Sartre’s theory of love makes the body a strategic instrument

Evidence

Sartre explains that our relations to others rest on the situated body. However, he insists that the body is not “the instrument and the cause of my relations with others. But the body constitutes their meaning and marks their limits” (BN, 471). Yet, in the closest relations among individuals, sexual relations, the body is used by the for-itself as an instrument. In love, the for-itself tries to seduce the Other by objectifying itself and thus attempts to capture the Other’s subjectivity. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 101

Categorization

• XREF: Precisely the site of Beauvoir’s disagreement — her insistence in The Second Sex that the body is situation rather than instrument extends this critique. — connects to: Sartre explains the sexual act as an attempt to capture the Other’s consciousness — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 102; Sartre’s own writings drift from lived body toward instrumental body — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 99; For Sartre the body forms the inescapable background of all consciousness — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 98 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Sartre’s own writings drift from lived body toward instrumental body #corroborates (0.92) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 99
• For Sartre the body forms the inescapable background of all consciousness #complicates (0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 98