MODERN FRENCH THINKERS: WEEK ONE LECTURE NOTES

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1 MODERN FRENCH THINKERS: WEEK ONE LECTURE NOTES Amanda Hopkins Note: emphasis (in bold) of key terms/points &c added to quotations. See References for texts details. SdB sets out issues & approach early in the Introduction to DS: 1. WOMAN ; THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN SOCIETY Repeated question: qu est-ce qu une femme? (11 et passim). I realized that the first question to come up was: What has it meant to me to be a woman? At first I thought I could dispose of that pretty quickly. I had never had any feeling of inferiority, no one had ever said to me: You think that way because you re a woman ; my femininity had never been irksome to me in any way. For me, I said to Sartre, you might almost say it just hasn t counted. All the same, you weren t brought up in the same way a boy would have been; you should look into it further. I looked & it was a revelation: this world was a masculine world, my childhood had been nourished by myths forged by men, & I hadn t reacted to them in at all the same way I should have done if I had been a boy. I was so interested in this discovery that I abandoned my project for a personal confession in order to give all my attention to find out about the condition of woman in its broadest terms. (Beauvoir, FC, 94) SdB places self at core of text: begins with je: J ai longtemps hésité à écrire un livre sur la femme (11). Asks reader to engage with first-person author &, since subject of la femme clearly given, especially to see her as a woman, as a female writer. Also suggests personal experience will be important. [Subjective? Subject] Defines self as female: duality of the sexes differentiates her from male writers who do not (have no need to) define selves as male ; idea of male perspective as norm (14) overview of male/female dichotomy. Man/male as norm (14); definition of woman (by men) in terms of body (functions, glands &c), but men are not (14-15); woman defined in relation to man (15): wife, sister, daughter; woman defined as sexual being: elle est sexe, on l appelle le sexe (15). Central thesis continues duality theme: man is le Sujet, il est l Absolu (placing argument in forum of philosophy: simply, it is the way he sees the world that is important; only other men are his peers, his equals. Women are weak & powerless). Woman is l Autre (15) Georg Hegel ( ), famous for saying, inter alia: The difference between man & woman is the difference between animal & plant (!). Men animated by thought & external activities (work, government, warfare), to which they are drawn by their nature; conversely, women s nature is instinctual & sentimental, suited to expression in the domestic sphere: home, family, love. Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807: The Phenomenology of Spirit): Geist (Spirit or absolute Idea) is the telos of reason [Gk: end/completion/purpose/goal of any thing or activity]. Hegel subordinates Nature to Spirit/Absolute, which reveals itself explicitly primarily as the Ideal. (Spirit = higher purpose?) As SdB observes, women traditionally (classical world onwards) allied with Nature/Chaos/Disorder &c; men with Order/Rational. SdB: in human beings, male dependence on female for biological (sexual & generative) fulfilment has - 1 -

2 not led to female emancipation (20); rather female dependency on men allows women to avoid responsibility of (economic & metaphysical) autonomy (21). Woman becomes what she is made: thought to be inadequate/inferior, becomes so (25). SdB: other dualities (e.g. black/white) offer no satisfactory analogies: human male/female closer in social effect to majority/minority duality, but not justified by numbers: male:female 50:50 (18). Relations between sexes closer to those between master & slave (20): Hegel s master/slave dialectic = when two self-consciousnesses confront one another, each thinks about other in terms of self. Hegel: mutual recognition & self-consciousness emerge out of violent conflict, a phenomenon more common among male than female animals (Roelofs, p. 1, Abstract). Woman subordinated throughout history, but no event or social change has brought it about, unlike slavery (18). [de Beauvoir offers] a radically new theory of sexual difference. While we are all split & ambiguous, she argues, women are more split & ambiguous than men. For Simone de Beauvoir, then, women are fundamentally characterized by ambiguity & conflict. The specific contradiction of women s situation is caused by the conflict between their status as free & autonomous human beings & the fact that they are socialized in a world in which men consistently cast them as Other to their One, as objects to their subjects. The effect is to produce women as subjects painfully torn between freedom & alienation, transcendence & immanence, subject-being & objectbeing. (Moi, 98) [Woman is] a human existent whose humanity is effectively denied. Although there is not a once & for all destruction of her freedom, there is an effective suppression of it; a suppression which the male world continuously maintains, lest her freedom break out through its barriers. (Kruks, 115) 2. EXISTENTIALIST APPROACH SdB intends to approach subject à neuf (19)?