Simone de Beauvoir and The Ethics of Ambiguity

Simone de Beauvoir wrote the Ethics of Ambiguity. A book that pretty much launched her field of feminist existentialist philosophy. She goes into detail about what it is to be human: our anxieties, the source of those anxieties, and our recognition of radical freedom and responsibility.
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Intro: 0:00
Building on Existentialism: 1:05
Men Who Are Not Free: 5:24
de Beauvoir's Prescription: 8:24
Source on other personality types such as: the Adventurer, the Writer/Artist, etc: seoulphilosophy.wordpress.com...
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[@epochphilosophy]

Thanks so much for watching! We are a tiny channel, so If you guys really enjoyed this, be sure to like this, and subscribe! This helps put the KZbin algorithm in our favor, and hopefully, drive more people to this channel. As always, check out the stream on Twitch: www.twitch.tv/epochphilosophy

[@hyacinth1320]

She may be a leading figure in feminism but her philosophy stands alone as giant. Amazing writer too.

[@AnaMaria-we6zs]

Philosophy and feminism do link. It is called: feminism philosophy

[@hyacinth1320]

@@AnaMaria-we6zs I didn't say that they don't link. I said that she is more than a woman philosopher. She is a philosopher. If you can't understand that, I can't help you.

[@AnaMaria-we6zs]

@@hyacinth1320 you've taken my comment as some sort of personal attack, that converted you into a defensive person. And that was anything, but my intention. I perfectly understood every word you stated. Chill. It was a reminder that they do connect. Can you understand that?

[@hyacinth1320]

@@AnaMaria-we6zs It's not about me, but about women.

[@AnaMaria-we6zs]

@@hyacinth1320 everything in the world is about women, as much as it is about men.

[@comradefreedom8275]

"The freedom of all is essential to my freedom." Mikhail Bakunin

[@michelleford4002]

Not only are your videos educational and important, they are artistic and very enjoyable. Keep up the great work.

[@elsanto2401]

I just knew her as the lady from Existential Comics...

[@cierraschuer7068]

This was exactly what I was looking for and needed. Thank you guys for existing! Looking forward to watching more.

[@redpoet4385]

This channel is truly brilliant, I have watched all your videos and they are incredibly well put together and informative, please keep up the good work!

[@jakzencarta441]

This is such a well put together video that is gonna help me immensely on my philosophy paper, Thank you Epoch Philosophy :)!

[@kubrickking5101]

Great upload! I’m reading the Ethics of Ambiguity with friends and this was helpful.

[@shivadave3174]

Love it! Thank you for your work. Much needed.

[@MattStranberg]

All of your videos are awesome. Nice work!

[@LogicGated]

I like how concise and clear this was, thanks.

[@XXxxGOOOFYxxXX]

Great content, thank you for sharing.

[@epochphilosophy]

My absolute pleasure to do so. Thanks so much for the comment and stopping by!

[@L-_-T]

Beautiful work, well done!

[@jonaspache9035]

Amazing video!! Loved the soundtrack..

[@Theorychad99]

Solid! I have not seen enough videos on her

[@zacharykuhn6151]

This helped a lot with my ethics class. Thanks!

[@h.hholmes.492]

I like the music, its calming

[@jkRatbird]

Thank you so much for this! Everyone please MAKE THIS VIRAL and UPGRADE THE WORLD! This is a real hidden treasure for humanity, and a real working vaccine against late stage capitalism alienation. I've been radicalising people with these arguments with great success!

[@martamalchevski6174]

Great video, sincere thanks.

[@Ratpick45]

Love it! looking forward to more!

[@epochphilosophy]

Good seeing you here, man! Appreciate it tons! Got something cool in the works as we speak.

[@Ratpick45]

@@epochphilosophy Of course! i am a man of my word! Really should read some from Simone De Beavouir and Søren Kierkegaard.

[@zozigy]

Wonderul video, thank you.

[@epochphilosophy]

Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed!

[@Falstaff0809]

Very well done.

[@peymanjoudzadeh267]

Great video, Wish you talked about the "passionate man" and "adventurer" as well.

[@andreapandypetrapan]

