by Jean-Luc Marion (2007)
While humanists have pondered the subject of love to the point of obsessiveness, philosophers have steadfastly ignored it. One might wonder whether the discipline of philosophy even recognizes love. The word philosophy means "love of wisdom," but the absence of love from philosophical discourse is curiously glaring. So where did the love go? In The Erotic Phenomenon, Jean-Luc Marion asks this fundamental question of philosophy, while reviving inquiry into the concept of love itself. Marion begins his book with a critique of Descartes' equation of the ego's ability to doubt with the certainty that one exists--"I think, therefore I am"--Arguing that this is worse than vain. We encounter being, he says, when we first experience love: I am loved, therefore I am; and this love is the reason I care whether I exist or not. This philosophical base allows Marion to probe several manifestations of love and its variations, including carnal excitement, self-hate, lying and perversion, fidelity, the generation of children, and the love of God. Throughout, Marion stresses that all erotic phenomena, including sentimentality, pornography, and even boasts about one's sexual conquests, stem not from the ego as popularly understood but instead from love.
Don Nori
Romancing the Divine is a tale of every person's journey to find the reality of God. It is a tale of hope, a search for eternal love and for all the possibilities we have always imagined would be the conclusion of such a search.
Kimm Crandall
God's Empowering Love for Us in the Midst of Our Mess Life is messy. And Christians are not exempt. Unfortunately, this is not the message we tend to hear. We're told to be moral, look good, and set a positive example. After all, as some people may tell us, we're the only Jesus some people see-so we better make him look good. That's a heavy burden. And so we work feverishly to hide our messes from each other and from God for fear of judgment ... 'll the while wondering how we can ever be loved. But Christianity is not about being less of a mess. It's about admitting that we need to be saved from trying to clean ourselves up. In Beloved Mess, author and blogger Kimm Crandall frees Christians to live with the assurance that God loves us right here, right now. He's not waiting for us to clean up our act before we're worthy to come to him. He wants us to stop trying to fix the mess so that we can allow him to wash it away for us. Endorsements "Kimm unpacks the wonder of God's mercy with honesty and courage and shows how it reaches all the way down to every dimension of our hearts and lives."--Justin S. Holcomb, author, On the Grace of God "Read this short but life-changing book, go back to it again and again, and see yourself falling more in love with the One who loved us and gave himself for us."-Jessica Thompson, author of Everyday Grace
Alan Soble
"This introductory textbook is an overview of the nature and the ethics of the many aspects of sex and love"--Provided by publisher.
Sandra Macpherson
In this unconventional study of the 18th century novel, Macpherson (English, the Ohio State University) argues that accident and injury, rather than volition and intention, are key elements in the early realist novel's view of personhood and belonging. She offers fresh readings of Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, demonstrating that the liberal counter-tradition which she explores emerges from 18th century novels based on questions about agency and from contemporary developments in laws of 'strict liability.'