Simone de Beauvoir and the “Adventurer”—Navigating the Return to the Common Good

Mary Townsend (St. John's University)

If return to a more robust social contract has become necessary, what do we do with the individuals who wilfully step outside of it? In her Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir describes five paradigmatic ways human beings avoid recognition of each other’s mutual freedom, responsibilities, and projects. In this talk I’ll describe the case of the “adventurer,” who unlike the nihilist or the “serious” man does not resort to violence or coercion within his community, but instead departs from conventional and contractual relations in a storied escape--only to involve himself in the projects of others in some far-away place. For Beauvoir, what does it take for the adventurer to realize that “to will oneself free is also to will others free”? I’ll discuss Beauvoir’s unique approach to Hegelian recognition and existential freedom, and how she proposes to integrate these into a politics that preserves the common good.

Mary Townsend is Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University, Queens, New York. Her research focuses on political psychology ancient and modern, Hegelian-influenced philosophers from Kierkegaard to Simone de Beauvoir, and the history of the philosophy of feminism. Her book, The Woman Question in Plato’s Republic (2017), was named “required reading” by the University of Pennsylvania’s Emily Wilson, translator of Homer’s Odyssey  and Iliad. Dr. Townsend also writes on philosophy and culture with work at places such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Wisdom of Crowds, and The Hedgehog Review.