Thesis (MPhil (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study critically explores the meaning of difference in continental philosophy. Concomitantly, it reflects on the norm, with regard to, firstly, the authorities within the philosophical community who take it upon themselves to distinguish, on a “corporate” and/or intellectual level, between the normal and that which is different from the norm; secondly, the apparatus of limitation employed to constitute, legitimate and reinforce this distinction, alongside distinctions between the conventional and the peculiar, the traditional and the marginal, the philosophical and the non-philosophical, the essential and the secondary or supplementary, as well as, the same (or subject) and the other. The focus on these distinctions is narrowed to the field of phenomenology, more particularly, how the anthropologistic readings of Phenomenology of Spirit by the exponents of early French phenomenology not only add force to the canonical reception of Hegel as a follower of a philosophical tradition governed by solipsism and individualism, but also perpetuate two traditional concepts; to wit, otherness as something threatening that must be overcome and self-other relationships as inexorably violent. A reinterpretation of the dialectic of recognition reveals not only Hegel’s appreciation of the degree to which subjectivity is indebted to otherness, but also his notion of friendship as the reciprocal preservation of the other’s otherness. This notion of friendship is appropriated by Simone de Beauvoir, whose engagement with Hegel constitutes a radical departure from French phenomenology; by implication, normal practice. Beauvoir, both personally and in her work, confronts the philosophical community with the short-sighted, often destructive, ways in which it delimits the canon, particularly with regard to its “othering” of women and its disregard for the specificity of difference. In keeping with the anthropological spirit of the respective readings of Hegel, the study itself takes the form of an autobiography. It traces the intellectual journey of a non-Western, non-white, non-male scholar, from her sense of not belonging in the world of continental philosophy, to her critical engagement with Hegel, mediated by Beauvoir. In the process it aims to show that otherness matters and how it matters. Furthermore, it calls for writing and reading differently so as to encourage non-hegemonic philosophy. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is ‘n kritiese verkenning van die betekenis van differensie in die kontinentale filosofie. Gepaardgaande hiermee, word besin oor die norm, met betrekking tot, eerstens, diegene wat gesaghebbend binne die filosofiese gemeenskap, d.w.s. met ‘n self-opgelegde mandaat om te onderskei, op ‘n “korporatiewe” en/of intellektuele vlak, tussen die norm en dit wat afwyk van die norm; en tweedens, die begrensing bepaal, wat aangewend word om hierdie onderskeid, tesame met onderskeidings tussen die konvensionele en die eie, die tradisionele en die marginale, die filosofiese en die nie-filosofiese, die sentrale en die sekondêre of aanvullende, asook (die)selfde (of subjek) en die ander, te konstitueer, legitimeer en versterk. Hierdie onderskeidings word ondersoek binne die veld van die fenomenologie; in die besonder, hoe die antropologistiese vertolkings van Phenomenology of Spirit, deur die verteenwoordigers van die vroeë Franse fenomenologie, die kanonieke beeld van Hegel as aanhanger van ‘n filosofiese tradisie, wat deur solipsisme en individualisme aangedryf word, bekragtig en daarmee saam twee tradisionele konsepte bestendig, naamlik, andersheid as ‘n bedreiging wat oorkom moet word en self-ander verhoudings as noodwendig gewelddadig. ‘n Herinterpretasie van die dialektiek van herkenning openbaar nie net Hegel se waarneming van die mate waartoe subjektiwiteit afhang van andersheid nie, maar ook sy idee van vriendskap as die wedersydse behoud van die ander se andersheid. Hierdie nosie van vriendskap word toe-geëien deur Simone de Beauvoir, wie se inskakeling met Hegel radikaal afwyk van die Franse fenomenologie, dus ook van standaard praktyk. Beauvoir, beide in persoon en in haar werk, konfronteer die filosofiese gemeenskap met die kortsigtige, dikwels afbrekende, wyse waarop hul die kanon begrens, veral met betrekking tot hul “be-andering” van vroue en hul minagting van die spesifisiteit van differensie. In ooreenstemming met die antropologiese gees van die onderskeie vertolkings van Hegel, neem die studie self die vorm van ‘n outobiografie aan. Dit volg die intellektuele verkenning van ‘n nie-Westerse, nie-wit, nie-manlike student, aanvanklik vanuit haar gevoel van ontuiswees in die wêreld van die kontinentale filosofie, tot haar kritiese inskakeling met Hegel, bemiddel deur Beauvoir. Hiermee wil die studie wys dat andersheid saak maak en hoe dit saak maak. Voorts beroep dit op ‘n anderse skryf en lees om sodoende nie-hegemoniese filosofie aan te moedig.

