Ah the glories of summer. Though lots has been happening behind the scenes at Philosophy Talk -- much of which you will hear about very soon -- not a lot has been happening on this blog of late. But now that our summer more or less hiatus draws to a close, we will be in the studio more often, producing more live shows. That should mean more blogging too.

I can't honestly say that today's show is about an age-old philosophical question. In fact, as a philosophical topic, flrting is, like, so last second. As far as I can tell, it was put on the map by today's guest,Carrie Jenkins,and her mate丹尼尔·诺兰in a pair of dualing articles. You can download Carrie's by clickinghereand Daniel's by clickinghere. Also, be sure to check out Carrie's blogLong Words Bother Me在那里，她基本上不会调情，但会研究严肃的哲学。

I don't profess to have a well worked-out theory of flirting. In my youth, before I settled down, I was nothing like a master flirt, though I tried hard. So I don't even speak from rich experience. But I'll offer a few quick takes just to get the juices going before this morning's show. I'm sure Carrie's thinking will be much more sophisticated than my own feeble attempts.

我一开始认为调情可能有一种“格莱斯式”结构。我指的是几件事。首先，在我看来，你通过故意调情来调情某人。通过一个眼神、一个走路的姿势、一句话、你的语调或你的头的倾斜来引起另一个人的性兴奋是一回事。But unless youintend用这种方式引起性欲，在我听来，说你在和他们调情是不对的。

但是，仅仅通过某种行为——言语或非言语——来引起性欲就足以调情，这似乎也是不对的。首先，你可能打算引起觉醒，但却不知道如何去做，你完全失败了。一个愚蠢粗暴的少年认为迷上女孩是一种很酷的调情方式，但这并不是真正的调情(尽管根据丹尼尔·诺兰的说法，他可能是在尝试调情)。他粗鲁又令人讨厌。

至少对我来说，比那些试图调情却无法引起性唤起或亲密关系或浪漫的案例更有趣的是那些你通过某种行为成功引起性唤起，但你却没有调情的案例。心理学家早就知道，性吸引在强烈的前因情绪唤醒状态下更容易产生——无论前因情绪状态是什么。有一个著名的被广泛引用的研究，比较了在美丽的环境中穿过一座可怕的桥的男人和在安全的桥上的男人，他们在美丽的环境中被一个声称是在研究美丽的地方的女人靠近。这位女士问了几个问题，给了他们一份调查问卷，并给了他们她的电话号码，以防他们有后续问题。与安全桥上的男生相比，在恐怖桥上的男生认为这个女生更有魅力，并且更有可能给她打电话。显然，在恐怖桥上的人比在安全桥上的人更容易被激发情感，但他们(错误地?)将自己的兴奋归因于女人的存在。

Well what's that got to do with flrting, you ask? Well now that you know about this study, if you didn't already, here's a way to arouse a potential partner and cause that person to be interested in you. Take your target on a roller coaster ride on your first date. He or she will find you more attractive and be more interested in you than he or she otherwise might have been. Suppose you do this intentionally. Though you are manipulating your partner's level of sexual arousal by behavior intended to do just that, it doesn't seem right to say that you are flirting with with your target just by inviting her or him on the roller coaster ride. (Although, once you get the person on the ride your flirtations may be more successful.)

这就把我带到了准希腊的部分。我认为你只有在下列情况下才会调情:(a)你的行为方式意在暗示性或浪漫的可能性，并且(b)你打算向对方表明这种意图。

I'm not sure this isenoughto constitute flirting. But it seems to me that if you don't intend to make it manifest that you intend to be intimating romance or sex then probably you are not flirting. You may be doing something else sexually charged. But you're not flirting.

Here's another quick thought about the "speech-acty" character of flirting. It seems to me that flirting is sort of like two speech acts in one. On the one hand, there's a kind of self-presentation involved in flirting. I present myself as potentially available to you. But in that self-presentation, I thereby invite you to present yourself to me as available to me. if you don't take up the invitation, I have flirted with you, but you haven't flirted with me. If you do take up the invitation, we're flirting with each other. Suppose that after you have openly declined my invitation, I continue to flirt with you -- that is, continue to present myself as available and thereby invite you to so present yourself to me. My flirtation turns into something else, it seems, though I'm not sure exactly what. An unwanted advance? Rudeness?

另一方面，假设你接受了我的邀请以空闲的身份出现在我面前。但假如我决定我其实并没有那么喜欢你。我来给你打退堂鼓。然后什么?如果你不明白对方的意思，你是否也同样粗鲁、迟钝或过于咄咄逼人?我是在开玩笑吗?一旦我开始调情，你接受了我的邀请，我是否有权未经批准收回我的邀请?还是像你带着舞会邀请函来的时候拒绝让你进家门一样?

Of course, there must besomelimit, some off-ramp. To begin to flirt isn't to commit to carrying all the way through to romance or sex. To flirt is only to initmate a possibility. As the flirtation develops, we each get to decide at some point or other that the merely possible will not, in this case, be actualized. Or so it seems. But how exactly we manage that in a mutually agreeable way, now that's a tricky question.

(添加后显示。我还认为，事实上，调情暗示了一种纯粹的可能性——这种可能性的不实现也被假定为一种可能性——这就给调情增添了一种我们可以称之为内在玩耍的气氛。部分原因是，这可能会，也可能不会有进一步的进展所以调情一定会有一种戏谑的气氛。如果调情的目的一直是让你坠入浪漫或性爱，那么它就会有一种内在的严肃感，而这是调情所缺乏的。当然，在某种程度上，当有相互和持续的理解时，事情确实会变得严肃起来。我们当然希望在调情时也能这样。