Dear EP, Really excellent introduction to the deeply social, and deeply other regarding, and deeply altruistic ethic the SdB puts at the core of her humanist and feminist personal and social psychology. We are beings first and foremost of social psychology, and cooperation, and love; a love typified by our evolved inter-womanly, inherently social, affectional, sensuous and erotic orientation to each other as WHLW (women who love women). The dialectic SdB identifies between socially-politically permeated and inter-personal material-psycho-social being, and our coagulation of stream and gems of these energies into what our physiological-anatomical natural-sciences friends would call a homeostatic individual, is perhaps very neatly summoned up by the mainstream Jungian-Buddhistic argument for our ego-perspective being manufactured (it does exist, it is not illusory, but it is an artefact) by the tremendous, enveloping and objective and ci-evolving entity well-summarised as our very female and womanly collective (un) consciousness. Again, I suggest that the "hypocritical flight" to extinguish our existential dread at our individual freedom, and struggles to find solace in over-simplifications, and in glib displacement of responsibility onto others, the guilty ones ..... this is essentially a paranoid masculine narcissistic dynamic. One manufactured by the very-fragile and one-dimensional egos of paranoid men. Whereas women tend to be much more integrated across the layers of our own psyches, tend not to start form the lonely island of male ego-mania; and our inherently interlinked and social psyches, and our knowledge of such, means we start from an inherently social, multi-persona, and multi-perspectival outlook. To go further, the trash of "compulsory heterosexuality" (to quote Adrienne Rich's famed paper), heteronormativity, the perversity of mono-amoury, and women's isolation from each other via a "domesticated incarceration" in patriarchal privatised bourgeois homes (a spiritual death-sentence of (a) fucking paranoid and narcissistic and emotionally-infantile men, and (b) supposed duties of indoctrinating our children into the masculine order) are mere patriarchal bio-ideology, masculine-serving reactionary politics, and bilge-water toxic to our female hearts and dreams. These female and womanly and self-consciously feminist and anti-patriarchal foundations are the nutrients for wrestling at the conscious level with other existential, moral, political and transcendental tasks and puzzles. BTW, may I courteously make a really pungent plea that you rerecord the sound track with the correct Parisian-French pronunciation of her name, SVP? She is French, she writes in French, she thinks as a French revolutionary intellectual and public thinker. Any operative concept of regard for another's sanding dictates you get their name right. I know Americans don't do the languages of other nations and peoples too well, especially, Libyan, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian Arabic. I mean they don't even speak the tongues of the indigenous tribes peoples they systematically butcher by the millions on the continental US. They don't do London English very well either, but since we are a bunch of untutored piratical imperialists, that's forgivable. Any bloke who persistently mangled the pronunciation of the name of an elegant Parisian woman of genius would get some very dirty looks at her diner table .... from her and Sartre, when they were on speaking terms! A small but deeply indicative oversight, my dear EP. Thanks. Love andrea

[@ruperterskin2117]

Right on. Thanks.

[@lilbud2188]

Just subbed, great to know there are good philosophy channels other than "then and now." One question about her ideas, isn't the idea that life is about letting others be free itself a fixed, unambiguous idea? Does she address this? Thanks

[@Mrelocoxd]

nice video, i love it

[@mahmoudhefnawy1153]

splendid!

[@epochphilosophy]

Thanks my friend!

[@moshefabrikant1]

9:45 Great message

[@reuben9548]

Nice video! I was looking for summaries of the book while I read it. A couple notes for feedback, I found the quotes' movement distracting, especially the definition one. Consider reducing the amount of movement. Also I found it very hard to focus when a quote appeared as you talked. Since you aren't directly saying what the quote says, I found myself splitting my attention between you talking and reading the quote. Overall I enjoyed the video, a couple points were hard for me to digest, but I understand how tough it is to translate complex ideas into a easily understood language.

[@epochphilosophy]

Thanks for the praise, and thank you for the feedback! I will try to incorporate some of this into future videos!

[@sorryforbatenglish]

Beautiful.

[@kelvinadungosi1579]

Good work

[@epochphilosophy]

Always appreciate it, man! Thanks for watching and stopping by to comment!

[@MiloMay]

Wow 6:18 sounds alot like Kierkegaard's concept of getting lost in the finite and infinite.

[@irelandbarrick8746]

Wow. Just wow.

[@jasean1]

good video 👍

[@hybridxg2204]

Does lacan get reference from this in his own writings?

[@sisyphus645]

This is the greatest fucking channel, seriously.

[@valuethug]

I think any conversation on nihilism MUST include the distinction between passive and active. In a colloquial sense, 'nihilism' has come to mean 'passive nihilism' which is a pain as I personally feel that an existentialist can best be described as an active nihist.

[@jackdarby2168]

Subject is that which is subjected to something else, as the eye is subjected to colour, which is subjected to sight, and object is the objective for something, for e.g. as the eye has the objective of seeing colour. There must be a likeness in common in both object and subject such that object makes contact with to that of which it is the object, i.e. subject. If this is not posited then then we will be able neither object nor subject-for both object and subject manifest posterior to motion i.e. motion from the object to the subject. Before sensation, space and time manifest as production of intuition according to Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Beauvoir, etc. Mind is that which is the subject when we speak of object of which the mind has knowledge. And sapce in which corporeal object manifest. But intuition has it's principle in the mind. That which has the principle in the mind as a subject is subjective. Thus, for Beauvior's learned judgment the that in which the corporeal object manifests has it's principle in the mind as a subject. Thus everything the mind makes contact with is subjective. As there are many individual subjects, so are there are different worlds.

[@lindsayhengehold5341]

Interesting lady!

[@johnwadsworth7086]

Awakening

[@milesking3070]

This is great, he just said ultimately so many times hahaha

[@sydneywyatt3766]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed!

[@zwelthureinmyo3747]

So yeahhh

[@asoulist4829]

Not confronting your problems is indeed not a long-term solution.

[@schadowizationproductions6205]

Right now I honestly think that I should improve my French. It really is a nice language. Malheureusement que je ne le ferai pas...

