Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T15:05:53.559Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sexual Desire and the Phenomenology of Attraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2014

BRADLEY RICHARDS
BRADLEY RICHARDS*
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Developing Thomas Nagel’s 1969 paper, Rockney Jacobsen argues that sexual desires are for activities that are taken to affect states of sexual arousal in certain ways. I argue that some sexual desires are for activities that are taken to affect states of phenomenal attraction (phenomenal states associated with sexual attraction). Unlike sexual arousal, phenomenal attraction cannot be assuaged; thus, there are no activities that can satisfy phenomenal attraction-based sexual desires. This explains why sexual activities are so varied and numerous, and possibly how so many activities are able to affect sexual arousal.

Poursuivant une idée discutée part Thomas Nagel, Rockney Jacobsen soutient que les désirs sexuels ont pour objets des activités que l’on croit affecter les états d’excitation sexuelle de certaines façons. Je soutiens que certains désirs sexuels ont plutôt pour objets des activités que l’on croit affecter les états d’attraction phénoménale (états phénoménaux associés à l’attraction sexuelle). Contrairement à l’excitation sexuelle, l’attraction phénoménale ne peut être apaisée; il n’existe donc aucune activité qui puisse satisfaire les désirs sexuels phénoménaux basés sur l’attraction phénoménale. Cela explique pourquoi les activités sexuelles sont si nombreuses et variées, et peut-être aussi comment autant d’activités sont en mesure d’affecter l’excitation sexuelle.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 263 - 283
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, Andrew, and Richards, Bradley. 2014 “Horgan and Tienson on Phenomenology and Intentionality.” Philosophical Studies 167 (2): 313–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayne, Timothy J., and Chalmers, David J.. 2003 “What Is the Unity of Consciousness?” In The Unity of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David J. 2004 “The Representational Character of Experience.” In The Future for Philosophy, 153–181. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchland, Paul M. 1988 “Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality: A Reply to Jerry Fodor.” Philosophy of Science 55 (June): 167–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crane, Tim. 2007 “Intentionalism.” In Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Beckermann, Ansgar and McLaughlin, Brian P, 474–93. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Farkas, Katalin. 2010 “Independent Intentional Objects.” In The Analytical Way, 149–165. College Publications.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. 1984 “Observation Reconsidered.” Philosophy of Science 51 (March): 23–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, Jerry A. 1988 “A Reply to Churchland’s ‘Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality’.” Philosophy of Science 55 (June): 188–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alan H. 1977 “Plain Sex.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (3): 267–287.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence E., and Tienson, John L.. 2002 “The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality.” In Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, 520–533. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, Rockney. 1993 “Arousal and the Ends of Desire.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 (3): 617–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keats, John. 2000 The Complete Poems of John Keats: (A Modern Library E-Book). Random House LLC.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1969 “Sexual Perversion.” The Journal of Philosophy 66 (1): 5–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priest, Graham. 1997 “Sexual Perversion.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75 (3): 360–372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pylyshyn, Zenon W. 1999 “Is Vision Continuous with Cognition? The Case for Cognitive Impenetrability of Visual Perception.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (3): 341–365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1956 Being and Nothingness. Random House.Google Scholar
Scarry, Elaine. 2013 On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scruton, Roger. 1986 Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. 2012 “Cognitive Penetrability and Perceptual Justification.” Noûs 46 (2): 201–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, Robert C. 1974 “Sexual Paradigms.” Journal of Philosophy 71 (11): 336–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. 1995 Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1984 Culture and Value. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar