PHI 197 Lecture 7: PHI 197 Class 3 notes
Document Summary
A symmetry of the gender terms man and woman . Woman defined by reference to man: he is the absolute- she is the other . Self (subject) defines itself in opposition to the other (object). Otherness as a category of human thought, involving hostility. Y (the other) is understood in opposition to (and from the perspective of ) x, which is treated as the standard form which y deniates. You think that becuase you are a woman (or bc of hormones) : woman as the sex (sexual being) De beauvoir sees pervasive characterization of woman as the other . Being other is involuntary, characterizes relations of oppression. Dominant class bases arguments for status quo on the state of affairs it has created. Existentialist contrast: subject (being for itself" [ursoi]- free, conscious beings, objects (being in itself [ensoi]- obey casual laws. Transcendance is undermined by bad faith (voluntary) or by oppression (involuntary) when we are treated as objects.
