Alterity is the fundamental category of human thought, original to consciousness itself
Evidence
The category of Other is as original as consciousness itself. The duality between Self and Other can be found in the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies; this division did not always fall into the category of the division of the sexes, it was not based on any empirical given: this comes out in works like Granet’s on Chinese thought, and Dumézil’s on India and Rome. In couples such as Varuna—Mitra, Uranus—Zeus, Sun—Moon, Day—Night, no feminine element is involved at the outset; neither in Good—Evil, auspicious and inauspicious, left and right, God and Lucifer; alterity is the fundamental category of human thought. No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. It only takes three travelers brought together by chance in the same train compartment for the rest of the travelers to become vaguely hostile “others.” Village people view anyone not belonging to the village as suspicious “others.” For the native of a country inhabitants of other countries are viewed as “foreigners”; Jews are the “others” for anti-Semites, blacks for racist Americans, indigenous people for colonists, proletarians for the propertied classes. After studying the diverse forms of primitive society in depth, Lévi-Strauss could conclude: “The passage from the state of Nature to the state of Culture is defined by man’s ability to think biological relations as systems of oppositions; duality, alternation, opposition, and symmetry, whether occurring in defined or less clear form, are not so much phenomena to explain as fundamental and immediate givens of social reality.” These phenomena could not be understood if human reality were solely a Mitsein* based on solidarity and friendship. On the contrary, they become clear if, following Hegel, a fundamental hostility to any other consciousness is found in consciousness itself; the subject posits itself only in opposition; it asserts itself as the essential and sets up the other as inessential, as the object. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 54
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the core ‘Other’ concept — alterity as the fundamental category of human thought, distinct from sexual difference and rooted in Hegel’s thesis that the subject posits itself only in opposition.
- XREF: Connects directly to Hegel’s master-slave dialectic and to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness account of the look and inter-subjective conflict. — connects to: Consciousness introduces differentiation, meaning, and plurality into undifferentiated Being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 40; Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 151; Consciousness defines itself by internal negation of its own objects (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Consciousness introduces differentiation, meaning, and plurality into undifferentiated Being
#expands(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 40 - Consciousness is necessarily directed at a being other than itself
#corroborates(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 151 - Intentionality means consciousness is always directed toward something beyond itself.
#corroborates(0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1186 - Consciousness freely chooses itself as not being the Other.
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775 - Man feminizes the ideal Other because woman is the tangible figure of alterity
#exemplifies(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383 - Human thought fundamentally requires categorizing new experiences into old concepts.
#corroborates(0.78) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1151 - Consciousness defines itself by internal negation of its own objects
#corroborates(0.75)