Simone de Beauvoir: Ethics of Ambiguity Explained | Ch. 2, Personal Freedom & Others

[00:00:00]welcome to the second lecture for existentialism where we cover Simone de beauvois ethics of ambiguity specifically the second chapter from this 1949 work Simone above was perhaps the most important feminist of the 20th century she's covered most often in women's Studies classes and she's she's really more well known and respected in that discipline this work that we're covering is not as well known as The Second Sex which is her contribution to feminist philosophy in the second sect she argues that women remain in the position of the other right they're unable to achieve complete human freedom because of this and she called for a positive social and intellectual and political change in the ethics of ambiguity she expounds the defense of an existentialist ethics one that Echoes starts from existentialism is a humanism but it seems at least to me a bit more assertive better articulated and in the end much stronger philosophically it might be said that de Beauvoir discern the necessity to expand on and explain what sart had said in his 1947 lecture both sart and de Beauvoir were lifelong friends and lovers though they always had an open relationship they were very controversial for the time these types of behavior made both sart and de Beauvoir the infamous but also famous figures of the mid 20th century both her and sart spend much of their lives politically active and philosophically trying to reconcile existentialism with Marxism she eventually abandoned socialism in her later years but we see a bit of this reconciliation start to take place in this work that we're we're covering in this class the ethics of ambiguity and we skipped the first chapter of this work much of it is just a repetition of some of the things that sart says in his lecture existentialism is a humanism so we skipped the first chapter and begin the very beginning of the second chapter with a section called personal freedom and others let's go ahead and read the the first part de Beauvoir writes man's unhappiness says Descartes is due to his having first been born a child and indeed the unfortunate choices which most men make can only be explained by the fact that they have taken place on the basis of childhood the child situation is characterized by his finding himself cast into a universe which he has not helped to establish which has been fashioned without him and which appears to him as an absolute to which he can only submit so what point does she make about the child or childhood what is she saying here she says later that there are some who remain in this childlike State on page 37 there are beings whose life slips by in an infantile world because having been kept in a state of servitude and ignorance they have no means of breaking the ceiling which is stretched over their heads like the child they can exercise their freedom but only within this universe which has been set up before them without them this is the case for example of slaves who have not raised themselves to the consciousness of their slavery the southern Planters were not all together in the wrong in considering the Negroes who dasali submitted to their paternalism as grown-up children to the extent that they respected the world of the whites the situation of the black slaves was exactly an infantile situation this is also the situation of women in many civilizations they can only submit to the laws the gods the customs and the truths created by the males even today in Western countries among women who have not had in their work an apprenticeship of Freedom there are still many who take shelter in the shadow of men they adopt without discussion the opinions and values recognized by their husband or their lover and that allows them to develop childish qualities which are forbidden to adults because they are based on a feeling of irresponsibility so these situations differ from that of a child in certain respects the child situation is imposed on him remember whereas the woman chooses it or at least consents to it let's read further on page 38.

[00:04:48]the negro slave of the 18th century the Muslim woman enclosed in a Harem have no instrument be it in thought or by astonishment or anger which permits them to attack the civilization which oppresses them their behavior is defined and can be judged only within this given situation and it is possible that in this situation limited like every human situation they realize a perfect assertion of their freedom but once there appears a possibility of Liberation it is resignation of Freedom not to exploit the possibility a resignation which implies dishonesty and which is a positive fault so de Beauvoir doesn't exactly blame the oppressed completely for not fully realizing the extent of the oppression but once they realize it it seems to me that she's saying they have no excuse this would be dishonest and they should take any chance they get to liberate themselves it is rare however she thinks to maintain this infantile State beyond our adolescence most of us grow Beyond this state unless we're forced into it like these oppressed classes that she alludes to because once we hit adolescence we start to see flaws in this state of thinking this perspective we start to revolt and in astonishment we ask ourselves why am I supposed to act this way what would happen if I act in a different way what good is it to do this once adolescence comes we start to waver we start to vacillate we discover what de Beauvoir calls our subjectivity and the subjectivity of others we start to notice contradictions among the adults as well as their hesitations as well as their weaknesses men no longer appear as Gods adults are fallible at the same time we start to discover the human character of the reality around us all this language these Customs the ethics and values all the things that we understand have their Source in these uncertain creatures these adults that we used to think of as gods we discover that we are called on to participate to choose to decide and that's what makes adolescents so difficult for debovoir she says this is when the individual must at last assume his subjectivity this is the collapsing of the serious world that serious world that we took as a given and the collapsing of this world is a deliverance we are liberated although we're irresponsible the child is defenseless against the serious World against these obscure powers of the parents remember it's always because I said so that's always the answer we can get and we don't really have any way to argue against that but with this Liberation comes confusion the Adolescent is abandoned unjustified what will we do in the face of this new situation and doubtless once we decide once we decide where our values lie we can always reconsider this but conversions of this of this magnitude are usually difficult but of course because moral choice is free it is also unforeseeable remember what sart says about despair de Beauvoir makes the point that the child does not contain in him the man he will become and yet it is always on the basis of what he has been that the the the child decides on what he wants to be but we always have a possible recourse to ourselves no choice is so unfortunate that we cannot be saved at least the choice of a project perhaps particular choices are ones that you know if I decide to do one thing or another sometimes I can't go back on that I can't go back let's talk like Sophie's choice right she has to decide which one of her children it gets executed right she's a prisoner of war of the Nazis that's a choice she can't go back on but you know those choices of course we can't go back on but as far as our choice about what we value and what means something to us for the existentialist like Sergeant de Beauvoir this is something we can always reconsider we can always change our mind about this but once we decide about this we have to uphold this if it means anything to us as she puts it this moment of justification extends throughout our whole adult life this places our attitude on a moral plane we cast ourselves into the World by making ourselves a lack of being what does she mean by this she says this a lot that we make ourselves a lack of being how do we make ourselves a lack of being well it's like start when he talks about our project when I set up a goal or a project I want to be a success successful student or I want to be a professor I want to get a master's degree I want to become a police officer whatever it is that project is by setting that goal I essentially make myself a lack of being I lack being that thing that I want to become I lack being the police officer I lack being the person with the doctorate I lack being the student and then I try to become that and by by being this lack of being by by making myself a lack of being I contribute to human signification I disclose beings by becoming this lack of being by lacking you know by not being a police officer and wanting to become one things will be significant to me I will look into the newspaper and I will do research about you know who's hiring law enforcement officers in what way I what do I how do I go about becoming one the world World takes on a certain character based upon this lack of being which I've become so in a sense by making myself a lack of being I disclose a world of beings that are significant to me like sargee believes that we are radically free and she says that it's doubtless that we cast ourselves into the world on the basis of physical or physiological possibilities but she counters that the body itself is not some brute fact it does Express a certain relation that we have to the world this is why it's an object of sympathy but on the other hand she doesn't think it determines any Behavior so just like start a constitution is not an act those who restrain themselves from making themselves a lack of being in the sense that she means we make ourselves a lack of being those who restrain themselves from doing this they make themselves blind and deaf in a sense she says they have no love or desire really this is an apathetic attitude it's a manifestation of what she calls a fundamental fear of existence those who so restrain themselves would be considered what she calls a sub-man the sub man rejects passion which is The Human Condition she compares the sub man to a bad painter who's immediately satisfied with his bad paintings whereas the artistic genius immediately recognized as a demand for a higher work of art the original Poverty of the sub man's project exempts him from really ever seeking to legitimize it around him is this dull and insignificant world I mean sure his behavior might indicate certain goals and circumscribe certain values but his whole Behavior tends towards an elimination of those ends that he's set himself up for towards those uh goals that he set up for himself his acts are never Positive Choices says de Beauvoir just flights from choice he can't help being a presence of course he exists but he tries to maintain this on the plane of bear factory of course we cannot merge with trees and Pebbles we can't be an equal the way an Inkwell is an equal as sart says we'll never be in in itself and the sub-man will arouse contempt she says because one recognizes him to be responsible for himself just as he is not willing himself he's ignoring his freedom according to the existentialist no man is a datum no man is just suffered this rejection of existence is just another way of existing we can't opt out of existence the defeat of the sub-man is that no man is a tomb at least while he's alive his negativity is revealed positively as anguish desire appeal Etc he thereby is led to embrace or take refuge in the ready-made values of the serious world let's read here on page 44.

