The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir

A study of Beauvoir's work on 'otherness' through the concepts of gender, race, and ageing.

Professor Deutscher studies Beauvoir's philosophy on 'otherness' not just through her famous views on gender (in her celebrated 1949 work The Second Sex), but also through her less documented ideas on race and on ageing and generational difference.Studies 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.