= 1) philosophy, 2) existentialism. Not effect of natural law, not human nature: human beings responsible for their actions: ce n est pas une mystérieuse essence qui dicte aux hommes et aux femmes la bonne ou la mauvaise foi (29). Reference to good or bad faith is not religious/theological, but philosophical: direct reference to existentialism. Existentialist stance outlined: Le perspective que nous adoptons, c est celle de la morale existentialiste. Tout sujet se pose concrètement à travers des projets comme une transcendance; il n accomplit sa liberté que par son perpétuel dépassement vers d autres libertés; il n y a d autre justification de l existence présente que son expansion vers un avenir indéfiniment ouvert. Chaque fois que la transcendance retombe en immanence il y a dégradation de l existence en «en soi», de la liberté en facticité; cette chute est une faute morale si elle est consentie par le sujet; si elle lui est infligée, elle prend la figure d une frustration et d une oppression; elle est dans des deux cas un mal absolu. Tout individu qui a le souci de justifier son existence éprouve celle-ci comme un besoin indéfini de se transcender. (31) Each human being responsible for own life/actions; through actions, he will transcend [rise above] facticity & immanence: facticity = concrete details against whose background human freedom exists & by which it is limited, e.g. time & place of birth, language, environment, previous choices, inevitable prospect of death. immanence: mental acts taking place only within a subject s mind, having no effect outside it

3 Existentialism Rejects idea that the most certain & primary reality is rational consciousness. Descartes: human beings can think away/doubt the reality of everything that exists, except the thinking consciousness, whose reality thus more certain than any other reality. Existentialism: as conscious beings, humans always find themselves already in a world, a prior context & history given to consciousness & in which it is situated; they cannot think away that world. It is inherent & indubitably linked to consciousness. The ultimate, certain, indubitable reality is thus being-in-the-world consciousness is always conscious of something. Popularised in 1940s France by Jean-Paul Sartre ( ). Originated with Søren Kierkegaard ( ; Danish) & later Martin Heidegger ( ; German). SK examined how radical human freedom inevitably leads to despair/anxiety/angst; lifelong depressive. SK s existentialism about individual s freedom, ability & responsibility to choose actions = free will. For SK, group wrong in re everything important in human life, especially ethics & religion. Appeal to others opinions inherently false = an attempt to avoid responsibility for content & justification of own convictions. Individual must initiate authentic [genuine] action, without prospect of support or agreement from others. Most people prefer to ignore questions about meaning of lives: escape into immanence, unthinking routine. To exist truly, the individual must risk dread & uncertainty, & transcend this immanence. SK: self-denial, & the self-realisation it might lead to, demand absolute & uncompromising independence from the group: existence = you have the right to choose who you are = living a life of commitment; right + responsibility. Martin Heidegger: built on SK s analysis of freedom & despair; also drew on work of Edmund Husserl ( ). EH had placed all human perception, experience & knowledge within the framework of human consciousness: all Being is always being for a consciousness. In Sein und Zeit (Being & Time, 1927) MH applied phenomenological methods to ontology, in attempting to understand the meaning of Being, both in general & as it appears concretely. [Phenomenology = study of consciousness from first-person perspective; description of experience, using conscious knowledge of physical phenomena. Ontology = philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as the basic categories of being & their interrelations.] MH developed conception of existence as active participation in the world = Dasein [ beingthere / being-in-the-world ]. Ultimate, indubitable reality not thinking consciousness, but Dasein: Being is always being for a concrete existence. MH recognized inherent limitations of existentialist life, & threat of inauthenticity. [Authenticity/inauthenticity major element of existentialism. Authenticity = deliberate, self-conscious, appropriation of conditions of own existence & identity.] For MH, deliberate reflection about aims & values of own life is only way a being can successfully respond to experience of angst without falling into self-deception. Self-deception = avoidance/denial of unpleasant aspects of reality, especially when they might make - 3 -

