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Singularity in B eauvoir's The Ethics of Ambiguity
Author(s) -
Parker Emily Anne
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/sjp.12093
Subject(s) - ambiguity , absurdity , singularity , context (archaeology) , term (time) , epistemology , philosophy , sociology , history , linguistics , mathematics , physics , mathematical analysis , quantum mechanics , archaeology
Though it has gone unnoticed so far in B eauvoir Studies, the term “singularity” is a technical one for S imone de B eauvoir. In the first half of the essay I discuss two reasons why this term has been obscured. First, as is well known B eauvoir has not been read in the context of the history of philosophy until recently. Second, in The Ethics of Ambiguity at least, singularité is translated both inconsistently and quite misleadingly. In the second half of the essay I attempt to demonstrate the importance of this term in The Ethics . The will to disclose being is the will to disclose the singularity of the other, whether human, land, sky or painting. Ambiguity, which B eauvoir distinguishes from absurdity in Camus, is an image suggesting this necessarily mutual disclosure of singularity.