Lakey, Heather (2020). The Many, the Wise, and the Marginalized: The Endoxic Method and The Second Sex. Hypatia 35 (2):317-335.
In this article I argue that The Second Sex (Beauvoir 1949/2011) instantiates a version of the endoxic method, a philosophical strategy most commonly attributed to Aristotle (see, for example, Barnes 1980; Nussbaum 1986; Scott 2015; Shields 2016; Davia 2017). Simply put, the endoxic method requires philosophers to ground their theoretical accounts in common beliefs and ideas. One of my central goals is to demonstrate how The Second Sex manifests this method in practice.
Furthermore, I aim to present the endoxic method as a fruitful strategy for feminist philosophers who want their theoretical accounts to engage the complexity of ordinary experience.
First, I turn to Aristotelian scholarship to unpack the mechanics of the endoxic method. I need to note that Simone de Beauvoir does not use the terminology of endoxa, nor does she claim to use the endoxic method in The Second Sex.1 Nevertheless, I hold that her method is endoxic and, therefore, her text stands in dia logue with Aristotle, the philosophical progenitor of this practice. As this dialogue with Aristotle is inadvertent on Beauvoir’s part, I need to address the salient features of Aristotle’s philosophical procedure, what it is and how it works. To do so, I bring forward the work of Martha Nussbaum, who explicates the philosophical benefits of Aristotle’s method (Nussbaum 1986, 240–63). My primary goal in this section is to pro vide a clear overview of the guiding steps of the endoxic method, as well as its philo sophical advantages.
Following this overview, I draw attention to potential problems with the endoxic method, the first of which pertains to issues of translation. The Greek word endoxa is commonly translated as the beliefs belonging to the many and the wise, meaning that the endoxic method is anchored in popular and common opinions. This anchorage raises the following questions: if the endoxic method uses common conceptions to build theoretical arguments, then how does it assist feminist thinking, which so often aims to overturn or challenge common conceptions? If feminist philosophy aims to give voice to marginalized or silenced perspectives, then is the endoxic method incompatible with feminist goals? To help address these questions, I mobilize the work of Joseph Karbowski, who offers an alternative translation of the endoxa as “reputable, respect able, or noteworthy beliefs” (Karbowski 2015, 75). I use this translation, along with Christopher P. Long’s interpretation of Aristotle’s conception of truth (Long 2011), to make a case for including silenced or marginalized beliefs in one’s endoxic records.
The second problem concerns epistemological bias. As I will discuss in further detail below, step 1 of the endoxic method requires philosophers to survey the endoxa on the topic they are theorizing. The concern here is that philosophers’ own biases may cause them to overlook or ignore relevant endoxa during their initial proceedings. I suggest two strategies to encourage philosophers to move beyond the epistemological limita tions imposed by their own standpoint and social location, and I contend that these strategies will produce a richer and more inclusive endoxic record.
I argue that Beauvoir’s endoxic approach helps her to articulate valuable philosophical insights about gender and oppression. Moreover, I contend that Beauvoir’s inclusion of marginalized perspectives, that is, those of women, enables her to deploy a more philosophically robust and morally sound instantiation of the endoxic method than Aristotle did.
Nevertheless, there is good rea son to acknowledge an affiliation between Aristotle’s endoxic method and phenomenol ogy. Both approaches share an interest in illuminating ordinary phenomena, in “bringing something to light” (Dodd 2015, 193), and both approaches maintain that a sustained engagement with pretheoretical experience will open up compelling philo sophical insights.
Important to note is that feminist endoxic practice and feminist phenomenology are doing something similar, even if they differ in other important respects.6 Bonnie Mann writes that feminist phenomenology “seeks not just to describe the world in other words, but to change it—particularly to intervene in those power relations that have sedimented into conditions of injustice” (Mann 2018, 55). As we will see, I propose that a feminist endoxic practice shares a similar goal of interweaving description with prescription. In addition, many of the benefits that I attribute to the endoxic method are those that feminist philosophers attribute to phenomenology, such as their mutual “focus on dimensions of human experience that have, until recently, most often been ignored and devalued” (Weiss 2012, 93). That is, the two practices complement each other.
