In this essay I defend Simone de Beauvoir against the charge that her chapter <i>The Givens of Biology</i> from The Second Sex is biologistic. A work can be said to make the mistake of biologism when it assigns a particular nature or essence to human beings based on their biology. De Beauvoir has been accused of making this mistake because her critics have not understood the philosophical landscape in which she was working. Not only have they missed the subtleties of her arguments, but many formulated their criticisms from a poor translation, provided by H.M. Parshley in 1952. In order to combat the decontextualizing of her theory I provide a conceptual backdrop that locates de Beauvoirs work in relation to her philosophical influences, her contemporaries, and her own philosophical works that predate The Second Sex. I give a phenomenological re-reading of The Givens of Biology based on my situating of de Beauvoir. My work is expositional and argumentative to the point of dissuading the reader from understanding de Beauvoir not only as a biological essentialist, but also as holding especially negative views about womens embodiment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-09132007-183027 |
| Date | 14 September 2007 |
| Creators | Rodier, Kristin Anne |
| Contributors | Howe, Leslie A., Dwyer, Philip, Da Silva, Helena, Relke, Diana M. A. |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-09132007-183027/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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