The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir
The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir
Looking for an examination copy?
This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
$127.00
USDStudies 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.
- Major study of an iconic thinker of the twentieth century by a senior American scholar
- Unlike any competing books, Professor Deutscher also studies Beauvoir's later works about ageing (which is neglected in recent scholarship) and gives this equal emphasis to her work on gender
- Of interest to audiences in numerous disciplines including history of ideas, philosophy and modern French studies
Reviews & endorsements
“Penelope Deutscher’s elegant and generous new book provides the most compelling case for reading Beauvoir with new eyes, just as Beauvoir brought a fresh perspective to the philosophies she engaged….Opening up the multiple, complex, and inconsistent voices, traditions, conversions, and resistances in Beauvoir’s texts,Deutscher shows that the most satisfying (and I would add, the most political) claims in Beauvoir’s work are the more ambiguous ones.”
Lori Marso, Union College, Perspectives on Politics
Product details
August 2008Hardback
9780521885201
222 pages
236 × 160 × 18 mm
0.44kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 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.
