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.