ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces fully one of the monograph's central arguments, that is, that genuine sociality, intersubjectivity and recognition require a certain ambiguous attitude, where one regards oneself and the other as simultaneously both subject and object. As a consequence of the intersubjectivity of Hegel's view, self-consciousness also can be tied to the way one perceives other relevantly similar beings. Simone de Beauvoir, whose interest in Hegel and the problem of self-consciousness in this specific regard predates that of Sartre, rejected the idea that one cannot be both subject and object simultaneously, arguing that in fact this ambiguity is an inherent part of the flourishing of self-consciousness as full humanity. As Heinz argues, Beauvoir maps relationships between the sexes onto the existentialist concepts of immanence and transcendence, and it is this insight that is so indebted to the Idealist, and particularly Fichtean, 'tradition which sees the negating power of Spirit as the essential feature of humanity'.