Aristotle’s Endoxic Method
In Book 7 of The Nicomachean Ethics
Here, as in all other cases, we must set down the appearances (phainomena) and, first working through the puzzles (diaporēsantas), in this way go on to show, if possible, the truth of all the beliefs we hold (ta endoxa) about these experiences; and, if this is not possible, the truth of the greatest number and the most authoritative. For if the difficulties are resolved and the beliefs (endoxa) are left in place, we will have done enough showing. (Nussbaum 1986, 240)
Aristotelian scholars commonly recognize this passage as proffering a three-step process (see, for example, Barnes 1980; Nussbaum 1986;Kraut2006): 1) Collect the phainomena 2) Critically examine the puzzles 3) Resolve the puzzles
For my purposes, it is enough to iden tify three building blocks of an endoxic method: collection, examination, and resolu tion. As I unpack the details of this method in the following paragraphs, I will borrow insights from Nussbaum’s interpretation of Aristotle (Nussbaum 1986).
phainomena and endoxa.
According to Nussbaum, Western scholarship has failed to account for this affiliation and, consequently, it has overlooked significant dimensions of Aristotle’s method. Nussbaum attributes this oversight to a long history of translating phainomena as “observed facts,” “data of perception,” “admitted facts,” “facts,” and “observations” (Nussbaum 1986, 241). Nussbaum contends these translations erroneously equate phainomena with data that can be objectively measured and quantified, a translation that downgrades the epistemic value of human experience and interpretation.
As an alternative, Nussbaum defends a translation of the phainomena as “the appearances,” which, she argues, values and preserves the role language plays in our descriptions and interpretations of the world. “Aristotle’s phainomena,” she writes, “must be understood to be our beliefs and interpretations often as revealed in linguistic usage. To set down the phainomena is not to look for belief-free fact, but to record our usage and the structure of thought and belief which usage displays” (244). Nussbaum argues that Aristotle’s effort “to set down the phainomena” does not presume a neutral or Archimedean starting point. Instead, his method rests on the principle that how the world appears is inextricably conditioned by how we speak about it. Consequently, a study of the appearances must begin with a discussion of the endoxa, which Nussbaum translates as “the common conceptions or beliefs on the subject …usually revealed in things we say” (243). That is, an interactive relationship holds between the endoxa and the phainomena. Whether one is studying starfish, friendship, or akrasia, one begins by surveying the linguistic practices relevant to the topic of study.
Long offers a similar assessment regarding the relationship between linguistic prac tices and the phainomena in Aristotle on the Nature of Truth. Long terms Aristotle’s methodology “logomenology” (Long 2011, 7), and he describes this practice as one that requires a philosopher “to attend carefully to the ways things are said and to strive to respond to the saying of things in ways that do justice to what has been said” (7). For Long, this attention to language directly corresponds with the philosophical quest for truth. According to his reading of Aristotle, truth is not a matter of identifying propositional content that correctly corresponds to its referent or using a scale that objectively measures entities in the world. Instead, Long conceptualizes truth as a hap pening or an event in which the world “opens” (7) to us through our use of language. It is important to note that this conceptualization does not imply an ontological opposition between language and the world; rather, “our very speaking about beings reveals some thing of the nature of these beings themselves” (54). In turn, the revelatory [계시적] quality of language suggests that philosophers should conduct robust explorations into the many ways things can be said. Given that language reveals different dimensions of the world, and given Long’s claim that “it is only by living and speaking in intimate association with the phenomena that we are able to articulate the truth of things” (67), then it follows that a comprehensive engagement with ordinary language will better position us to articulate the truth of the appearances. The more we dwell with various linguistic formulations, the more the world opens up to us. In Long’s words, “Indeed, truth does not find expression in the isolated articulation of a single voice; it rather resonates in a polyphony of voices that emerges out of the various ways each engages the world…” (50). Following Long, one can argue that a truthful understanding of the phainomena hinges on one’s interaction with language in all its multiplicity.