4 individual think badly of self. For all existentialists, self-deception = bad faith, inauthentic response to dread resulting from contemplation of human freedom. Self-deception common, but hard concept: not clear how individual can both deceive self & be deceived by self. Unless deception entirely unconscious, must be some degree of wilful disregard of evidence that might lead to unpleasant truth one would rather not face. Authentic existent embraces responsibility in good faith; to live in bad faith = individual s efforts to avoid anxiety [angst/dread] by denying full extent of own freedom. Bad faith particularly harmful type of self-deception: precludes authentic appropriation of responsibility. Atheistic existentialism SK Christian; could not accept Immanuel Kant s belief that religious faith & morality can be founded on reason; for SK, faith completely irrational & unprovable. Leap of faith/commitment required to lead religious life fundamental to SK s form of existentialism. JPS: even if someone believes he has essence [soul/psychological type], that belief not preexisting & imposed on him, but choice. MH, JPS, SdB atheistic existentialists; denied determinism & idea of human essence/nature. JPS s L Être et le néant (1943): account of existence in general, divided into en soi (being-in-itself) of objects that simply are (rocks, sea) & pour soi (the being-for-itself), by which human beings engage in independent action. 1946, JPS s defence of atheistic existentialism: L Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism English version online: see Refs.). [Humanism: the idea that people can make sense of the world using reason, experience & shared human values & live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs.] Note defence required. JPS brackets self & MH as atheistic existentialists, but MH did not support JPS, who had altered meaning of his term Dasein. MH: Dasein = a being such that in its being, its being is in question ; JPS added rider: Consciousness is a being such that in its being, its being is in question in so far as this being implies a being other than itself (E&N, xxxviii). MH s sense of wonder & concern reduced to simple dualism, concept of Self & Other. (MH apparently read first few pages, grasped what JPS had done, & decided that it was worthless.) JPS: existentialism alarms people because it confronts man with a possibility of choice (EH, 2). Christian & atheist existentialists share belief: existence comes before essence or, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective (EH, 3): Atheistic existentialism declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human reality. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world & defines himself afterwards. (EH, 3-4) Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. man is responsible for what he is. Thus, the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is, & places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his own shoulders. &, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. (EH, 4) - 4 -

5 For JPS, to make a choice is to affirm the value of that which is chosen (EH, 4) idea of individual responsibility having relationship with/consequences for society: example to explain concept of individual s responsibility for all men : If I am a worker, for instance, I may choose to join a Christian rather than a Communist trade union. & if, by that membership, I choose to signify that resignation is, after all, the attitude that best becomes a man, that man s kingdom is not upon this earth, I do not commit myself alone to that view. Resignation is my will for everyone, & my action is, in consequence, a commitment on behalf of all mankind. I am thus responsible for myself & for all men, & I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man. (EH, 5) JPS: ultimately, existentialism states that there is no reality except in action. It goes further, indeed, & adds, Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realizes himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is (11). SdB, DS & existentialism JPS s existentialism important to understanding SdB, but important to understand that SdB s existentialism not identical to JPS s. Philosophers do not consider SdB a philosopher in her own right; rather they see her as simply articulating JPS s ideas. (Apparently, considering working on her in France bad for career health!) Two aspects to this: 1) SdB calls DS essay, not philosophical work. I have not created a philosophical work. My field is literature. I am interested in novels, memoirs, essays, such as SS. However, none of these is philosophy. For me, a philosopher is someone who has built a great system, & not simply someone who likes philosophy, who can teach it, understand it, & who can make use of it in essays. A philosopher is somebody who truly builds a philosophical system. & that, I did not do (Simons et al, 337-8). 