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Simone de Beauvoir's argument in The Ethics of Ambiguity are two main issues: the refuting of Cartesian dualism between body and mind, and the essence of freedom. From these two points, de Beauvoir also notes how the human being struggles with the ambiguity of existence, which is at once futile and meaningful, subjective and objective. The human being is socially constructed as well as self-constructed, seeing oneself in others, as others reflect back their image of the self. When others reflect ourselves back, that image is not pure. It has been tainted by the biases and worldviews of the other. Because of this, it can also be argued that the opinions of others are not fully meaningful. The person can certainly listen to what others have to say, but it would be wiser not to internalize that information or take it seriously.However, de Beauvoir includes some important caveats in her philosophy of self. One is that human freedom, while absolute, is also constrained by ethical imperatives. Those ethical imperatives necessarily derive from externalities, not from within the self. The external source of ethical duty does not come from God, but may come from other people. Therefore, it may be important to listen to what others have...
The second caveat is that the individual, while free, is always a subject of something. The self exists only as a relational being or entity. "It is rather well-known that the fact of being a subject is a universal fact and that the Cartesian cogito expresses both the most individual experience and the most objective truth," (de Beauvoir, Part 1: "Ambiguity and Freedom").
Another point de Beauvoir makes regarding listening to others is that there is no one ultimate, whole, integral ethical construct that exists separate from human beings. Ethics are human constructs, culturally constrained, and constantly and continually re-invented. Therefore, people continue to project their own ideas onto the collective body of ethics. There are no pure thoughts or absolute morals. "The plurality of concrete -- particular men projecting themselves toward their ends on the basis of situations whose particularity is as radical and as irreducible as subjectivity itself," and if there are no objective ethics, then what others have to say is relatively meaningless (de Beauvoir, Part I). Furthermore, what others have to say is independent of whether there…
Characters in Camus' "The Guest" Using Simone De Beauvoir's Terminology and Ideas Daru Daru is the main character of The Guest. At the beginning of the narrative, Daru is seen watching carefully the arrival of two guests. He lives alone in the schoolhouse and this cold winter afternoon as the pupils remain home due to the blizzard. He spends time feeding the chicken, finding coal and going to the shed other
Thus, free will -- as demonstrated by moral choice -- is in actuality a series of discrete and connected choices, each dependent on those preceding it as they shape the individual's attitude. De Beauvoir then describes the sub-man, who wishes he did not exist. Yet he is the very consciousness that is willing this non-existence, and is thus self-defeating. To escape his subjectivity, he immerses himself in the object, and
Nietzsche's Woman is by turns simply a reflection of common attitudes of the time, although he occasionally sees her in a more sympathetic view. In a modern light, the understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy has often been tainted by the view of his writings as racist and misogynist. Indeed, a cursory look shows that Nietzsche's perception of women is largely negative and unflattering. Nonetheless, the great philosopher is sometimes clearly sympathetic
Wulf, S.J. (2000). "The skeptical life in Hume's political thought. Polity, 33(1), 77. Wulf uses David Hume's well-known skepticism to advance his concerning the extreme degrees to which philosophy had been taken before returning to less radical modes. He develops material about the antithetical ideas to those investigated here; that is, he puts into a context the ideas of those philosophers who, working at the edge of the intelligible, refused to
Educational Philosophy The four Educational Philosophies Essentialism Essentialism argues that a common core of knowledge needs to be passed to learners in a disciplined and systematic manner. The concentration in this traditional viewpoint is on moral and intellectual standards that academic institutions should educate. The curriculum focuses on knowledge, skills, and academic rigor. Although this academic viewpoint is similar in some ways to Perennialism, Essentialism accepts the idea that this core curriculum may
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir on Freedom, Being-for-Others, And Sartrean Despair Simone de Beauvoir and JP Sartre were two famous existentialists that converged and diverged on various concepts. These included the existentialist concepts of freedom, being-for-others and transcendence or despair. Their converged and divergences will be addressed in this essay. Sartre was one of the most famous existentialists of all times. For him, existence did not base itself on an