Therefore, step 1 of the endoxic method requires one to collect, catalogue, and make visible the manifold of things that are said about a topic across different discourses. Or, to offer a stronger formulation, our “ordinary beliefs and sayings” must be recognized before we formulate our philosophical explanations (Nussbaum 1986, 245). Nussbaum argues that this imperative distinguishes Aristotle from his own tradition, as well as wide swaths of the philosophical enterprise in general. Nussbaum writes: “[Aristotle] insists that he will find truth inside what we say, see, and believe, rather than ‘far from the beaten path of human beings’ (in Plato’s words) ‘out there’” (243). Whereas thinkers like Plato sought to transcend ordinary experience in order to achieve philosophical insight, Aristotle presumes that philosophical disquisitions that neglect human practices risk collapsing important distinctions. As philosophy grows out of a prephilosophical world, it must remain mindful of the variety of opinions and beliefs that inform the world to which it remains in debt.
In step 2, we critically dwell with each viewpoint, opinion, and perspective. Along the way, we try to understand the assumptions that underlie competing positions, we unpack their respective implications, we consider the relationships among different beliefs, and we clarify which positions warrant further addressing.
This step promises a number of benefits. For one, if we do not interrogate incongru ent beliefs from the beginning, then we may fail to realize the depth or magnitude of the extant incongruities within our communities. If the endoxa expose conflicting view points and ambiguities concerning a subject, it is because these conflicts exist and deserve recognition and inspection. Moreover, this step helps to preclude the dangers of a sloppy reductionism. Nussbaum writes, “Without this serious attempt to describe the puzzles, the philosopher is likely to accept too quickly a solution that disguises or merely avoids the problem” (Nussbaum 1986, 246). Furthermore, a failure to engage discordant beliefs and opinions can position the philosopher to perpetuate hegemonic or oppressive beliefs, a claim that Aristotle does not make but one that I will develop in further sections.
All of this is not to argue, however, that philosophy should be exclusively a descriptive activity. Collecting the endoxa, pointing out the problems, and then walking away is not what Aristotle (nor Beauvoir) has in mind. Aristotle was not content with ambiguity and confusion, and Nussbaum reminds us of his incessant desire for clarification. “His imagery of bondage and freedom indicates that he found the experience of dilemma anything but delightful” (247). If the endoxic method limited itself to descriptive activ ity, then this method might invite charges of irresponsible quietism or impotent relativism. Neither position is in line with Aristotle’s philosophical goals, which consis tently aim to “bring the matter of life into a perspicuous order” (247). The point of the endoxic method is not simply to preserve the status quo (246).
This brings us to the third step in Aristotle’s method: resolve the puzzles. In this step, we offer a theoretical explanation that is animated by our ordinary beliefs and practices. Although the endoxic method compels us to survey all endoxa, it does not obligate us to integrate all of the endoxa into our final accounts. We may need to adapt or reject the endoxa that do not stand up to critical scrutiny; indeed, making these sorts of evalua tions and assessments is a critical task of the third step. In doing so, however, we must ensure that our final account continues to resonate with the endoxa we collected and assessed during steps 1 and 2. As Nussbaum writes, “We must, at the end of our work on the puzzles, bring our account back to the phainomena and show that our account does, in fact, preserve them as true—or, at any rate, the greatest number and the most basic” (247). In the case of friendship, for example, Aristotle proposes that there must be “three kinds of friendship, not all being so named for one thing …” (Aristotle 1984, 1236a16–17). By recognizing that the meaning of friendship shifts across contexts and relationships, Aristotle’s tripartite theory of friendship preserves his community’s endoxic beliefs.