2) SdB agrees with JPS in certain ways, e.g. in concern for individual s freedom, & use of dualistic meaning of Dasein (self/other), but not all. SdB (not JPS) appropriates MH s term Mitsein (being-with) in focus on fundamental human relationship, the couple: un mitsein originel (75). Here mitsein = fact that both sexes required for procreation & upbringing & survival of species (75-6). (Couple heterosexual later feminists = heterosexist ; but must be read in 1950s context.) (Following GH) JPS saw meaning of other people as conflict; SdB s understanding not straightforward relationship of individual freedoms, per Nancy Bauer (132): we are fundamentally with other people; what is disputed is the meaning of with. Per Dorothy Kaufmann McCall (210): Starting from the Sartrean idea of original conflict, B argues as a basic postulate of SS that man has always conceived of himself as the essential, the Self, & made of woman the Other. B s development of that thesis, which informs the entire book, is completely her own. Pyrrhus et Cinéas (1944): SdB developed concept of freedom as transcendence & identified essence of freedom with uncertainty & risk of individual s actions. Also addresses ethical problem of communities: As radically free I need the other. I need to be able to appeal to others to join me in my projects. How can I, a radically free being who is existentially severed from all other human freedoms, transcend the isolations of freedom to create a - 5 -

6 community of allies? Freedom is situated & the individual s action produce the conditions within which others the other act (Bergoffen, 4). Appeal has two conditions. First, I must be allowed to call to the other & must struggle against those who would silence me. Second, there must be others who can respond to my call. The first condition may be purely political. The second is political material. Only equals, SdB argues, can hear or respond to my call (Bergoffen, 5). Pour une morale de l ambiguité (1947, The Ethics of Ambiguity): SdB returns to problem of freedom & idea of conflicting/competing freedoms: evil resides in the denial of freedom (mine & others ); we are responsible for ensuring the existence of the conditions of freedom (the material conditions of a minimal standard of living & the political conditions of freedom); & that I can neither affirm nor live my freedom without also affirming the freedom of others (Bergoffen, 6). If the life of the oppressed is denied a future & is reduced as it can be to no more than physically perpetuating itself then living is only not dying, & human existence is indistinguishable from an absurd vegetation (Kruks, 112, qtg. SdB EA, trans. by Frechtman, 82-3). Here (despite stated dislike of psychology) SdB begins to address influence of childhood & upbringing on individual: childhood dependency has moral implications for freedom of adult, encouraging adult to act with mauvaise foi, denying existential freedom & responsibility (Bergoffen, 7). Just as important is her emphasis on the collective/group & the interdependency of its members. The method of analysis & appeal thus becomes key to SdB s method. In memoirs, SdB criticises Pour une morale : too abstract. In next work, DS, commits self to concrete, to phenomenological insight that individuals engage in world as embodied beings. Radical approach, per Bergoffen (8): Before SS, the sexed body was not an object of phenomenological investigation [the text] argues for women s equality, while insisting on the reality of the sexual difference. SdB explores women s situation, denial of existential freedom, social identity as created through myths. Argues that inequality between the sexes is first biological & presents human body not as an object but as a situation, a given which takes on meaning only in relation to an individual & social context. Biological considerations can be decisive or irrelevant; it is society that decides the bondage imposed on woman by her maternal functions (Kaufmann McCall, 211). However, society patriarchal, made by man to his own specification (as subject/absolute); one specification is position of woman as DS, destined to her condition by man s assertion of his freedom (Kruks, 115). SdB argues: woman (most women) unable to be responsible for self as existent. Woman