[00:14:14]he is afraid of engaging himself in a project as he is afraid of being disengaged and thereby being in a state of danger before the future in the midst of possibilities he is thereby led to take refuge in the ready-made values of the serious world he will Proclaim certain opinions he will take shelter behind a label and to hide his indifference he will readily abandon himself to verbal Outburst or even physical violence one day a monarchist the next day an anarchist he is more readily anti-semitic anti-clerical or anti-republican thus though we have defined him as a denial and a flight the sub man is not a harmless creature he realizes himself in the world as a blind uncontrolled Force which anybody can get control of in lynchings in pogroms in all the great bloody movements organized by the fanaticism of seriousness and passion movements where there is no risk those who do the actual Dirty Work are recruited from among the sub men so the sub-men are the blind followers of despotic rulers these people with the pitchforks and the Torches they do the Dirty Work they Embrace what Nietzsche calls the herd Instinct all who will freedom all who assert Freedom are disgusted by the sub man according to De Beauvoir instead of triumphing over their facticity the sub man focuses on and Embraces facticity what the sub man fears is the shock of the unforeseen it reminds him of the agony of his freedom so in order to get rid of his freedom he has to engage it properly this is when the sub man's attitude logically passes over into the attitude of the serious man the serious man forces himself to submerge his freedom into the content which is acceptable by Society he loses himself in the object in order to annihilate subjectivity this is a sort of deceitful stupidity it gets rid of man's Freedom according to debovoir by claiming to subordinate this freedom to these would-be unconditioned values the serious man imagines that by adhering to these values this permanently makes or confers value on him he Shields himself with rights and he escapes the stress of existence the serious man is not defined in terms of the end which he pursues this is not what's important it's being able to lose himself in that end there is a serious a serious man from the moment that freedom denies itself of all the disingenuous attitudes of the inauthentic attitudes that to Beauvoir speaks of she thinks the serious man is the most widespread one does not so readily accept becoming a human with all this anxiety and doubt a free individual with all the anxiety and doubt that attends to that on page 47 she writes that what is to be done she asks what is to be believed often the young man who is not like the sub man first rejected existence so these questions are not even raised he's nevertheless frightened having to answer them after a more or less Long crisis either he turns back toward the world of his parents and teachers or he adheres to the values which are new but seem to him just as sure instead of assuming an affectivity which would throw him dangerously Beyond himself he represses it skipping forward there the thing that matters to the serious man is not so much the nature of the object which he prefers to himself but rather the fact of being able to lose himself in it so much so that the movement toward the object is in fact through his arbitrary act the most radical assertion of subjectivity to believe or believe's sake to will for Will's sake detaching Transcendence from its end to realize one's freedom in an empty and absurd form of freedom of indifference so this is a freedom of indifference and really no better than the sub man the serious man ceaselessly renews a denial of Freedom it's almost like if you remember maybe back in your days of high school when people were sort of in these clicks I remember the high school I went to all the jocks and the preps hung out together and all of the skaters and the punk rockers and even the hippies and The Goth kids would all hang out together and you know we had a big agriculture department so there's all these Cowboys and kickers they'd all hang out together and once you decided what Clique you were in once you decided what form of the series that you would take you didn't really think much about anything else as far as what kind of clothes you wore you just did what they did when you go to the group when you go to the store to buy some clothes you know if you're the uh if you're the the prep you don't think well what do I like what's going to look good on me you think well what's in style what's in fashion similarly if you're a punk rocker right what's what's the cool band you know how do I Rebel how do I do this and and you try to fit into that mold this is what the serious man does ceaselessly renews this denial of Freedom almost this systematic denial of Freedom she calls him the mythomaniac who forgets that she's written a love letter to herself so she writes a love letter to herself and puts it away forgets about it and then reads it oh I'm so awesome aren't I somebody loves me so some people again are denied instruments of Escape they're they're enslaved they're mystified and and and sart I think he doesn't really get to this point and this is where I think she's more subtle than him de Beauvoir she admits that the less economic and social circumstances allow the individual to act upon the world the more that the world appears as given you know right we can understand that women in certain societies minorities of the oppressed they can't help but see the serious world as something that's given