cixous), the majority of the book appears to be comprised of journalists, freelance writers, and academics within the humanities yet outside philosophy. Some of these writers (such as Shulamith Firestone and Robert Jensen) will surely serves as a source for laughter for anyone who takes the time to read their disturbed writings. Of less interest, yet surely of no less confusion, are the endless procession of outrageous (and equally unknown) feminist and marxist writers which Baker has reprinted for our enjoyment.

Baker is fair enough to include in the anthology some short excerpts from the Catholic Church on the value of chastity as well as excerpts from St. Thomas Aquinas's thirteenth century Summa Theologica on the Aristotelian functioning of human sexuality. Yet for every essay included which is insufficiently radical, Baker seems to include three or four more to refute it. Philosophers generally weigh arguments on the basis of validity and cogency, yet in Robert Baker's anthology it is rather the number of words which is the deciding factor. This volumne may be of some interest to those seeking to read a collection of difficult to find radical essays on sexuality, history and ethics. The essays by the aformentioned prominent intellectuals are generally very good. It promises to delight admirers of incestuously self-referential feminist, foucaultian and social-constructionist mental gymnastics. Yet, I hardly believe that it can be informative on the entitled subject of the philosophy of sex and sexual ethics.

Very pleased with the text i received. The order was fulfilled in a timely manner. no problems with anything.

I have "discovered" this book through a humanities course in college, and I have to say, it is the greatest waste of money ever. The book is full of opinions of ... who have been burned by love and sex, and have nothing better to do with thier time than to sit and stew about it. I think it is ... that such reading is necessary for a degree... What a waste of time!