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Authenticite, Ambiguity and Freedom : Recuperating the Philosophy Of AUTHENTICITE, AMBIGUITY AND FREEDOM: RECUPERATING THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR FOR A CONTEMPORARY ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY TESSA SAUNDERS 2009 PHD Authenticite, Ambiguity and Freedom: Recuperating the Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir for a Contemporary Ethics of Ambiguity Tessa Michelle Saunders Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Tasmania April 2009 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify that this thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of the candidate's knowledge and belief no material previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright. Tessa Saunders STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY FOR ACCESS TO COPYING This Thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. Tessa Saunders For Tom and James ABSTRACT Authenticiti, Ambiguity and Freedom: Recuperating the Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir for a Contemporary Ethics of Ambiguity The existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir has been criticised for being a "rniserablism"; for throwing us into an absurd universe with no meaning; and for giving an account of freedom which concludes that each can do 'as one pleases' without regard for others due to an inherent lack of meaning in the world. It has been argued that, due to its insistence on an irreducible, 'radical' freedom, it is not possible to develop an ethics based on existentialism and, therefore, that it is of little use in providing any grounds for an ethics today. In this thesis, I argue against such a reading of de Beauvoir' s existentialism, and for a recuperation of the existential notion of authenticite for a contemporary ethics. In order demonstrate the importance of the concept of authenticite, I make an explicit distinction between two conceptions of the 'authentic' self. The more common understanding is of the decontextualised, autonomous and disembodied individual/subject evident in traditional philosophical accounts of the 'authentic' self. The second is what I identify as the authentique self described by de Beauvoir, understood as embodied, situated and contextualised - the self as related ambiguously to others and the world. A primary aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the important interconnections between the concepts of ambiguity and authenticite, and to reveal that the more common notion of 'authenticity' is based (often implicitly) upon a denial of our ambiguous freedom. Taking up the more recent reclamation of the unique philosophical importance of de Beauvoir's account of ambiguity and freedom, which has strong affinities with the existential phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I apply de Beauvoir's account of authenticite, based on ambiguous freedom, to the examination of limits within feminist theory and within the debate over Aboriginal identity in the Tasmanian context. I argue that both of these debates have been limited by their understandings of 'authenticity' and that both would find within de Beauvoir's philosophy of ambiguous freedom a way to move beyond, or at least question, this understanding. I conclude that, by taking seriously the account of ambiguous freedom described throughout de Beauvoir's texts, we are provided with an ethics that allows for openness and joy in our relations with others and which offers a powerful descriptive and explanatory account of some complex contemporary social and political situations. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks must first go to Professor Jeff Malpas, Dr Jack Reynolds and Dr Kim Atkins for their supervision and support during my candidature. I have appreciated their comments, discussions, time and effort over the years it has taken to complete this project. I would especially like to thank Dr Reynolds, who has been my supervisor for the bulk of the project and who has continued to provide supervision and support since leaving the University of Tasmania. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the University of Tasmania Research Higher Degrees Unit, for providing three years of funding in the form of a postgraduate scholarship to pursue this topic. Thanks also to the School of Philosophy at the University uf Tasmania: Heau of School, Marcelo Stamm, as well as Sandra Kellett, Irene Sawford, Sally Lang and Bronwyn Peters for their assistance with the administrative side of things. I would also like to acknowledge fellow Post-Graduate Students, from the School of Philosophy for their discussions, comments during seminars and support. Special thanks to those from room 407 with whom I spent a substantial part of my time: Bruce Wilson, Eliza Goddard, Anitra Gorris-Hunter, David Middleton and Scott Aumont and to Nadia Mahjouri and Miranda Morris for many worthwhile discussions. Heartfelt thanks to my family and friends who have supported me throughout what has been a challenging (and rewarding) time: especially my husband Tom; my son James; and my house-mate, friend and sister-in-law Hannah Jenkins. