Dear all,
This is a kind reminder for tomorrow's talk of the PACE/KiC
Metaphilosophical Talk Series by
Daniela Dover, UCLA
Title: No Promises: Beauvoir on Time, Agency, and Freedom (see abstract
below)
Date: January 29th, 2026 (Thursday)
Time: 16:45-18:15
Location: Hörsaal 2H, Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG), 2. Stock -
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien
Abstract:
Most people nowadays, especially in the Anglophone world, first
encounter Simone de Beauvoir through her 1949 magnum opus the Second
Sex. But in a conversation with a biographer near the end of her life,
Beauvoir mentioned only two books as particularly important for
understanding her oeuvre. These were her two book-length works of moral
philosophy, Pyrrhus and Cineas, from 1944, and Toward an Ethics of
Ambiguity, from 1947. These works have until very recently received very
little philosophical attention, often being treated as mere background
to The Second Sex. Yet we argue that they lay the groundwork for a
genuinely novel, promising, and systematic moral theory that parallels
but also radically transforms Kant’s approach to moral theory in the
Groundwork. In this paper, we explore several of that theory's more
surprising implications, including that our ordinary practice of
promising is morally suspect.
We look forward to seeing you!
Best wishes,
The PACE/KiC organising team
https://pace.phl.univie.ac.at/
https://www.knowledgeincrisis.com/