The Philosophy of Simone De Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities

by Debra B. Bergoffen

The Philosophy of Simone de Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities sees Beauvoir as engaged in a three-way conversation with Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Like Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir took up the legacies of the modern and phenomenological philosophical traditions. Unlike them, however, she attended to the phenomenological implications of the sexed body, pursued the idea of ambiguity and developed the philosophical category of the erotic.

This book reads Beauvoir as speaking in two philosophical voices; a familiar existential voice and an unfamiliar voice that speaks of the other, generosity, the gift and the ethical possibilities of the erotic event.

Genres: Philosophy

Hardcover

First published November 1, 1996

Reviews

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have long form as a hater of jargon, as someone with a short fuse for rebarbative theoretical prose. Bergoffen's text may have taught me some much-needed humility and patience in this regard. A sometimes thorny engagement with the corpus of Simone De Beauvoir's writing and thought, it definitely has some stem-winder sentences. By taking time and re-reading when necessary, it became clear to me that there was a there there, that the theoretical complexity was needed to stake out a relatively nuanced and complex position. I can't claim to be able to hold the entirety of the argument in my head from beginning to end, but I think I have the gist and that has enhanced my understanding of The Second Sex. For that reason alone the read was worth it. It's not a higher rating because though there is a there there, it still sometimes feels over-difficult to grasp it. The central argument as I understand it has to do with a recalibration of sources and allies (so to speak) for early SDB. Rather than read her major works through the lens of existentialism as elaborated by her long time partner Sartre, Bergoffen argues for recovering the occluded influence of a European philosophical tradition. In fact, the key voice here seems to have been the phenomenology of her old schoolmate Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The result is what Bergoffen calls an ethics of the erotic, a muted voice within SDB's work that offers a window onto a transformative view of the relation between transcendence and immanence (coded as Hegelian war in SDB's major voice). The result is a view of intersubjective generosity that transcends patriarchy. The steps in tracing this argument are many, not least because the claim is that this voice in SDB is, so to speak, sotto voce. Nevertheless, I think the effort is worth the candle, even if, as in my case, one reading will necessarily beget several re-readings.