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In Vagaries of Desire, Timo Airaksinen develops a new philosophical account of desire understood as mental state that focuses on a desirable possible world. Literary and philosophical themes, including sexuality, are discussed in terms of their metaphoric and metonymic features. Readership: Advanced students and specialists in philosophy of mind, anyone who is interested in the application of rhetorical notions to literature and philosophy, students and specialist in sexual ethics.

Irony and sarcasm are common linguistic tropes. They are both based on falsehoods that the speaker pretends to be true. I briefly characterize their differences. A third trope exists that works when the relevant propositions are true – yet its rhetorical effect resembles irony and sarcasm, I call it mocking. It is mimetic evil: an agent copies another so that the result ridicules him. The image is, in a limited way, true of him and it hurts; we all are vulnerable. I provide a systematic framework for understanding this phenomenon, mocking, in terms of emulation and simulation. Finally, I introduce an idea of universal mimesis and discuss René Girard's theory of desire. He argues that desires are copies of a model. This may not be possible, and I suggest a modification to his theory. I pay attention to his idea of mimetic desire as a source of hatred, which is obviously related to what I call here mimetic mocking.

This is a collection of mutually independent but interrelated papers on desire in it many forms. The first part of strictly analytical, Kafka-papers employ methods of literary criticism and rhetorical terms. The final sections deal with queer sexuality and Nagel's idea of perversion, which I demolish conclusively -- as I hope ; Names: Airaksinen, Timo, 1947- author. Title: Vagaries of desire : a collection of philosophical essays / Timo Airaksinen. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill-Rodopi, 2019. | Series: Value inquiry book series, 0929-8436 ; volume 340. Philosophy, literature, and politics | Includes index. | Summary: "Vagaries of Desire is a major collection of new essays by Timo Airaksinen on the philosophy of desire. The first part develops a novel account of the philosophical theory of desire, including Girard. The second part discusses Kafka's main works, namely The Castle, The Trial, and Amerika, and Thomas Hobbes and the problems of intentionality. The text develops such linguistic tropes as metaphor and metonymy in connection with topics like death and then applies them to Kafka's texts. The third part makes an effort to understand the mysteries of sadism and masochism in philosophical and rhetorical terms. The last article criticizes Thomas Nagel's influential account of sexual perversion and develops a viable alternative"-- ; Peer reviewed