but she says the serious man by denying Freedom makes himself a slave to the end he has set up or that he's borrowed from convention he forgets that every goal is at the same time a Point of Departure and that human freedom is Ultimate it is the individual who Accords an absolute meaning to the term useful this is a critique that she uses in a later chapter that we'll cover in the next lecture that useful has no meaning in and of itself it's like words like right or left up or down if you ask me how do I get to Austin and I told you well you take a left and and then you drive a while and take a right and then another left and then you take another right and go for a while and then you take a left and then you'll be there uh you won't be able to get to Austin will you left right up down these need a compliment and so does the term useful useful designates a relation it requires a compliment useful for what useful for this useful for that and the serious man puts nothing into question he thinks his useful is just objectively useful and this is what makes the serious man dangerous according to De Beauvoir on page 49 she writes the serious man puts nothing into question for the military man the Army is useful for the colonial administrator the highway for the serious revolutionary the revolution Army Highway Revolution Productions becoming inhuman Idols to which one will not hesitate to sacrifice man himself therefore the serious man is dangerous it is natural that He makes himself a tyrant dishonestly ignoring the subjectivity of his choice he pretends that the unconditioned value of the object is being asserted through him and by the same token he also ignores the value of the subjectivity and the freedom of others to such an extent that sacrificing them to the thing he persuades himself that what he sacrifices is nothing there's actually a great short story by Franz Kafka called in the penal colony that really demonstrates this point where the Executioner there in the penal colony is so impressed by the execution device this this torture device that tortures are often kills the the inmates that he fails to see the humanity behind it right and how grotesque and inhumane the process itself is he lets the serious turn to a sort of fanaticism and is willing to sacrifice anybody in favor of the thing in favor of the object so sacrificing oneself to the thing this is the danger of the serious sacrificing the individual to the object right economists social Engineers Communists I suppose with the revolutions politicians with their platforms the serious she says in all cases can lead to a blind fanaticism in order to justify the contradictory the Absurd and and outrageous aspects of this Behavior the serious man will often take refuge in disputing the serious of others not his own serious of course but as soon as his Idol this concept or this idea this thing this object as soon as this is not concerned the serious often slips into the attitude of the sub man and thus when experts step outside of their field of expertise says to Beauvoir they're often lacking in sensitivity intelligence and Humanity having abdicated Freedom the serious man has nothing left but his techniques and wherever those techniques are not applicable he either adheres to the most ordinary values or he simply takes flight and a serious man's life will lose all meaning if he finds himself cut off from his ends if I tell myself that the military life is the only life that's worth living and I'm cut off from that if I have a physical condition or or a disease or an illness that I can't serve in the military what will happen right if I'm completely cut off from my ends what happens is I might turn to nihilism so the serious man escapes the anguish of Freedom only to fall into a state of preoccupation a state of worry because everything is a threat to him because his Idol is an externality something external to him it's perpetually threatened perpetually capable of being Shattered by the universe around it and despite precautions he'll never Master this exterior World he'll be constantly upset by the uncontrollable course of events on page 52 she writes he will always be saying that he's disappointed for his wish to have the world hardened into a thing is belied by the very movement of life the future will contest his present successes his children will disobey him his will will be opposed by those of strangers he will be a prey to Ill humor and bitterness his very successes have a taste of Ashes for the serious is one of those ways of trying to realize the impossible synthesis of the in itself and the for itself the serious man Wills himself to be a God but he is not one and knows it he wishes to rid himself of his subjectivity but it constantly risks being unmasked it is unmasked transcending all goals reflection wonders what's the use there then blazes forth the absurdity of a life which is sought outside of itself the justification which it alone could give itself detached from the freedom which might have genuinely grounded them all the ends that have been pursued appear arbitrary and useless so the failure of the serious brings about a radical disorder conscious of his inability to be anything the serious man often becomes nihilistic he wants to be nothing this stationary datum nihilism is disappointed seriousness turned back upon itself the universe exists and it continues in order for the nihilists to detest it to scoff at it it's still very close to the serious he wants to believe in the serious world the nihilist does he confirms it by his Revolt he