User:Jahsonic/Kant and Schopenhauer on sexuality  

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Immanuel Kant, a philosopher I dislike, much as I dislike Plato, said this about human sexuality, trivializing the philosophy of sex:

"In loving from sexual inclination, they make the person into an object of their appetite. As soon as the person is possessed, and the appetite sated, they are thrown away, as one throws away a lemon after sucking the juice from it. The sexual impulse can admittedly be combined with human affection, and then it also carries with it the aims of the latter, but if it is taken in and by itself, it is nothing more than appetite. But, so considered, there lies in this inclination a degradation of man; for as soon as anyone becomes an object of another's appetite, all motives of moral relationship fall away; as object of the other's appetite, that person is in fact a thing, whereby the other's appetite is sated, and can be misused as such a thing by anybody." (Lectures, Ak 27:384-85)

Arthur Schopenhauer, who I like, said this about human sexuality, giving sexuality a prominent role in human behaviour and worthy of serious thought:

"The genitals are the real focus of will and are therefore the opposite pole to the brain, the representative of knowledge…. The genitals are the life-preserving principle assuring to time endless life. In this capacity they were worshipped by the Greeks as the phallus and by the Hindus as the lingam, which are therefore the symbol of the affirmation of the will". The World as Will and Representation[1]

In German:

"Diesem allem zufolge sind die Genitalien der eigentliche Brennpunkt des Willens und folglich der entgegengesetzte Pol des Gehirns, des Repräsentanten der Erkenntnis, d.i. der anderen Seite der Welt, der Welt als Vorstellung. Jene sind das lebenerhaltende, der Zeit endloses Leben zusichernde Prinzip, in welcher Eigenschaft sie bei den Griechen im Phallus, bei den Hindu im Lingam verehrt wurden, welche also das Symbol der Bejahung des Willens sind. Die Erkenntnis dagegen gibt die Möglichkeit der Aufhebung des Wollens, der Erlösung durch Freiheit, der Überwindung und Vernichtung der Welt."

As shown in my previous Plato and Aristotle post, I seem to like realists and dislike idealists.

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