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 the 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 perhaps some of these could be combined. Interests of class members will help us decide what to work on from (or what to add to) this list.
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 what you mean, deviant or unnatural?
2. What is love? 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)?
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 trick us into making 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 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. 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. 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 recently stumbled on the controversy about whether addictions to sex exist, which 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)? Can one person understand how another person experiences love? Sex? Are there important things about sex and love which are ineffable, that is, which cannot be spoken or put into words? 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 may have to make it up ourselves.
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 that you understand sex.
Texts and Materials: There is no required text to purchase. Reading materials will be available through a web browser, 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, which for some is even worse. 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.
Grading: Each Wednesday I’ll give out three or more questions; students will choose one and write an 800-1200 word essay due the next Monday at the beginning of class. I’ll hand out and discuss my grading criteria with the first assignment. A grading checksheet is at www.humboldt.edu/~jwp2/gradingx.pdf. Your grade will be an average of the essay grades, with one essay dropped only if your grades are improving at the end. 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 term. 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.
The essays: Most questions will be in the form of a quote containing an argument on our current topics. Use a three-part structure for essays, as follows: Part I: describe the argument in the quote and discuss the issue to which it is addressed; II: tell what you think the speaker should have said and provide support; III: give the best objections to your views and respond thoughtfully to them. The length, a thousand words, is roughly four pages of traditionally-typed, double-spaced text. Note, however, that the page on goals attached to this syllabus is 800 words. Do not double-space. You may submit your essays by e-mail, but paste your essays into the message--do not send attachments, and put "304," your name, and the question number on the subject line. Be sure to leave me one wide margin for comments if you submit hard copies.
Schedule: (This is tentative, it will be revised as we go; students will help choose topics and sequence toward the end.)
Weeks Topics and readings . Essays are assigned Wednesday, due Monday at the beginning of class:
1. Intro and methods; Describing arguments, clarifying issues; Plato's Symposium. What is love? what's it for, where'd 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.”
2. Sex, natural and unnatural. What is natural or unnatural in sex? Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs. 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?
3. 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’s one way it might go.)
4. 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.
5. 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.
On goals: 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 turn out to fit or even to be shaping ideas for this course. Indeed, I have many moments where I 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, 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.
--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 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.
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--this comes with being 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.
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.
