Vagaries of desire : : a collection of philosophical essays / / Timo Airaksinen.

• Superior document: Value Inquiry Book Series; volume340
• VerfasserIn: Airaksinen, Timo, 1947-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden Boston : : Brill | Rodopi,, 2019.
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Value Inquiry Book Series; volume340.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (235 pages).
• Notes: Includes index.

Vagaries of Desire is a major collection of new essays by Timo Airaksinen on the philosophy of desire. The first part develops a novel account of the philosophical theory of desire, including Girard. The second part discusses Kafka’s main works, namely The Castle, The Trial, and Amerika, and Thomas Hobbes and the problems of intentionality. The text develops such linguistic tropes as metaphor and metonymy in connection with topics like death and then applies them to Kafka’s texts. The third part makes an effort to understand the mysteries of sadism and masochism in philosophical and rhetorical terms. The last article criticizes Thomas Nagel’s influential account of sexual perversion and develops a viable alternative.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Preface -- Analytical Issues -- Introduction: Depicting Desire -- Beliefs and Desires -- Push and Pull Theories of Desire -- Our Anxious Desires -- René Girard and Mimetic Desire -- Desire in Context: Philosophy and Literature -- Death, Desire, and the Generation of Metaphor -- Kafka: Tropes of Desire -- Lost in Kafka’s America -- Thomas Hobbes on Intentionality, Desire, and Happiness -- Sexuality -- Sadomasochistic Desire -- Tricky Sexual Differences: What Is Perversion? -- Back Matter -- Index.