What distin guishes the endoxic method, however, is its approach to theory-building. Theoretical activity typically involves abstraction and generalization, actions that can lead the phi losopher to collapse empirical differences for the sake of a finely tuned and coherent thesis. One of the values of the endoxic method is that it can circumvent the threats of oversimplification and reductionism through its compulsory engagement with the complexity of ordinary experiences. In Nussbaum’s words, “The method of appearance saving therefore demands that we press for consistency. But in resolving our difficulties, we are not, Aristotle insists, free to follow a logical argument anywhere it leads” (247). Instead, we must continuously verify that our theories find traction in the terrain of lived experiences. A philosophical account must begin and end in the endoxa; a failure to do so marks a failure in philosophy.
The Endoxic Method and Feminist Goals
If the endoxa are to play a critical role in shaping the direction of our philosophical investigations then the question must be asked, whose opinions do we include in our initial proceedings? Who gets to weigh in? It is important to note that the endoxa are not tantamount to individual perspective; not all opinions or beliefs count as endoxa according to Aristotle. Thus we must ask what conditions are sufficient to qualify a belief as endoxic? What elevates a specific belief to endoxic status?
To answer this question, scholars have historically focused their attention on Book 1 of the Topics in which Aristotle describes the endoxa as the following: “those opinions are reputable which are accepted by everyone or by the majority or by the wise—i.e. by all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and reputable of them” (Aristotle 1984, 100b20–22). Although there is some debate over translation, scholars generally agree that an endoxic belief is, simply put, a belief that is held by the many and the wise. This is to say, an endoxic belief is either a) a common opinion that circulates within a community or b) an opinion that is held by someone whom the community recognizes as an epistemic authority. Some scholars argue that for a belief to count as endoxic, an epistemic authority must hold that belief (Brunschwig 1967). This require ment corresponds with the word’s etymological origins. In his entry for the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Christopher Shields writes that Aristotle appropri ates the term endoxa from the Greek word endoxos which means “notable or honourable man, a man of high repute whom we would spontaneously respect” (Shields 2016, under “Phainomena and the Endoxic Method”).
Yet there is reason to argue that the endoxa can include beliefs that challenge pop ular or authoritative views, in addition to the views of the many and the wise. Karbowski, for example, claims that if we look beyond the popular passage from the Topics, we will find that Aristotle “broadens the scope of endoxa” (Karbowski 2015, 76). More specifically, Karbowski notes moments in the Topics where Aristotle recog nizes beliefs that are not endorsed or accepted by epistemic authorities as endoxic, such as “beliefs that an individual accepts as true or plausible on their own merits …” (88). Inspired by these additional passages, Karbowski argues for a revised transla tion that defines endoxa as “essentially reputable, respectable, or noteworthy beliefs. That is, what it is for a belief to be endoxon is for it to be worthy of attention and respect” (75). For the purposes of my argument, I want to underscore Karbowski’s point that there are multiple ways for a belief to earn endoxic status, that is, to be a belief that deserves attentive consideration. Sometimes it is because the belief belongs to the many and the wise; other times it is because the belief is probable or plausible (75).
Karbowski’s revised understanding of the endoxa as “noteworthy beliefs” helps to unlock the feminist potential of the endoxic method, and it supports my claim that we can read The Second Sex as an example of the endoxic method. Surely, the notewor thiness of a belief is not determined by the believer’s status as an authoritative figure or a member of the majority. It is certainly possible, for example, to find noteworthy beliefs circulating within marginalized or oppressed groups. For a belief to qualify as endoxic, it must be shared or collective. However, not all groups or communities that share a belief will register as the “many” or the “wise.” By translating endoxa to include plausible beliefs that deserve attention and respect, one can clear the space for margin alized, oppressed, or underrepresented views to appear.
Such a clearing is important for epistemological as well as social-justice reasons. Including plausible beliefs alongside common and expert ones encourages us to cast a wider epistemic net when surveying the “things said” and, consequently, we stand a better chance of illuminating the full truth of the appearances. Engaging with multiple beliefs will, to use Long’s language, “deepen our engagement with the nature of things” (Long 2011, 51). If marginalized or silenced voices tell us something noteworthy about the appearances under consideration, then we are missing important facets of the appearance if we neglect their voices. To echo Long’s argument, we cannot understand the truth of the appearances without first recognizing the many things that are said about the appearances. This is not to suggest that every endoxic belief should necessarily be accepted, celebrated, or advanced; a plausible view may turn out to be erroneous, spurious, or unjust. However, such adjudications and critiques cannot be made without first recognizing the beliefs in question. Before we can sort through the puzzles, we must first make the puzzles evident. Different endoxa reveal different aspects of the world; if we restrict our records to authoritative beliefs, then we risk epistemological bias and philosophical bigotry.
