Zusammenfassung der Ressource
European Mind in the 20th century:
- SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
- 'SDB was too much of an existentialist to be a feminist.' Discuss.
- Must one ultimately choose between feminism and existentialism?
- Is Beauvoir's feminism an example of bad faith?
- 'The development of science has rendered The Second Sex obsolete.' Discuss.
- Does it really matter for feminism if there are naturally different M/F brains?
- Was Beauvoir a feminist, or an anti-feminist, or neither?
- 'Beauvoir was not really a feminist.' Discuss.
- 'Beauvoir wasn't the first feminist, she was the last misogynist.' Discuss.
- Assess the criticisms made of SDB by 'difference' feminists.
- 'Why read The Second Sex? It's out-of-date, male-identified and just Sartrean anyway.' How fair is this observation?
- 'For Beauvoir, no woman who wishes to live a fully human life would choose to be a wife and a mother.' Discuss.
- What is 'feminine' about SDB's feminism?
- FOUCAULT
- Why Fight?
- Does Foucault have a convincing reply to this question?
- Is Foucault's analysis of modernity descriptive, prescriptive, both, or neither?
- 'Foucault didn't just describe the modern age, he judged it too'. Discuss.
- Assess Foucault's claim that 'truth isn't outside power'.
- Is this theory coherent?
- Is postmodernism self-refuting?
- Is Foucault a nihilist?
- SARTRE
- Is existentialism a philosophy of optimism, pessimism, both or neither?
- Is Sartrean existentialism nihilistic?
- Is 'Sartrean ethics' a contradiction in terms?
- Does Being and Nothingness have any ethical implications?
- Can any ethical prescriptions be derived from existentialism?
- 'Bad faith is a lie to oneself.' Is this possible in the absence of any unconscious?
- What, for Sartre, is bad about bad faith?
- Assess Sartre's claim that 'we are wholly and forever free'.
- Is Sartre right that we are 'condemned to be free'?
- Sartre denies that the unconscious exists yet says that we can be deluded about ourselves (bad faith). This proves the he is inconsistent. Discuss.
- FREUD
- 'All psychoanalysis systematically rejects the idea of choice... and therein lies the intrinsic weakness of the system.' Discuss.
- Has Freudian psychoanalysis been refuted?
- What, according to Freud, is the goal of psychoanalysis?
- What is the point of psychoanalytical therapy?
- If Freudian psychoanalysis revolutionary or conservative, or both?
- Is Freud's account of repression coherent?
- Was Freud sexist?
- 'The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.' Discuss.