feels himself as a negation as a freedom but he doesn't realize this Freedom as a positive Liberation he only feels it as a lack that not one that that is a positive lack but simply a negative lack and he can push this scorn farther and farther until he seeks the annihilation of the world he rejects but in that sense he would resign himself to a project that's doomed to fail he devotes himself to a project that he's bent on ruining of course he hates the world but he almost wants it to be there in order for him to hate it to reject everyone else's projects one after another systematically but this negation constantly belies itself we can't opt out of existence it discloses it manifests as it negates this implies a constant tension and the attitude of the nihilist can perpetuate itself as such only if it reveals a positivity at its very core the nihilistic attitude does manifest a certain truth she claims because in this attitude our experiences of the ambiguity of The Human Condition are real but the mistake is that it sees man not as a positive existence of a lack but as a lack at the heart of existence in this case freedom is experienced as a rejection it's not genuinely a fulfillment of Freedom the nihilist is right in thinking that the world possesses no justification and he himself is nothing but he forgets that it's up to him to justify the world and make himself exist validly so the nihilist rejects existence without managing to eliminate it he denies this Transcendence that he is why does she keep using this word transcendence how do we transcend well by our projects we transcend our bare facticity that's why it's ambiguous that's why this is the ethics of ambiguity what is ambiguity what is ambiguous well when something's ambiguous it's hard to discern what it means something has a meaning that could be interpreted in different ways it's ambiguous well she thinks our existence is ambiguous in what way well in one sense we're absolutely free but in another we're completely determined we didn't choose to be we didn't choose to exist as start says we're condemned to be free but once we're here we're absolutely free and we transcend our facticity how do we do this through our projects because remember when I set up a project when I set up a goal that confers meaning on my world the world according to the existentialist doesn't have a prefabricated meaning one that's there waiting for me I justify it I give it meaning through my projects so in a sense I transcend all of these things even though that project is not there in my existence it's not there in my world it's not a hardened fact it confers meaning on my world so I'm a Transcendence in this respect and so the nihilist rejects this he denies his Transcendence and so both the person who Delights in Freedom and the nihilist are opposed to the serious because they understand that they are a Transcendence but in another sense the nihilist is an enemy because the Nile is systematically rejects the world and humankind it establishes a tyranny which de Beauvoir thinks that freedom must stand up against the nihilist overlooks this absolute end of Freedom that if I want freedom for myself I have to appeal to the freedom of the other and I want them to be free as well now the next type or character type or disingenuous attitude that de Beauvoir speaks of is the adventurer the adventurer is the man who discerns that freedom is the universal absolute end even in Failure he takes Delight in living it almost sounds like this nichean Superman or Uber man who can affirm existence he's not going to turn aside the adventure will not turn aside from things which he doesn't believe in like the serious man might he throws himself into his undertakings with zest into exploration Conquest War speculation love politics but he doesn't attach himself to the end at which he aims only to the conquest itself only to the adventure that he likes action for action's sake now where does the taste for adventure develop Throughout the chapter describes how these different attitudes move into each other right how one develops to the other the nihilist is typically the serious man who has failed right who has had all that serious World cut off you know been cut off from his ends where does this Adventurer develop from well she says either nihilistic despair maybe the nihilist kind of lightens up and decides to go ahead and seize the day or maybe this is born directly from the Happy Days of childhood or something like this or just a vivacious Spirit but it always implies that freedom is realized as Independence independence from perhaps the serious world the ambiguity of our existence is not felt as a lack but in its positive aspect so to be an adventurer one requires an abundant vitality and a reflective skepticism why are reflective skepticism again remember it sets up goals but it's not so attached to those goals so when they fail they're not going to be that concerned because they're they're reflectively skeptical they never really were attached to it anyways it could have been wrong so what it's all about the adventurer so what's the problem here with the adventurer for deboi the adventurer's attitude is not always pure they're attached to their career to their success the zest they have for existence is never experienced in its gratuity what does she mean by that it's gratuity again it's this point that her and Sark keep making that if I assert my own freedom I have to assert the freedom of the other I have to want freedom for everybody that's what it is in its gratuity freedom and its gratuity