To summarize, an endoxic method that surveys noteworthy or plausible beliefs can provide feminist philosophers with an important resource for practicing engaged and inclusive philosophy because it compels philosophers to integrate multiple, as well as marginal, voices into their theoretical accounts. Nevertheless, a pressing problem remains with the endoxic method. In Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle writes, “To examine all the opinions that have been held would no doubt be somewhat fruitless: it is enough to examine those that are most prevalent or that seem to have some reason in their favour” (Aristotle 1984, 1095a28–30). Although Aristotle’s method offers us resources for grounding our investigations in lived experience, his method also delimits the scope of our philosophical inquiry. The endoxa we include in the beginning of our investigation will determine where our investigations can and will go; endoxa not included within the initial records will play no part in affecting the outcome of our pro ceedings. Given that Aristotle excludes women from political participation, we can assume that his endoxic records do not include their opinions or positions, or at least not extensively so. In general, Aristotle uses this method to collect the endoxa of people like him; we might say he fails to include the endoxa of the Other.
Unfortunately, problems of epistemic bias can never be fully resolved because this flaw is endemic to the method. Insofar as one’s own standpoint predisposes one to notice certain endoxa and to overlook others, then the endoxic method is perennially susceptible to threats of exclusion, inadvertent or otherwise.
However, we can manage this problem with a two-pronged strategy. First, we should adopt a constant and responsive practice of epistemic humility. Alistair Wardrope defines epistemic humility as “an attitude of awareness of the limitations of one’s own epistemic capacities, and an active disposition to seek sources outside one’s self to help overcome these shortcomings” (Wardrope 2015, 350). This disposition can be enacted by posing questions that are attentive to issues of difference, exclusion, and marginalization. We must continuously ask ourselves, whose perspective is missing from our account? How do we make unrecognized but relevant endoxa appear? How do we identify silenced voices that have “some account to give”? By asking such questions we obligate ourselves to evaluate the scope and content of our endoxic survey with a more inclusive eye.
Second, we can further manage the problem of bias by introducing a practice of democratic collaboration. A single philosopher collecting endoxa during step 1 of the method is less likely to recognize the full gamut of plausible endoxa than a team of diverse philosophers working in conjunction with one another. Moreover, a collaborative approach can promote more diverse discussions during steps 2 and 3 of the endoxic method in which philosophers work through the puzzles and articulate solutions. In doing so, they will obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the appearances they are investigating. My general point is that so long as one critically assesses the pro cesses through which shared or plausible beliefs are collected, then one can mitigate the problems of bias and exclusion.
Beauvoir’s Endoxic Method
As we have seen, one of the distinguishing features of the endoxic method is its style of questioning. The form of a question influences the trajectory of the investigation, and thus it is important to consider how an initial question is posed. When embarking on an investigation into a subject X, the endoxic method begins by asking, what do people say about X in prephilosophical practice?
