Existentialism, Feminism and Simone de Beauvoir

by J. Mahon

Overview

Simone De Beauvoir made her own distinctive contribution to existentialism in the form of an ethics which diverged sharply from that of Jean-Paul Sartre. In her novels and philosophical essays of the 1940s she produced not just a recognizable existentialist ethics, but also a character ethics and an ethics for violence. This book defends her existentialist feminism against the many reproaches which have been levelled against it over several decades.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312176068
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/11/1997
Edition description:	1997
Pages:	241
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

JOSEPH MAHON

Table of Contents

Preface - Early Philosophical Writing - The Blood of Others: The Fictional Primer on Existentialism - The Ethics of Ambiguity: An Existentialist Ethics - A Character Ethics - Ethics for Violence - Other Defences of Existentialism: De Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty - Other Defences of Existentialism: De Beauvoir and Sartre - De Beauvoir's Ethics: A Critical Appraisal - The Historical Background to The Second Sex - The Philosophical Foundations of The Second Sex - The Second Sex: Woman as the Other - Existentialism and the Origins of Male Supremacy - The Married Woman - The Mother - The Independent Woman - Responses to The Second Sex: 1962-1979 - Responses to The Second Sex: 1981-1985 - Responses to The Second Sex: 1986-1994 - Simone de Beauvoir's Existentialist Feminism: A Defence - Notes - Bibliography - Index

Editorial Reviews

Mahon (University College Galway) defends de Beauvoir's existentialist feminism against the many reproaches which have been leveled against it over several decades, including the criticism that it is steeped in Sartrean masculinism. He demonstrates that the philosophical foundations of "The Second Sex" are located in de Beauvoir's earlier philosophical essays; that her thought differs extensively from that contained in contemporaneous works by Sartre; and that her attempt at constructing a normative ethics is an enterprise which Sartre repeatedly repudiates. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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