[@DMT4Dinner]

Good one

[@Yellow.1844]

Beauvoir is pronunced ''Bo-Vouar'', amazing video tho !

[@estebansteverincon7117]

It's actually pronounced 'boo-vwah"

[@nightowl6260]

In the US many cannot cope with the ambiguity of being an American with a constitution, they say, means a RIGHT to have a powerful weapon AND being a compassionate human who does not back that citizens live in fear of their life being shattered by gun violence.

[@benzur3503]

So many ultimately 😵

[@jackdarby2168]

Modern thought is just characterized by skepticism

[@krishydell]

All English quotes had to have been translated from French; why are her “quotes” speaking in terms of man, he, him when referring to a hypothetical subject or referring to humanity in general ? Translator obviously wasn’t understanding her work on feminism.

[@christinemartin63]

I admire the intellectual brilliance of some philosophers ... but if they often don't live the ideas they expound, it seems to become an exercise in "walking their wits." You're a feminist with a sterling reputation; yet you procure young, vulnerable women for your and your lover's pleasure. Something is terribly wrong here.

[@mloyo3204]

You may have a point but honestly this dilemma applies to all great figures in history, people are flawed and sadly the purest beings don't make it to our history books

[@immanuelkant9403]

It's cowardice* instead of cowardise

[@ik4ors]

[@AnaMaria-we6zs]

How do you educate people who follow The Kardashins or whatever their names are, to understand such truth? The world doesn't stand a chance! Women like Simone, are absolutely rare.

[@Liliquan]

“Woman”? Don’t you mean people? Why are you specifically shitting on woman? Why do woman explicitly have to be like Simone? If she is right, then shouldn’t everyone be like her?

[@AnaMaria-we6zs]

@@Liliquan my dear friend, you took my message the wrong way. Men are not as suppressed as women. So for that, women who fought courageously were rare, and still are. Due to certain reasons.

[@merc9nine]

Thank God she's rare. How many young girls did she and Sartre abuse?

[@bercetropresdumurdeberlin]

Son travail est vraiment intéressant et complet mais j'ai l'intuition qu'il performe politiquement aujourd'hui d'une façon perverse.

[@propotkunin445]

who the f is simone day boovar? thought it was about simone de beauvoir

[@adiyn_]

🤨

[@EMPANAO321]

🤨

[@propotkunin445]

🤨@@EMPANAO321

[@blueteafly]

Her name is not pronounced correctly in this video.

[@carltornell]

AI?

[@bksocha292]

this was good but as a teacher I think you miss an opportunity to bring in more ppl by failing to mention dogmatic marxists and only choosing bad faith conservatives rather than the point which is it's more about the bad faith attitude in general regardless of your beliefs and value system. Hence we have bad faith liberals, stalinists, etc. I say this because then what you're doing here is prompting people to explore and evolve their own values from a place of authenticity rather than... dare I say this... seeming to make a kind of bad faith argument (which I don't take you to be intending).

[@domm1341]

I am something of nothing.

[@faves2012]

Bow vwah

[@tamconcord]

... excape... ...

[@andreapandypetrapan]

​@merc9nine [see you comment below on what you submit is the longueurs, unoriginality, and projective content of SdB's ideas] I think you are setting a superhuman standard in morality, politics and psychodynamics. We all play rather devious games, of pretending to ordinality, pretending to lack of biases, pretending to be motivated by the highest ideals and insights. Anyone who said differently I would put down as a fool, a liar, or after something behind my back. Which indeed most people are, whilst smiling and smiling like knaves, to quote Hamlet. Men are much worse than women for the heresy of unwitting projections, especially as dragged from their hideously paranoid and violent sub-conscious psyches. No doubt I can be accused of projecting that theory onto men, and as deflection from seeing such bestiality in my own heart. Etc, etc. Kind of a philosophy-psychoanalytical tit-for-tat parlour game. Rather difficult in any case to substantiate or disprove such claims - that's half the rhetorical and bitchy fun, I politely submit. The vanitas of sainthood - a perpetual failing of inheritors of the Anglo-American disposition to Puritanism and self-flagellation. At least our Italian friends are a bit more human and hence more emotionally vivid - give me Machiavelli, Dante, Puccini over any bullshit Anglo-American prating and sanctimonious pamphlet-pusher. "Please, please, for fucks sake, no more GE Moore!" The Major Barbara types nicely satirised by GB Shaw (an Irish writer, not an English scribbler, I emphasise). Lots of love from the real and dirty world, andrea

[@zeitgeistreviews]

Nice dig on Christians, Libertarians, and Conservatives. Ironic that you straw manned them when you used them for an example of people straw manning and "other-ing" as a cop out. Pretty sure that's what Simone was against, no? "Don't just scapegoat the other side like the other side does!"

[@lylematmos6105]

one of these things is not like the other

[@saichandu8554]

Wow. I wish you'd make videos with a lack of bias which you bring showing the politics that you don't like. For ex. Talking about libertarians and Christians thinking they've figured it out but leaving communists and atheists. Try to be an unbiased youtuber, it's better I guess to just present their arguments without your propaganda with unbiased examples, if given.

[@deleted01]

I second this. Good feedback.