Description: This class will take a problems approach to questions in philosophy of sex and love while we work with a selection of classic and influential readings on the subject. The goals for the course include philosophical goals--we'll work to make clear what doing philosophy is as well as think about particular problems. I list some of the problems of interest to me. We will probably only have time to work on three or four, although some of these can be combined. Interests of class members will help us decide what to work on from this list, or if we need to add to it.
1. Why does morality get so tangled up in sex? What is natural or normal sex, and when, if ever, does normal mean healthy and good, and deviant mean sick and bad? And whatcha mean, deviant or unnatural?
2. What is love, really? Is it (let's make this multiple choice) a feeling? a way of acting? a kind of wanting? a
sadistic joke played on us by God? an attitude toward persons? a good thing or a disaster? Is love about commitment?
Does love require or give you a reason for fidelity? Related to this problem is a philosophical question about the status
of definitions--if we can answer the question, "what is love?" by giving a definition, what have we accomplished? and
what does that do to help us with examples, as when you or I fall head over heels in love (except it might be fooling
ourselves)?
Related to this is another set of questions: What's the deal about romanticizing love? To what extent do people turn love into such a pure, positive, peak experience that they refuse to acknowledge its dangers, its requirement of high stakes vulnerability, its suicides and madnesses and stupidities and screaming matches and solitary refusals to weep? Why would anyone do that, and can we see the truth?
3. Is love a lie? There are problems both about the arguments and the problem here (though some writers say yes and a few hopeless idiots and Welshmen say no) and the class will help sort them out. Is love a trick played by evolution to get us to make more babies? Is it really only sex in a Sunday dress? A tissue of projections and delusions?
4. What is the relationship between sex and violence, and what is the relationship between love and violence? To what extent are we doomed by the imperfect love we got from our parents? Is violence always pathological, always the result of some lack of or unmet need for love? Why are some tempted to think it is?
5. What is the relationship between psychological health and love? between love and time? (Beginnings are terrific, but as Tom Robbins asks, why won't love stay?) Is it true you have to love yourself before you can really love another? (Aren't we all doomed then?)
6. (This’ll take a bit; lean back.) Differing points of view and different interests do odd things to our thinking about sex and love. From one point of view, the subject matter or the accounts from a different point of view seem unrecognizable or about some other subject. Scientists (biologists, sociologists, physicians) don't seem to be talking about the same things that therapists, say, or country-western singers, or novelists or feminists are talking about when they talk about sex. And love's even worse. This problem gives rise to the charge Wordsworth makes, that we murder to dissect. In other words, approaching either sex or love by way of any academic discipline cannot help but rob it of its vitality and its joy. Is that true? I've been reading about the controversy regarding whether there is such a thing as addiction to sex. That literature can be used to illustrate these questions.
7. What are the differences, really, between men and women? To what extent is the dichotomy, male vs. female, a sound one? What assumptions underlie the question, how are men and women different?--that is, we are interested not only in the differences but also in the thinking behind the question. How's this question come up? What's at stake? What are the possible answers? Is there something sexist in our concept of argument, our concept of logic, our concept of ethics or morality? If we find there is, can our concepts be cured? How deep does the war between men and women go? How deep does it have to go?
8. Is love subjective (that is, different for each person and inaccessible to others' knowledge)? Can anyone else understand how you or I experience love? Sex? Are there important things about sex and love which are ineffable, that is, which cannot be put into words--spoken or written? In other words, is language inadequate to express important truths (thoughts, feelings) about sex or love?
9. Now, about those earlier questions: what makes those philosophy, if and when they are?
Several of these overlap. Several tempt us to jump the fence between philosophy and psychology or anthropology. For some of these questions, it is difficult to find helpful readings. Sometimes we have to make it up ourselves as we go.
A warning: this course is not about fucking or making love, but rather is about how we think. The goal is not arousal but self-awareness and clarity. As the instructor, I will model a fairly stuffy kind of discussion. Those students who are sex-starved might find parts of the course more racy than most college courses, but, after all, that's not saying much, and many students are more likely to think the course prudish or dry. It is a more important part of my agenda that you are exposed to and come to understand what philosophers do than it is that you get it on or even that you understand sex.
Texts and Materials: There is no required text to purchase. Reading materials will be available through a web browser using HSU's Moodle learning management system, or handed out in class, or placed on reserve in the library. All the readings, including the handouts in class, will be covered (and should be cited) in the essays. The reading load is not large in number of pages, but some of the reading is difficult or slow going. Sometimes we have to get along with no readings at all. The emphasis throughout is on clarification of issues and description and evaluation of arguments, and we will spend time on methods early on. The text and materials are important, but reading them is not a substitute for attending class--the crucial part of this course is what happens in the classroom in lecture and discussion, and in your writing. Don't skip class.
