In this paper I attempt to further the case, made in recent years by Eva Gothlin, that readers interested in a philosophical return to Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex have good reason to heed Beauvoir's appropriation of central concepts from Heidegger's Being and Time. I speculate about why readers have been hesitant to acknowledge Heidegger's influence on Beauvoir and show that her infrequent though, I argue, important use of the Heideggarian neologism Mitsein in The Second Sex makes inadequate sense (...) apart from an appreciation of the fundamental role played by her appropriation of Hegel's master-slave dialectic in that book. I suggest a way to square Beauvoir's Hegelian claim that human beings are fundamentally at odds with one another with her Heideggerian view that we are also all ontologically with one another. Finally, I sketch out a way of interpreting Beauvoir's employment of certain concepts from Hegel and Heidegger in the service of understanding, hence beginning to overcome, women's oppression. (shrink)
Simone de Beauvoir’s _The Second Sex_ is the most important work of feminist philosophy ever published and one of the great texts of the Twentieth century. Renowned for introducing the theory of woman as the ‘Other’ it is a widely-studied text that continues to exert profound influence on feminist thought. _The Routledge Guidebook to De Beauvoir and The Second Sex_ introduces and assesses: De Beauvoir’s life and the background of The Second Sex The ideas and arguments of The Second Sex (...) De Beauvoir’s continuing importance to feminist theory and philosophy This book is essential reading for all students of feminism, gender studies, philosophy, and literary studies and ideal for anyone reading de Beauvoir’s classic work for the first time. (shrink)