is therefore a human existent whose humanity is effectively denied. Although there is not a once & for all destruction of her freedom, there is an effective suppression of it; a suppression which the male world continuously maintains, lest her freedom break out through its barriers (Kruks, 115). At times, SdB seems to blame women for subordination (no unified stance, no group identity), reflecting Sartrean existentialism, but she insists that women s situation traps them: aligned, in patriarchal society, with family/man (18-19). What is aim of SdB s project? She uses analysis & appeal method outlined in Pour une morale in DS: only by appealing to man s generosity will woman attain existence & possibility of transcendence. Female history (see conclusions to Histoire ) man-made; decisions about women made in male, not - 6 -

7 female, interest; gains in female rights (female suffrage 1945) only because men have been pleased to allow them (221, 221-4). Kruks: If woman is to escape from immanence she cannot do so, then, by an act of individual choice alone. The liberation of woman must come, in the first instance, from the outside. Woman s situation must be altered before she can effectively struggle for her own freedom (116) Appeal to whom? Who answered? Vols 1 & 2 sold 22k copies each in first week published to whom? Not 22K philosophers in France! Addressed to elite: SdB concerned only with privileged few (Wilson, 111). Highly-educated women were, in her view, those on whom the burden of constructing a new manner of life-in-the-world-&- with-others would fall (Wilson, 112). It s not quite that she assumes that her reader is conversant with Hegel, Marx, Freud, Husserl, & Heidegger & so will be able to discern the history & significance of her often unflagged appropriation of terms like selfposit. Rather, it s as though she is so driven by what she s doing that she does not have time even to wonder who exactly might be in a position to appreciate the results. (Bauer, 121) In DS, SdB insisted that technological advances would alter status quo: physical strength would no longer matter (e.g. 98-9). Effect dubious In Tout compte fait (1972, last part of autobiography) SdB: When I wrote SS my belief in the coming victory of women was premature. we have won almost nothing since 1950 (trans. O Brien, 462, 455; qtd. in Felstiner, 258-9). References DE BEAUVOIR, Simone, Le Deuxième sexe, t. 1: Les Faits et les mythes. Folio essais. Paris: Gallimard (1949, repr. 1976). Trans. by Constance Borde & Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, in The Second Sex. London: Jonathan Cape (2009). La Force des choses. Paris: Gallimard (1963). Trans. by Richard Howard, Force of Circumstance. New York: Putnam (1963). Pour une morale de l ambiguïté. Folio essais. Paris: Gallimard (1947, repr. 2003). Pyrrhus et Cinéas. Les essais XV. Paris: Gallimard (1944, repr. 1986). Tout compte fait. Livre de poche. Paris: Gallimard (1972). Trans. by Patrick O BRIAN, All Said & Done. New York: Putnam (1974). BAUER, Nancy, Must We Read Simone de Beauvoir?, in The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, ed. Emily R. Grosholz. Oxford: Clarendon Press (2004), BERGOFFEN, Debra B., The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities. SUNY Feminist Philosophy. New York: State University of New York Press (1996). FELSTINER, Mary Lowenthal, Seeing The Second Sex through the Second Wave, Feminist Studies, 6:2 (1980), KAUFMANN MCCALL, Dorothy, Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, & Jean-Paul Sartre, Signs, 5:2 (1979), KRUKS, Sonia, Simone de Beauvoir & the Limits to Freedom, Social Text, 17 (1987), MOI, Toril, Ambiguity & Alienation in The Second Sex. Boundary 2, 19:2: Feminism & Postmodernism (1992), ROELOFS, Luke, Hegel s Master-Slave Dialectic & Sexual Oppression, The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Rutgers University, n. v. (Fall 2008), SARTRE, Jean-Paul, L être et le néant: essai d ontologie phénomenologique. Paris: Gallimard (1943, repr. 1976). Trans. by Hazel E. Barnes, Being & Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. London: Routledge (2003). L existentialisme est un humanisme, présentation et notes par Arlette Elkaïm-Sartre. Paris: Gallimard, Folio essais (1946, repr. 1996). Trans. Philip Mairet (extract): Lecture: L existentialisme est un humanisme, in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman. New York: Meridian (1956), pp ; available ONLINE at Marxists.org Internet Archive ( ), < SIMONS, Margaret A., Jessica BENJAMIN, & Simone DE BEAUVOIR, Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview, Feminist Studies, 5:2 (1979), WILSON, Catherine, Simone de Beauvoir & Human Dignity, in The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir, ed. Emily R. Grosholz. Oxford: Clarendon Press (2004), pp