Assignments and Grading: Assignments of readings and assignments to write essays will be made in class, a week before they are due to be read or mailed. The Moodle web page for the course will be updated every once in a while to include what has been assigned, but the official word on assignments is what I say or hand out in class. Unannounced quizzes over the readings may be given at any time--they will not be handed back but keys will be posted, and your scores can help or hurt your course grade by one-third of a grade point. The main part of your grade will be your average for four essay assignments.
By department policy you are expected to write five thousand words for this course for your grade. Besides the four graded essays, there will be other, shorter writing assignments, some for you to track your own thinking and some for the benefit of class members--these will be checked off but not graded. Each graded assignment will be in the form of several quotes containing arguments on course issues. You will choose one of the quotes and write a fifteen hundred word essay using a three-part structure developed in class (to wit: I; Clarify the problem or issue and describe the argument; II; Tell what the person quoted should have said and provide your own support; III; anticipate and articulate the best objections to your view and thoughtfully respond). This three-part structure is a big deal in this course. It is spelled out in grading criteria, it will be discussed and modeled in class and in ungraded assignments, and it is a basic structure of critical thinking.
Your grade will be an average of the essay grades, with the first essay dropped only if your grades are
improving at the end. Attendance is required, and I will take attendance when I think of it--more than four recorded absences (out of about forty-five class meetings) will drop your course grade one-third grade point, more than eight a full grade. I am not going to remind you about this, and you are free to be in denial about the consequences of cutting classes. Contributions to discussion which help the class, in class or via e-mail, can help your grade by
one-third of a letter. Missed essays will not be made up, except that there may be one optional assignment available late in the semester. Students who miss classes are responsible to get notes from other students and to come to my office hours
to get handouts. I do not give Incompletes.
Again, facility with the three-part structure is a crucial part of the course, and teaching it is a main hidden agenda (--not very well hidden, though, is it?) The length, fifteen hundred words, is roughly six pages of traditionally-typed, double-spaced text. But for this class, please minimize the slaughter of trees--do not double-space or turn in a separate title page. If it is convenient to you, please submit your essays by e-mail before class on the due date, but paste your essays into the message--do not send attachments--and put "304," your name, the question number, and a title on the subject line.
Outcomes: This course meets upper-division Area C General Education requirements, and as part of our accountability to the administration, to the accrediting agency, and to the legislators and taxpayers who pay for two-thirds of education at HSU, we agree to show that we are making measurable differences in what students learn and what students can do. For Area C, where almost all philosophy courses fall, those goals and objectives can be found on the web in the
Undergraduate Studies web pages. I often think that the philosophy department courses are likely to be the only courses which can adequately address these goals. There is a tendency for the heart of these aims to get lost in gaseous terminology and muddy writing, and being acquainted with different articulations may help with understanding. I'll summarize our goals here, but you are invited to look at that link and to compare with this summary, which proceeds from the abstract language of goals to the more specific and measurable language of objectives and assessment evidence:
We work toward the goals of integrating human abilities of perceiving and understanding and creative and critical thinking by reflection and self-examination. We work to become better and more able persons by learning and by being conscious. We welcome and engage new ideas, both from others who are like us or who are important parts of our intellectual and artistic traditions and from those whose cultures are different from our own.
We will particularly notice and critically examine the various relationships between abstract claims and the examples those claims are allegedly about. We will grow our own personal abilities to respond to philosophical and creative works by mastering relevant standards of judgment. We will develop empathy and understanding for responses to those works which come from different points of view than our own, and sharpen our awareness of factors which shape them. We will grow in understanding the importance of the humanities and the arts in the intellectual landscape.
i. In written essays, students will have shown they learned how to use and have learned to be critical of the lingo. In this course, some of the terms you will learn and then examine for stupid presuppositions are dichotomies, objective/subjective, evidence/claims, arguments, definitions, abstractions/examples. ii. Those same essays will demonstrate awareness and ability to negotiate between personal opinions and other arguments which are made relevant by particular issues. An example is self-examination of responses to questions about whether love is subjective and private, or not. iii. Those same essays will demonstrate awareness of the influences waged by cultural factors such as race and gender. iv. Those same essays will show students' abilities to compare and contrast philosophical approaches to scientific, artistic, and other approaches to issues.
The concepts of goals, objectives, outcomes assessment, accountability measures, all have histories. The passage above on outcomes is a recent iteration which displaces measures roughly twenty years old. The emphasis is shifting to accumulation of evidence, and as part of that the broader thinking, the philosophical underpinning, tends to get lost. You can see that by comparing the passage above with an older version, from the early 90's.
The University and the College of Arts and Humanities asks faculty to review courses in the light of General
Education Goals. Some of the adopted goals for Area C in GE turn out to fit or even to be shaping ideas for this course. Indeed, I often think the philosophy department is the only place on campus competent to address them; here
they are.
--We will develop an understanding of how humanistic approaches are important to an overall understanding of human experience. For instance, a scientist may work away at discovery of the causes of AIDS or homosexuality or sexual violence or monogamy or the existence of sex, but it is a philosopher, working within the humanities, who works to make us aware of what counts as a cause-- how our concept of cause is structured. We will see many instances of these distinctions in this course.