existence and its gratuity so the adventurer fails to feel the scratuity of existence the love for adventure is often mixed with attachments to values of the series how does this work well she says Cortez was serving God and the emperor by serving his own pleasure Cortez the conquistador but what distinguishes the adventure from a simple game is that the adventurer doesn't limit himself to his own existence in a solitary fashion he asserts it in a relationship to other existences he has to declare himself every undertaking unfolds in a human world and affects men and so the adventure often remains indifferent to the content of his action the human meaning of his action he thinks he can assert his existence without taking into account others so the adventurer shares the nihilists contempt for men by this contempt nothing prevents him from sacrificing these insignificant beings to his own will for power he'll treat them like instruments destroy them if they get in the way and he appears as an enemy in the eyes of others his undertaking is not only a wager it is a combat He makes himself a tyrant or a hangman he can't impose his tyranny without help so he's obliged to serve the regime which will allow him to exercise his tyranny this is why he has to attach himself to one form of the serious or another thus the adventurer ultimately falls into the servitude of the object with this pretext for Independence let's read here on page 62.

[00:35:16]he will arrange himself on the side of the regimes which guarantee him his Privileges and he will prefer those who confirm him in his contempt regarding the common herd he will make himself its accomplice its servant or even its valet alienating a freedom which in reality cannot confirm itself as such if it does not wear its own face in order to have wanted to limit it to itself in order to have emptied it of all concrete content he realizes it only is an abstract Independence which turns into servitude he must submit to Masters unless he makes himself the Supreme master favorable circumstances are enough to transform the adventure into a dictator he carries the seed of one within him since he regards mankind as indifferent matter destined to support the game of his existence but what he then knows is a supreme servitude of tyranny so even if he becomes the dictator he still has to be able to keep that power and how does he do this well he's got to have his henchmen he's got to have his army he's not completely free he has to appeal to the other the adventure encloses himself in a false Independence which will indeed be servitude and to the free man he will be only a chance Ally and you can't really have complete confidence in him he could easily become an enemy Now we move on to the final disingenuous attitude that deboi covers here it's called the passionate man and in a way the passionate man is the antithesis of the adventurer the passionate man sets up the object as an absolute not as a thing detached from himself like the serious man does but as a thing disclosed only by his subjectivity and this can happen when we we have a goal which was first willed in the name of the series it can become an object of passion inversely a passionate object or attachment can wither away into just a serious relationship particularly in Amorous passion if you're in a romantic relationship you don't want the Beloved to be admired objectively per se you almost prefer to think of her as unknown unrecognized if you're the passionate man the lover thinks that his appropriation is greater if he alone is revealing of her worth so in this case Freedom doesn't exist in its genuine form nothing exists outside of this stubborn project nothing can induce the passionate man to modify his choices He makes himself a lack of being not that there might be being things out there that are significant but in order to be to become this thing he remains at a distance and is never fulfilled right freedom in this case is only realized as a separation only the object of his passion appears real or full to him all the rest are insignificant in any means that are used to get the object of passion are Justified page 66. why not betray kill grow violent it is never nothing that one destroys the whole universe is perceived only as an ensemble of means or obstacles through which it's a matter of attaining the thing in which one has engaged his being not intending his freedom for men the passionate man does not recognize them as freedoms either he will not hesitate to treat them as things if the object of his passion concerns the world in general then this tyranny becomes fanaticism so there is no serious fanaticism she she claims which doesn't have a sort of passional basis yet there's a glimmer of hope for the passionate man she thinks that a conversion towards this more existentialist Viewpoint that that have searched Freedom can start within passion itself and the cause of the torment for the passionate man is his distance from the object but he must accept this distance instead of trying to eliminate it she claims that it is only as something strange forbidden only is something free that the other is revealed as an other and to love is to love the otherness to love that Freedom by which it escapes love is not possession it is the renunciation of all possession of all confusion and this sort of generosity this renunciation of possession cannot be exercised to just any object whatsoever chair a table something like this it can only be this generosity can only be expressed towards another Freedom says de Beauvoir on page 67.