One need only turn to the “Introduction” of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex to find this method at work. Her text begins with the question “what is a woman?” (Beauvoir 1949/ 2011, 3, 5). In answer, Beauvoir lists a multiplicity of voices, including Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, Plato, Aristotle, “well-informed persons” (3), feminists, the authors of magazine articles, and public assumptions such as “Everyone agrees there are females in the human species” (3). Every voice offers a different answer to what it means to be a “woman” and, therefore, a different way of looking at the topic under investigation. In line with the endoxic method, Beauvoir carefully records these different responses, juxtaposing them to underscore “woman’s” inherent ambigu ity. On the one hand, some accounts that hold that “women are, among human beings, merely those who are arbitrarily designated by the word ‘woman’” (4). On the other hand, some reply, “she is a womb” and urge women to “be women, stay women, become women” (3). Beauvoir’s endoxa are taken from a variety of sources. Included in the “Introduction” are prayers: “‘Blessed be the Lord our God, and the Lord of all worlds that has not made me a woman’” (10) and an excerpt from an article in Cahiers du Sud: “If only there were no feminine myth but only bands of cooks, matrons, prostitutes, and bluestockings with functions of pleasure or utility” (14, footnote 8). Beauvoir references her own conversations: “I used to get annoyed in abstract discussions to hear men tell me: ‘You think such and such a thing because you’re a woman’” (5) and highlights the important role the word woman plays in her own self identification: “If I want to define myself, I first have to say ‘I am a woman’” (5). This plurality of voices marks an endoxic beginning and lays important groundwork that guides Beauvoir’s subsequent exploration.
As demonstrated in the opening pages of The Second Sex, one question—“what is a woman?”—generates a collection of complex and often inconsistent answers, revealing an arena of confusion within Beauvoir’s community. Questions direct the light of our attention onto certain aspects of the world, and Beauvoir’s query illuminates a philo sophical quagmire of contradiction and ambiguity, a turbid impasse that demands investigation. “This is how many men affirm, with quasi good faith, that women are equal to men and have no demands to make,” she observes, “and at the same time that women will never be equal to men and that their demands are in vain” (14). As she continues her introduction, Beauvoir shows that despite playing an active role in our language, woman is an unstable term that does not correlate with a uniform set of experiences or beliefs.
The overall format of The Second Sex is further testimony to an endoxic approach. In volume I, “Facts and Myths,” Beauvoir takes into account the theories generated by the “biological, psychoanalytical, and historical materialist point of view” (17). This volume surveys a range of biological theories ranging as far back as the ancient Greeks, as well as Freud’s psychoanalytic account, Engels’s arguments in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, and the anthropological theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss. Given that men penned these theories, and given that their words are still widely regarded and studied, then volume I can be taken to represent a patriarchal or canonical point of view; many would see their perspectives as reflecting the views of “the many and the wise.” Volume II, aptly titled “Lived Experience,” takes a different direction. In Beauvoir’s own words, the second half of The Second Sex aims to “describe the world from the woman’s point of view such as it is offered to her” (17). The section includes the voices of many marginalized and discounted demographics—at least within the philosophical tradition—including children, adolescents, married women, lesbians, mothers, and prostitutes, among others. By giving voice to each of these views, Beauvoir integrates their perspectives with the traditional canon of male thinkers. In doing so, she expands the range of possible perspectives her readers can adopt and explore as they seek the answer to her opening question.
This brings us to step 3 of Beauvoir’s endoxic method: articulate a theoretical explanation that remains mindful of the endoxa. In the opening pages of The Second Sex, Beauvoir announces her intention to clarify the discordant answers regarding the meaning of the word woman. “Every argument has its opposite, and both are often misleading,” Beauvoir writes, “To see clearly, one needs to get out of these ruts; these vague notions of superiority, inferiority, and equality that have dis torted all discussions must be discarded in order to start anew” (15). Here, Beauvoir’s language of “seeing clearly” testifies to her desire for theoretical comprehension and clarification. As the text progresses, Beauvoir proffers many theoretical insights, including her iconic claim that “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman” (283). In addition, Beauvoir famously theorizes that social practices reduce women to the role of the “Other,” a role that is neither necessary nor inevitable because it is the outcome of historical contingencies rather than “natural” conditions (761). For Beauvoir, insofar as women are historical beings, it is possible for them to become different sorts of beings who can authentically assume the ambiguity of existence, to use the existential lexicon.
