Dating – Philosophy for Everyone: Flirting With Big Ideas

Speed dating, online dating, group blind dating, dating consultants… A booming dating industry is catering to an ever–increasing number of single adults in the twenty–first century, with the market for a mate now pulling in more than a billion dollars a year in the United States. So, how do we successfully attempt to navigate the dating minefield? Progressing from the first flirtatious moment of eye contact to the selection of a “mate,” Dating – Philosophy for Everyone  includes a number of playful yet relevant essays for anyone who has dated, is dating, or intends to date again. It offers fascinating philosophical explorations of topics such as: The taboos of dating and how to play the dating game Should science teach men how to attract women? The problem of having too much choice The vicissitudes of dating and mating are explored from a number of perspectives, all of which will help demystify coupling in the twenty–first century for those young daters just entering the fray, and those veterans returning to the game.

Foreword (Joshua Wolf Shenk, Slate.com) . Acknowledgments (Kristie Miller, University of Sydney and Marlene Clark, City University of New York) . Flirting with Big Ideas: An Introduction to Dating – Philosophy for Everyone (Kristie Miller, University of Sydney and Marlene Clark, City University of New York) . Part I: Getting Started: From Flirting to Dating: 1. The Philosophy of Flirting (Carrie S. Jenkins, University of Nottingham) . 2. Good Girls Don’t, but Boys Don’t Either: Toward a Conservative Position on Male Flirting (Emily Langan, Wheaton College) . 3. Love for Sale: Dating as a Calculated Exchange (Jennifer A. Samp, University of Georgia and Andrew I. Cohen, Georgia State University) . 4. The Dating Elevator: Pushing the Right Buttons and Moving from Floor to Floor (John Rowan, Purdue University and Patricia Hallen, Purdue University) . Part II: No–No’s: Dating Taboos: 5. “Crazy in Love”: The Nature of Romantic Love (Mary Beth Yount, Duquesne University) . 6. I’m Dating My Sister, and Other Taboos (Kristie Miller, University of Sydney) . 7. Just Pushy Enough (Anne Barnhill, Johns Hopkins University) . 8. Buy My Love: On Sex Workers, Gold Diggers, and “Rules Girls” (Kyla Reid, University of Sydney and Tinashe Dune, University of Sydney) . Part III: Rolling Right Along: Dating Like a Pro: 9. Against Matchmaking (Joshua S. Heter, St. Louis University) . 10. Hitting the Bars with Aristotle: Dating in a Time of Uncertainty (Richard Paul Hamilton, University of Notre Dame Australia) . 11. I’ve Never Been on a Date (yet Somehow I Got Married!) (Andrew Terjesen, Rhodes College) . 12. Morality, Spontaneity, and the Art of Getting (Truly) Lucky on the First Date (Christopher Brown, National University of Singapore and David W. Tien, National University of Singapore) . Part IV: Another World: Cyber–Rendezvous: 13. Dating and Play in Virtual Worlds (Bo Brinkman, Miami University, Ohio) . 14. How To Be Yourself in an Online World (Dan Silber, Florida Southern College) . Part V: From Date to Mate: “Natural” Selection?: 15. Evolutionary Psychology and Seduction Strategies: Should Science Teach Men How to Attract Women? (Hichem Naar, University of Manchester and Alberto Masala, University of Paris–Sorbonne) . 16. Mating, Dating, and Mathematics: It’s All in the Game (Mark Colyvan, University of Sydney) . 17. Why Less May Be More: Dating and the City (Marlene Clark, City University of New York) . Notes on Contributors.

Editors Kristie Miller is a research fellow in philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Issues in Theoretical Diversity: Persistence, Composition and Time (2006) as well as numerous journal articles on related topics. Marlene Clark is an Associate Professor of English at the City College Center for Worker Education, City University of New York. Her composition textbook, Juxtapositions: Ideas for College Writers (2005), is in its third edition. Series Editor Fritz Allhoff is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co–editor for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley–Blackwell, 2007), Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe, Wiley–Blackwell, 2007) .

"If you enjoy philosophy and are dating (or find the topic interesting), then by all means this is a book you would want to check out." ( Littleredrails.com , January 2011)