The thesis inquires into the theme of political judgement and aims to rethink it from the perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence. It seeks to take up the contemporary challenge of political judgement that remains inadequately addressed within recent theorizing: how, given the modern breakdown of metaphysical absolutes, to reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity able to confront the ambiguous, plural and complex character of our postfoundational world. Against this background, the thesis aspires to reclaim the distinctly historical orientation of twentieth-century existentialism, in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. It draws on their aesthetic sensibility to resuscitate the human judging ability in its worldly ambiguity and point towards an account of political judgement capable of facing up to the challenges of our plural and uncertain political reality. Retrieving their vigilant assumption of the situated, worldly condition of human political existence and the attendant perplexity of judging politically, the aim of the thesis is to suggest how the existentialists' insights can be brought to bear on contemporary problematics of political judgement that seem to elude the grasp of abstract standards and predetermined yardsticks.

This essay examines the subject-object dichotomy between men and women in Toni Morrison’s Jazz and the thesis of the essay is that this dichotomy develops into subject-object harmony. Through Simone de Beauvoir’s theory regarding the subject-object dichotomy and a close reading of the novel, this essay concludes that Jazz shows the possibility of reciprocal relationships built on friendship. In other words, the dichotomy changes into harmony, which makes it possible for both men and women to reach freedom and fulfilment in transcendence.

In this dissertation I explain the transition from modernism to postmodernism through the study of the French existentialist novel. I follow theories that demonstrate that the latter owes its success to historiographic metafiction. By setting off the aporias that deeply penetrate modern novels, I demonstrate the obsolescence of the prototype of the realist novel and I explain the impasses towards which the project of a committed literature lead, inscribed in the line of realism and aimed at an almost direct relation with society and history through the mediation of art between 1945 and 1955 in France. / On one hand I consider literature as an object which can be described by the methodologies of history. On the other hand I suggest an analysis of the historicity of the text that is constituted by the dynamic system generated by the interaction, the interdependence, and the correlation of the poetic and aesthetic parameters and the factors of the historical context. My aim is to set off the poetic and aesthetic mecanism of stability and of transformation of literary creation according to the dynamic relation between the vector of the project associated to realism and the one of the prototype associated to the novel. I think that late modernism produces paradoxical configurations of the novel because it is the period in which the project of realism becomes lapsed and the prototype of the realist novel becomes dilapidated. / Among the works that are exemplary of the tension between fiction and history and between project and prototype in the framework of the representation of reality and of the inscription of history in novels, I identified Albert Camus' La Peste, Simone de Beauvoir's Les Mandarins and Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Chemins de la liberte . I conclude that the enterprise of committed literature was an aporias because it was generated from the impoverishment of the project of realism and the obsolescence of the prototype of the novel. Later literature was extricated, firstly, by the radically and extremely metafictional writing of the Nouveau Roman and, secondly, it was changed by postmodern historiographic metafiction. The crisis of history and of the writing of history was solved by works in which there is the acknowledgement and the use of sophisticated mediations to evoke and inscribe history in different ways.

In dem Aufsatz werden Geschlecht und Geschlechtsidentität in dem Roman Die Wand von Marlen Haushofer untersucht. Anhand der Theorien und Begriffen Simone de Beauvoirs und Judith Butlers wird die Veränderung bei der Ich-Erzählerin des Werkes analysiert, die sich von typischer Frau in geschlechtloses Ich verwandelt.

Cette analyse littéraire examine les parallèles entre les deux romans Lettres persanes de Montesquieu (1721) et Lettres d'une Péruvienne de Françoise de Graffigny (1747) en se concentrant sur le sort des femmes et leur rébellion contre la claustration. Leurs révoltes transformatrices révèlent une volonté qui refuse et puis transcende les barreaux de leur captivité pour vivre librement. La philosophie de Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) personnifie leurs luttes pour devenir et exister, ce qui se traduit par leur capacité de dévoiler leur vraie nature. Elles se battent contre le néant de leurs existences où elles ne peuvent que succomber aux contraintes imposées. Elles se battent pour se définir et pour devenir. Cependant, c'est Graffigny qui nous offre une réponse plus proto-féministe dépassant les paramètres masculins de la société. Son livre répond directement aux Lettres persanes pour créer une nouvelle femme iconoclaste qui transcende les barrières de la société pour se réinventer.