Throughout The Second Sex, Beauvoir locates herself in the trenches of ordinary experience, cataloguing and puzzling through the endoxa to arrive to her conclusion. But, to repeat a point made above, this does not preclude her from challenging conven tional claims; accounting for a plurality of voices does not obligate one to perpetuate those voices one disagrees with. The key objective is to ensure that a theoretical account takes its bearing from the language of lived experience. In her “Conclusion,” Beauvoir writes, “One must certainly not think that modifying her economic situation is enough to transform woman; this factor has been and remains the primordial factor of her development, but until it brings about the moral, social, and cultural consequences it heralds and requires, the new woman cannot appear” (761). After synthesizing her community’s complex beliefs into a rich social topography of gender, Beauvoir theo rizes that gender equity will require a significant overhaul of all social practices because beliefs about gender permeate all dimensions of human life. Through a close engagement with the endoxa, Beauvoir articulates a theory of social change that draws its explanatory power from the very world it theorizes.
Although reading such stories can be infuriating or dispiriting, Beauvoir’s endoxic record provides us with hope as well. By publicizing women’s voices, she directly defies the social conventions that discouraged the secretary from calling for help. Indeed, inso far as Beauvoir’s community treats abortion as a “repugnant crime to which it is inde cent to make an allusion” (524), Beauvoir’s endoxic discussion demonstrates the method’s revolutionary potential. Given the stigmatized nature of abortion, Beauvoir challenges discursive conventions by placing women’s marginalized voices at the center of the discussion. In doing so, she exposes cracks in the dominant ethical narratives, and she confronts prevailing social beliefs that construct childbearing as an essential and necessary component of women’s subjectivity and being. Notably, Beauvoir’s endoxic approach presages an interesting development in recent abortion discourse. In an attempt to provide a more ethically nuanced picture than what is found in current anti-abortion rhetoric, abortion rights advocates are using various social media plat forms to discuss their respective experiences with abortion openly and publicly.
Collectively, such stories help to expand the ethical boundaries of the abortion debate beyond the simplistic pro-choice/pro-life binary that has dominated abortion discourse for decades, and they concretize and particularize the abortion experience.
In summary, Beauvoir proffers a rich synopsis of the endoxic terrain of abortion and unwanted pregnancy, and her focus on women’s experiences helps to expose many of the undertheorized conditions that lead women to seek abortions. Nevertheless, Beauvoir limits her discussion of abortion by focusing almost exclusively on white French women, further testimony to the persistent problems of bias discussed above. If Beauvoir had extended her account to include women of color living in the United States, for example, she would have encountered a different set of endoxa insofar as women of color have historically faced a unique set of obstacles to reproduc tive autonomy in the form of eugenic legislation and forced sterilization (Roberts 1997; Nelson 2003; Solinger 2005; Davis 2008; Aulette and Wittner 2015, 356–59). In the words of Angela Davis, “while women of color are urged, at every turn, to become per manently infertile, white women enjoying prosperous economic conditions are urged, by the same forces, to reproduce themselves” (Davis 2008, 92). The social norms and legislative policies that supported practices of forced sterilization likely shaped abortion experiences as well. Given such social differences, Beauvoir would have proffered a more multidimensional account of pregnancy, maternity, and abortion if she had incor porated the voices of women of color. I pose this concern not to undermine Beauvoir’s discussion of abortion; rather, my point is that we should enrich her endoxic records by including voices she overlooked. In doing so, we equip ourselves to articulate a more truthful account of the phenomena.
Endoxic Futures
In my introductory remarks, I noted a philosophical affiliation between the endoxic method and feminist phenomenology. In his work on the relationship between Aristotle and phenomenology, Dodd notes “a shared attitude towards what is satisfying in a phil osophical explanation” rather than a “common set of propositions” (Dodd 2015, 182). Dodd’s concept of a “shared attitude” is a helpful way of understanding the relationship between feminist phenomenology and a feminist endoxic practice. We find instances of this shared attitude, for example, in their mutual practice of doing philosophy by engag ing pretheoretical experience, as well as their parallel commitments to changing unjust and oppressive experiences. Future work should consider how the two methods differ in their techniques for engaging lived experiences, and it should explore the implications and repercussions of these technical differences. In doing so, we will generate fruitful discussions regarding philosophical methodologies and feminist activism.