Abstract
Early studies of the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir read her works through the lens of either Feminism or Existentialism. While both of these readings of her writings have afforded important insights into her thought, they have at the same time overlooked the basic approach of her philosophy, resulting in claims of inconsistencies and of a lack of rigor. Feminist theorists, for example, found an important political agenda in Beauvoir’s work. However, with their focus on this element of her writing, they tended to overlook the philosophical underpinnings of her reflections on the lives of women. Read as such, Beauvoir has been criticized by her contemporaries for the incoherence in her work and for her failure to present positive role models for women in her novels, essavs. and studies.
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References
See for example, Beauvoir’s 1979 interview with Jessica Benjamin and Margaret Simons published in Simons’ Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Race, Feminism and the Origin of Existentialism. New York: Rowman and Littlefleld, 1999.
Sokolowski, Robert. Introduction to Phenomenology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 2.
For a further discussion of phenomenology, its historical development and trends, see The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, edited by Lester Embree et al., Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.
Simone de Beauvoir, La force de Vâge (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 141 ; translated by Peter Green as The Prime of Life (New York: Penguin Books, 1962), 135.
Ibid., 208/201.
Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen, Husserliana Band 1, ed. S. Strasser (Haag: Martinus Nijoff, 1973), 128; translated by Dorion Cairns as Cartesian Meditations (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 97.
Ibid., 156, 166, and 170/128, 139, and 143.
Ibid., 169/142.
Ibid., 159–160 and 182/131–32 and 156.
Ibid., 153, 160, and 161/125,132, and 133.
See Sara Heinämaa, “Simone de Beauvoir’s Phenomenology of Sexual Difference” in Hypatia, vol. 14, no. 4 (1999): 115.
Margaret Simons, Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Racism, and the Origins of Existentialism (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 10.
See, for example, Lundgren-Gothlin’s doctoral dissertation, Kön och Existenz, (Göteggorg University, Sweden, 1991); translated by Linda Schenck as Sex and Existence: Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’ (London: Wesleyan University Press, 1996); Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999); and Jo-Ann Pilardi, Simone de Beauvoir: Writing the Self. Philosophy Becomes Autobiography (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1999).
Simone de Beauvoir, La vieillesse (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 16–17 and 299; translated by Patrick O’Brian as Old Age (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 16–17 and 313.
Simone de Beauvoir, Lettres à Sartre, edited by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 181; edited and translated by Quintin Hoare as Letters to Sartre (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1992), 247.
Simone de Beauvoir, interview with Madeleine Gobeil, in The Paris Review Interviews: Women Writers at Work, edited by George Plimpton (New York: Modern Library, 1998), 149.
Simone de Beauvoir, Le deuxième sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), vol. II, p. 277–278; translated by H.M. Parshley as The Second Sex (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 475.
Ibid., 11527/685.
La vieillesse, 254–255/267.
Simone de Beauvoir, La force des choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), 683–684; translated by Richard Howard as Force of Circumstance (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), 671 – 672.
Simone de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), 54–55; translated by Bernard Frechtman as The Ethics of Ambiguity (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991), 38.
La force des choses, 9/6.
Bergson’s notion of “the given” and his attempt to render an accurate account of experience overlap with the methods and principles of phenomenology.
Reprinted in The Paris Review Interviews: Women Writers at Work, 146. Interestingly, this is further evidenced in Margaret Simons’ contribution to this volume. In her examination of the 1927 diaries she notes Beauvoir’s reference to the influence of Bergson’s notion of time, duration, and memory on her philosophy.
See, for example, Arendt’s discussion of Beauvoir’s autobiography and relationship with Sartre in Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1976, edited by Carol Brightman (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1995), 169–176.
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O’Brien, W., College, H. (2001). Introduction. In: O’Brien, W., Embree, L. (eds) The Existential Phenomenology of Simone de Beauvoir. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9753-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9753-1_1
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