--We will understand how scholarly questions and writing in the humanities are different from scholarship in other fields, and how those other fields may connect with philosophical or other humanistic scholarship. For instance, we are going to read works about sex and love by some long-dead philosophers and then point out how our interest in their arguments and issues is different from the interest of a historian.
--We will become able to question the relationships between generalizations and examples, especially in connection with our work on general philosophical questions. For example, our work on the question of what is natural and unnatural in sex will first concentrate on putting together possible answers, but then will shift to the question of how general we are requiring each answer to be, and what kinds of assumptions underlie those answers. Understanding the status of exceptions in our work is a part of understanding what philosophy is. General claims in philosophy have to be argued for in ways which are not addressed by, say, anthropologists. Another crucial example where this GE Area C goal is addressed is in the problem about definitions, definitions of love or definitions of sex.
--We will be working consistently through the semester to identify our own resources for providing good answers to the philosophical problems. That is, we are not going to limit our possible answers to those provided by dead white European males--instead we will stretch to remind ourselves of, or to imagine, other alternatives. We will regard ourselves and our own imaginations as important resources in our work.
--We will increase our awareness of, and come to terms with, the environment of ideas around us which shapes possibilities we might otherwise take for granted. We will also look in the mirror--note our own reactions to this environment of ideas. For instance, in our work on the question of whether love is a lie, we will read works by people who disagree with each other profoundly, and our reactions of agreement and disagreement, or of scorn or admiration, our wanting the answer to turn out one way rather than another, may help or hinder our ability to think independently about the question. For another example, the ways we have been raised are likely to cause reactions to some of Mapplethorpe's photos which we need to be aware of in thinking about the photos.
There are some by-the-way parts of meeting those goals. Accordingly, we are going to also work on the following:
--We will learn the lingo. We will learn the vocabulary of argument, and clarify those terms we use everyday which are philosophically loaded. Philosophy is one place where clarity of language is absolutely necessary, and our work to show what words do and how they mark distinctions from each other helps to clarify how crucial clear thinking, writing, and speaking are to the humanities.
--We will be active. This does not mean students have to talk out every class, but it means passivity and memorization which might work in other disciplines don't here. Worse, passivity shows you don't get it. We will worry and take the stakes seriously and find cause for enthusiasm and feel attacked and feel as though what we have to say on these matters, matters.
--We will raise our standards of discussion. We will pay attention to how arguments fail and how they could be made better. We will watch ourselves fail and do better. We will become enlightened about the possibilities of doing better and failing. We will become more demanding--becoming more demanding and difficult comes with being philosophically educated.
--We will keep paying attention to how people have been unfairly robbed of their voices by others with more power. We do this in order to take arguments seriously no matter who gives them voice. We will insist that arguments work not because the arguer has the right number of limbs, the right skin color or sexual plumbing or money, but because they are good arguments. We will note arguments which have been discounted unfairly because they came from women or minorities or otherwise marginalized people.
Schedule: (This is tentative, it will be revised as we go; students will help choose topics and sequence, especially toward the end.) Assignments will be made in class, with at least a one-week lead time before they are due to be completed.
Weeks Topics and readings . Essays will be generally assigned via a handout on Mondays, due the following Monday at the beginning of class:
1 and 2. Intro and methods; Describing arguments, clarifying issues; Plato's Symposium. What is love? what's it for, where did it come from, what would a philosophical theory of love do? Defining love; Definitions in general; Reductionistic definitions (e.g., “love is only evolution’s trick on us to continue the species”); Is love a lie? Freud’s “Notes on Transference Love.”
3 through 5. Sex, natural and unnatural. What is natural or unnatural in sex? Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs. Kinsey's projects and his results. How does the question change when we work with it philosophically? Morality and moral judgements about sex. How should we justify our moral judgments about sex?
6 through 8. Is love a lie? Emma Goldman on marriage; Freud's "Notes on Transference Love” again; the evolutionary biology story of love, as sex in a Sunday dress; various poetry; Marilyn French.
(About here we’ll survey class interests and amend the remainder of the course. Here is one way that might go.)
9 through 11. Differences between men and women. Dichotomies generally. Foucault, from A History of Sexuality, and deconstructionism. Marilyn French, from Beyond Power. The possibility of some other consciousness regarding dichotomies. Subjectivity. Language and ineffability of experiences of sex and love.
12 through 16. Sex, violence, love, and health. Taboos, e.g. the incest taboo. Alice Miller. Sociology of sex offenders vs. philosophy of sex offenders. Parent-child love as model for adult love. Possibility and Impossibility of love. How to Increase Your Odds, (Supposing That Would Be a Good Thing To Do).
I have been thinking recently about what higher education is for. I've written more on this subject and published an article I'd be glad to share if you ask.
