The Erotic Phenomenon

University Of Chicago Press, April 2008. Paper Back. New. Philosophy has strayed from its roots, quite literally, asserts French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion. Taking its name from the Greek origin, 'love of wisdom,' philosophy intimates that loving comes before knowing. To quote Marion, 'Philosophy comprehends only to the extent that it loves-I love to comprehend, therefore I love in order to comprehend. I do not, as one might prefer to believe, end up by comprehending enough to dispense forever with loving.' Yet philosophy renounced its love and turned instead to metaphysics, effectively censuring philosophy's erotic origin. Jean-Luc Marion seeks to construct an inquiry on love out of this amorous disaster. Beginning with Descartes' famous dictum-'I think, therefore I am'-Marion points out its fatal omission, namely, that being is not intrinsically bound up with love (or hate for that matter). This denial of an erotic disposition in favor of erotic neutrality is Descartes' one great error, unnoticed for nearly four centuries. With adequate humility, Marion sets off in search of an erotic rationality, examining man's self-hatred, arousals of the flesh, lying and truthfulness, perversion, fidelity, the generation of children, and the love of God. Marion stresses that all erotic phenomena rise not from the ego but from love, presupposing a first Lover who loves by the same means as we do, but loving us infinitely better. 230 pp.