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ----------------------------------------------------I A CKN OWL ED G EMENTS -------------------------------------- III ABB RE VIA TI ONS --------------------------------------------- V INTROD UC TIO N --------------------------------------------- VI SECTION I: RECLAIMING AMBIGUITY AND AUTHENTICITE IN SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR'S EXISTENTIALISM------------------- 1 CHAPTER ONE: OVERCOMING INDIVIDUALISM - REUNITING AMBIGUITY AND AUTHENTICITE _____________________________ _ 1 CHAPTER TWO: INTERPRETATIONS OF SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR - RE-THINKING THE IMPORTANCE OF AMBIGUITY FOR A UTHE N TI CITE---------------------------------------------- 30 CHAPTER THREE: AN AMBIGUOUS FREEDOM ________________ _ 82 SECTION TWO: EXPLORING THE CONTEMPORARY APPLICATION OF AN ETHICS OF AMBIGUITY--------------- 126 CHAPTER FOUR: RECLAIMING AMBIGUITY FOR A FEMINIST AUTHENTICITE 127 CHAPTER FIVE: AUTHENTICITY, AMBIGUITY AND THE THREAT OF THE OTHER 169 CHAPTER SIX: RESPONDING ETHICALLY TO THE FREEDOM OF THE OTHER------------------------------------------------ 206 BIB LI 0 GRAP HY-------------------------------------------- 245 iv ABBREVIATIONS The bibliography at the end of this thesis gives full details of the works cited below. Primary texts by Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre are referenced in-text using the following abbreviations, with full bibliographic details in footnotes. BN Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology (Sartre) EE An Eye for an Eye EPW Existentialism and Popular Wisdom FC Force of Circumstance LM Literature and Metaphysics PC Pyrrhus et Cineas PL Prime of Life pp Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty) RPP Review of the Phenomenology of Perception TEA The Ethics ofAmbiguity TSS The Second Sex WIE What is Existentialism? v INTRODUCTION Since its conception in the late 1930s the French existentialism associated with Jean­ Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir has been criticised for failing to provide contemporary society with an ethics; for focusing too narrowly on the individual and on 'radical freedom'; and for 'pulling the rug out' from beneath us without providing a means to move forward.1 Herbert Marcuse, for example, wrote of Sartre's existential theory that, in questioning the meaning of existence, it reveals the Cogito as the foundation for human existence and that this Cogito is " ... thrown into an 'absurd' world in which the brute fact of death and the irretrievable process of Time deny all meaning".2 Despite many philosophers being inspired and influenced by the various manifestations of existentialism, views like Marcuse' s have endured over time with one contemporary philosopher recently arguing that: ... after breaking the spell of the life-denying doctrines that dominated modernity, existentialism could offer post-modern thinking nothing to hold on to. For, if we rigorously deny that there is no human nature at all, then all the possible grounds for processes of enlightenment in law, politics and ethics are fatally undermined. Once this Humpty Dumpty has been toppled, 1 Critiques of the (particularly Sartrean) existential view of freedom abound. See, for example, Adorono, Theodore, Negative Dialectics, (trans E.B. Ashton), Continuum: New York, 1992; Marcuse, Herbert, "Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'Etre et le Neant" in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 8, No. 3. March, 1948, pp. 309-336; Grossmann, Reinhold, Phenomenology and Existentialism, Routledge: London, 1984; Follesdal, Dagfinn, "Sartre on Freedom," in The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, Arthur Schlipp (ed), LaSalle: Open Court, 1981, pp. 392-407; Campbell, Gerald T., "Sartre's Absolute Freedom," Laval Theologique Philosophique, February 1977, pp 61-91; Kruks, Sonia, "Simone de Beauvoir: Teaching Sartre about Freedom", in Simons, Margaret, (ed) Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, The Pennsylvania University Press: Pennsylvania, 1995. 2 Marcuse, Herbert, "Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'Etre et le Neant" in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 8, No. 3. March, 1948, p 309. vi not even the entire population of sovereign individuals, exercising their free wills, could put him together again.3 In this thesis, however, I argue against this
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