La littérature entretient un rapport à la mode, non seulement dans ses formes qui sont en dialogue avec l’époque, mais aussi dans ses sujets où la mode devient partie prenante du récit. L’avènement du prêt-à-porter en tant qu’« événement majeur » de l’après-guerre (Grau, 2007) remet en conflit les termes d’élégance et d’émancipation. La représentation de la femme du XXe siècle change ainsi au gré des tendances. Alors que le vêtement informe de moins en moins sur les repères sociaux culturels (il se neutralise et s’universalise), l’idéal féminin est fortement requestionné entre autres par les femmes de lettres françaises, témoins privilégiés de cette époque. Simone de Beauvoir et Violette Leduc rédigent deux ouvrages imprégnés de ce profond questionnement du soi féminin intellectuel et de la performance du genre. Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) et La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964) en tant que romans d’apprentissage écrits par des femmes dans la France de l’après-guerre mettent de l’avant ce rapport à la mode comme construction du genre ; construction qui entre cependant en conflit avec la représentation de la femme intellectuelle de l’époque. La perception du genre chez Beauvoir et Leduc se manifeste alors et surtout à travers une tension relevée entre mode (exhibition de la féminité) et intellectualisme (exhibition de la neutralité) ; tension perceptible à travers les alternances du dit et du non-dit. Est-il possible de performer un genre féminin intellectuel ? Et de quelle manière cette performance se manifeste-t-elle ? Pour répondre à cette problématique, les études menées sur le Bildungsroman féminin (Labovitz, 1986 ; Šnircová, 2015) nous permettront d’observer le phénomène de l’apprentissage d’un idéal de la féminité. L’on relèvera par la suite à l’aide d’études entreprises sur la mode et son influence (Baudot, 1999 ; Craik, 1994 ; Evans, 1999) de même qu’à travers les concepts de performance et de performativité (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021), les diverses tentatives de réappropriation par les deux intellectuelles à l’étude de cet idéal féminin véhiculé. Enfin, il s’agira de révéler, au regard des études sur les identités sexuelles (Butler, 1999 ; Lipovetsky, 2006), la présence d’un rapport inédit et complexe entre la femme intellectuelle du XXe siècle et le genre. / Literature maintains a relationship with fashion not only through its forms, which are in conversation with the era, but also through its subjects as fashion becomes a necessary part of the narrative. The advent of ready-to-wear clothing as a “major event” of the post-war period (Grau, 2007) brings the terms “elegance” and “emancipation” into conflict. The representation of the 20th century woman thus changes according to trends. While the garment is losing its impact on cultural social landmarks⁠ by becoming neutral and universal⁠, French women of letters—the privileged witnesses of this era—are strongly questioning the conveyed feminine ideal. Two of them, Simone de Beauvoir and Violette Leduc, wrote important novels challenging the notions of the female intellectual self and gender performance: Mémoires d’une jeune fille rangée (Simone de Beauvoir, 1958) and La Bâtarde (Violette Leduc, 1964). These two Bildungsroman written in post-war France make the case for fashion as an active component in gender construction; a construction that, however, conflicts with the representation of the female intellectual at the time. Indeed, Beauvoir and Leduc’s perception of gender manifests through a tension between fashion (the exhibition of femininity) and intellectualism (the exhibition of neutrality); a tension noticeable through the alternations of the verbal and the non-verbal. Therefore, is it possible to perform a feminine intellectual gender? If so, how does this performance manifest? To answer these questions, we will first look into studies on the female Bildungsroman (Labovitz, 1986; Šnircová, 2015); this will help us understand how an ideal of femininity is not simply an inherent phenomenon but one that is learnt. Then, we will focus on fashion studies (Baudot, 1999; Craik, 1994; Evans, 1999) and the concepts of performance and performativity (Féral, 2013 ; Kollnitz et Pecorari, 2021); this will allow us to show the various attempts at reappropriation of the feminine ideal conveyed to the two intellectuals considered in this thesis. Finally, we will turn to gender studies (Butler, 1999; Lipovetsky, 2006) to reveal the presence of an unprecedented and complex relation between the intellectual woman of the 20th century and gender.

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Ce texte récapitule mon parcours de recherche dans l'histoire des femmes et du genre