Warren Ward in conversation with Simon Marnie to celebrate Lovers of Philosophy

They were Europe's greatest thinkers, but what were they like at love?

Lovers of Philosophy explores the love lives of seven philosophers, and  how their most intimate experiences came to shape their ideas. In these  pages, the reader learns about the significance of Kant's infatuation,  Hegel's premarital liaisons, Nietzsche's heartbreak, Heidegger's  hypocrisy, Sartre's promiscuous polyamory, Foucault's sexual liberation,  and Derrida's dalliances in extramarital desire.

The stories of these philosophers' love lives are  told against a backdrop of Europe undergoing tumultuous change.  Beginning in the eighteenth-century Prussian Enlightenment, the book  traverses the French Revolution, Napoleonic wars, Industrial Revolution,  two World Wars, and events of May 1968 before arriving at the culture  wars of the late twentieth century.

For anyone who has struggled to understand  continental philosophy's vast array of movements, from German idealism  through to phenomenology, existentialism, post-structuralism, and  deconstructionism, Lovers of Philosophy also provides the reader with an  easy-to-follow overview of the progression of ideas from Kant to  Derrida.

Warren Ward is a psychiatrist who writes about philosophy, culture, travel and the history of ideas. He will be joined with Simon Marnie, who currently hosts ABC Radio Sydney's weekend morning program across New South Wales.