The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir
Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance

A study of Beauvoir's work on 'otherness' through the concepts of gender, race, and ageing.

Penelope Deutscher (Author)

9780521885201, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 August 2008

222 pages
23.6 x 16 x 1.8 cm, 0.44 kg

'… Deutscher elegantly unpicks some of the assumptions behind Beauvoir's work … The case which [she] argues here is both powerful and very subtle and she is able to bring together the various strands in Beauvoir's work in a way which is extremely helpful and illuminating. … little to fault … Penelope Deutscher has made a very considerable contribution to scholarship about Beauvoir.' Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

Studies of Simone de Beauvoir have mostly concentrated on her literature, her life, and her famous 1949 work, The Second Sex, and the continued emphasis has been on Beauvoir's views on gender. The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir places her theory of women's 'otherness' in the context of a number of contemporary theories on a similar subject. While gender takes its place among these, Professor Deutscher counterbalances its grip on our memory of Beauvoir's ideas by situating it in the context of our relationship to ageing, to generational difference, and to race and cultural difference. By differentiating the many aspects of 'otherness', Beauvoir revisited some of the concepts of reciprocity, ambiguity, and ethics for which she is best remembered.

Introduction: Simone de Beauvoir's conversions
1. Conversions of ambiguity
2. American bad faith
3. Conversions of repetition
4. Conversions of alterity: race, sex, age
5. Conversions of reciprocity
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], History of Western philosophy [HPC]