[00:40:06]such generosity cannot be exercised on behalf of any object whatsoever one cannot love a pure thing in its independence and its separation for the thing does not have a positive Independence if a man prefers the land he has discovered to the possession of this land a painting or a statue to their material presence it is insofar as they appear to him as possibilities open to other men passion is converted to genuine Freedom only if one Destin's his existence to other existences through the being whether thing or man at which he aims without hoping to entrap it in the destiny of the in itself so we don't want to completely seal the deal we don't want things to congeal and Harden into things we have to keep the game rolling the game of existence and so I think the assertion that debovoir is clearly making throughout this chapter is that no existence can be validly fulfilled if it is limited to itself I think this is De beauvoir's main thesis in chapter two we always have to appeal to the existence of others in order to vastly fulfill our own existence any of these attitudes these disingenuous attitudes these inauthentic attitudes towards existence the sub man the serious man the nihilist the passionate man the adventurer they all have to appeal to the other yet they try to deny this they try to deny some aspect of their freedom she writes on page 70 that freedom must project itself toward its own reality through a Content whose value it establishes so freedom is not to be engulfed in any one goal nor is it to dissipate vainly without aiming at any goal whatsoever no quietism here the bond we have with others though this this Bond we had with other people's freedom she admits that it doesn't immediately reveal itself to everyone our first our first reaction is to hate them to see them as a threat but she sees this hatred as naive and the desire to hate them immediately struggles against itself on page 71 she writes if I were really everything there would be nothing beside me the world would be empty there would be nothing to possess and I myself would be nothing if he's reasonable the young man immediately understands that by taking the world away from me others also give it to me since a thing is given to me only by the movement which snatches it from me to will that there be being is also to will that there be men by and For Whom the world is endowed with human significations one can reveal the world only on a basis revealed by other men no project can be defined except by its interference with other projects to make being be is to communicate with others by means of being existing and valuing things so no project can be defined except by its interference with other projects Freedom cannot will itself without aiming at a an open Future remember Sarge despair so every man needs the freedom of other men in the sense he wants it he may fail to assume honestly the consequences of such a wish but only the freedom of others keeps each of us from hardening into absurdity hardening into facticity so existentialism is not solipsism it doesn't say that we only know ourself because knowing ourself includes an appeal to the other the me others relationship as de Beauvoir puts it to meet others relationship is indissoluable as the subject object relation and the other charge that existentialism is a formal Doctrine that's incapable of proposing any real concrete content she says that to will oneself is also to will other people free this is not just an abstract formula it points to each person it points to each concrete action to be achieved and there are these concrete and difficult problems that arise in our relations with others she admits this and she'll turn to this this positive aspect of our Morality In chapter three so so far she's been talking in negative terms how not to approach existence how not to be concerned with our freedom now what are we supposed to positively do we'll have to cover this in our next lecture