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G r Tracing her intellectual development from her university e e years, when she was trained in a Cartesian and neo-Kantian n philosophical tradition, to her final decade, during which she was recognised as having inspired the emerging strands of late twentieth-century feminism, Beauvoir is shown to have been among the most influential philosophical voices of the mid- Women in the twentieth century. Countering the recent trend to read her in History of Philosophy isolation from Sartre, she is shown to have adopted, adapted, and influenced his philosophy, most importantly through encouraging him to engage with Hegel and to consider our relations with others. The Second Sex is read in the light of her existentialist humanism and ultimately faulted for having S Simone de succumbed too uncritically to the masculine myth that it is im o men who are solely responsible for society’s intellectual and n e cultural history. d e B Beauvoir e a u v o ir About the Series Series editor In this Cambridge Elements series, Jacqueline Broad distinguished authors provide concise Monash University and structured introductions to a Karen Green comprehensive range of prominent and lesser-known figures in the history of women’s philosophical endeavour, from ancient times to the present day. Cover image: Jennifer Kosig / DigitalVision Vectors / Getty Images ISSN 2634-4645 (online) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press ISSN 2634-4637 (print) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press ElementsonWomenintheHistoryofPhilosophy editedby JacquelineBroad MonashUniversity SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Karen Green University of Melbourne https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom OneLibertyPlaza,20thFloor,NewYork,NY10006,USA 477WilliamstownRoad,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia 314–321,3rdFloor,Plot3,SplendorForum,JasolaDistrictCentre,New Delhi–110025,India 103PenangRoad,#05–06/07,VisioncrestCommercial,Singapore238467 CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781009011785 DOI:10.1017/9781009026802 ©KarenGreen2022 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2022 AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. ISBN978-1-009-01178-5Paperback ISSN2634-4645(online) ISSN2634-4637(print) CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press Simone de Beauvoir ElementsonWomenintheHistoryofPhilosophy DOI:10.1017/9781009026802 Firstpublishedonline:July2022 KarenGreen UniversityofMelbourne Authorforcorrespondence:KarenGreen,[email protected] Abstract:Tracingherintellectualdevelopmentfromheruniversity years,whenshewastrainedinaCartesianandneo-Kantian philosophicaltradition,toherfinaldecade,duringwhichshewas recognisedashavinginspiredtheemergingstrandsoflate twentieth-centuryfeminism,Beauvoirisshowntohavebeenamong themostinfluentialphilosophicalvoicesofthemid-twentiethcentury. CounteringtherecenttrendtoreadherinisolationfromSartre,sheis showntohaveadopted,adapted,andinfluencedhisphilosophy,most importantlythroughencouraginghimtoengagewithHegelandto considerourrelationswithothers.TheSecondSexisreadinthelightof herexistentialisthumanismandultimatelyfaultedforhaving succumbedtoouncriticallytothemasculinemyththatitismenwhoare solelyresponsibleforsociety’sintellectualandculturalhistory. Keywords:feminism,existentialism,Jean-PaulSartre,phenomenology, Marxism ©KarenGreen2022 ISBNs:9781009011785(PB),9781009026802(OC) ISSNs:2634-4645(online),2634-4637(print) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press Contents 1 BeauvoirbeforeSartre 1 2 SartreandtheDiscoveryofHegel 7 3 TheSecondSex 23 4 AutobiographyandPolitics 43 5 Beauvoir’sImpact 51 ListofAbbreviationsofWorksbyBeauvoir 58 References 61 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press SimonedeBeauvoir 1 1BeauvoirbeforeSartre Born in 1908, Simone de Beauvoir was an early beneficiary of women’s nineteenth-century campaigns for access to higher education. From 1926 to 1929,shestudiedforandgainedtheagrégation(thequalificationforbecoming aphilosophyteacher)onnearlyequaltermswithagroupofyoungmenofher generation – Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Paul Nizan, René Maheu, Raymond Aron, and Jean-Paul Sartre – who, collectively, would become dominating influences on mid-twentieth-century French philosophy. Shewasparticularlyluckyinhavingbeenabletocompeteasanequalwiththis groupofambitiousyoungmen,forwomenhadonlybeenadmittedtostudyfor theagrégationin1924,andbythelate1930s,theexamwassegregated,thusfor manydecadesconfiningwomentosuccessinwhatwastakentobeaninferior femaleleague(Imbert,2004;Moi,1994,50–4). Beauvoir’s philosophy developed in conversation with these male contem- poraries,whosepreoccupationsarosefromaphilosophicalbackgroundthatshe shared. Merleau-Ponty’s most influential book was Phenomenology of Perception(1945),whichattemptstocharacteriseourperceptionoftheexternal world,avoidingbothempiricism,whichpostulatesimmediatecausalrelation- ships with sensory atoms (sense-data), and an intellectualism, which assumes that we have perceptual access to rationally comprehensible forms. He was deeplyinfluencedbothbyHusserl’sphenomenologyandbygestaltpsychology. Lévi-StraussisrememberedforTheElementaryStructuresofKinship(1949), whichintroducedstructuralismandMarxismintoanthropology,interpretingthe mentalstructuresandkinshiprelationsofpre-colonialpeoplesthroughaseries ofdualisticoppositionsandaseconomicrelationships,inwhichtheexchangeof women is exemplary. Less famous as a philosopher, but a Marxist author of novelsinthetraditionof‘committedliterature’towhichJean-PaulSartrealso contributed, Paul Nizan was an active communist, unlike the anti-communist Raymond Aron, who saw early the similarity between Fascism and Stalinism andisrememberedasanimportantfigureinFrenchliberalism.1Ofthisgroup, onlyRenéMaheufailedtoleavebehindasubstantiallegacyofpublications.An early advocate of individualism, he became director general of UNESCO in 1961, evincing, like his friends, a political commitment on an international level.Demonstratingsimilarconcernstothesecontemporaries,Sartre’smajor work,BeingandNothingness(1943),exploresthenatureofconsciousnessand itsrelationshiptotheexternalworldandtohumanfreedom,whilehisCritique ofDialecticalReason(1961)attemptstofusetheexistentialismofthisearlier 1 By1955,Beauvoirincludeshiminhercriticismofright-wingthinkers(PolW,117,127,138). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press 2 WomenintheHistoryofPhilosophy work with Marxist concepts of historical dialectic, class consciousness, and ideology. TheworksofthegenerationtowhichBeauvoirbelongedthusclusteraround two axes. One involves questions of the nature of the mind, perception, or consciousness, itsrelationship toreality,andtheconflictbetweenrealismand idealism – issues that they inherited from a philosophical education deeply indebtedtoRenéDescartes’sscepticalchallenge,solvedbythecogito,accord- ingtowhichwecannotdoubtthatourconsciousnessexists.Descartes’ssolution toscepticismresultsinhisadoptionofaproblematicmetaphysicaldualismthat divides mind and body into two causally disjoint substances. In the wake of DescartesandKant,theteachersofBeauvoir’sgeneration,whoincludedLéon Brunschvicg and Alain (Émile-August Chartier), were Cartesian rationalists whotendedtowardsaneo-Kantianidealism,againstwhichSartre,inparticular, revolted.Bycontrast,Beauvoirwasinitiallyattractedtoanidealistacceptance of the reality of mind, rather than matter, and for a time found Brunschvicg’s ideascompatiblewithherown(DPS2,September27,1928,October24,1928; CJ,463,501;MD,207). The other axis that preoccupied members of this generation concerned the political sphere, the lead up to and experience of the Second World War, the fight against Fascism, and the legacy of Marxism. They had largely rejected the existence of God, so important for the Cartesian solution to scepticism, yet were still working with the legacy of Descartes and Kant, while attempt- ing to approach traditional metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical prob- lems from resolutely anti-theological grounds. Their philosophy was distinctiveinbeginningfromtheexperienceofexistinginaworldofsensible phenomena. As a result, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre earned the reputation of being existentialists and phenomenologists. Indeed, Sartre’s Being and Nothingness is subtitled An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology,thus,likeMerleau-Ponty’sPhenomenologyofPerception,advertis- ingitsdebttoHusserlandHeidegger’sphenomenology,whichtheyexploited anddeveloped,withoutbeingparticularlyfaithfultotheintentionsorconclu- sions of either of these German thinkers. The label ‘existentialist’, however, was one that was only applied to their works after the Second World War. It captured, in particular, the thought, which Beauvoir attributes to Heidegger and which Sartre develops in his own way in Being and Nothingness, that ‘existence precedes essence’. That is to say, the existence of consciousness implies its essence; our nature is not something that precedes us – found, for instance, eternally in the mind of God – but is something that comes into beingasaresultofourexisting(PCe,123;Heidegger,1962,I.i.§9,67;Sartre, 1975, 348; 1993, Introduction, §3, xxxi). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press SimonedeBeauvoir 3 Theattitudesthatmakeupthepopularunderstandingofexistentialism–denialof the existence of God, the consequent problem of the meaninglessness of human existence,andtheabsurdityofbeing–hadbeenadoptedbyBeauvoirwellbefore shemetupwithSartreandhisfriends(MD,228–9).Alreadyinherfirstyearsof studyingphilosophyshewasreadingSchopenhauer,choosingtoquoteinherdiary fromhisWorldasWillandRepresentation,‘Existenceitself,isaconstantsuffering, and is partly woeful, partly fearful’ (CJ, May 9, 1927, 336; DPS, 252; Schopenhauer, 1958, 3. §52.267). These diaries show her struggling with an all toocommonadolescentangst,vacillatingbetweenasomewhatarrogantconfidence inherintellectualcapacityandasenseofoppressionbythedemandsoflife.She laments‘themetaphysicalanxietyofmanaloneintheunknown’(CJ,September4, 1927,403;DPS,309).Butshealsoalreadydemonstratesasenseofresponsibility forwhatshemakesofherself: I must affirm to myself that the truth is in my strength and not in my weakness, that thiseveningIam right, andnot in themorning whenupon openingmyeyes,theanxietyofhavingtoliveagainoppressesmeevenwhen theday’sprogramisattractive.(CJ,May21,1927,349;DPS,263) Anotherinfluence,atthisstageofherlife,isthenowalmostentirelyforgotten philosophy of Jules Lagneau, who had had a considerable influence on the philosopher Alain. ShefindsLagneau’sexpression ‘Ihave nosupport butmy absolutedespair’beautiful(CJ,May21,1927,348;DPS,262).Already,sheis committedtoanattitudetolifethatwillre-emergeinamoresophisticatedform inherlaterwriting,saying, Butknowingthatthisnoumenalworldexists,thatIcannotattain,inwhich alone it can be explained to me why I live, I will build my life in the phenomenalworld,whichisneverthelessnotnegligible.Iwilltakemyself asanend.(CJ,May21,1927,348;DPS,262) This renunciation of the possibility of justification coming from the world beyondhumanexperience,anexternalabsolute,orthingsastheyareinthem- selves (the noumenal world) and its replacement with a self-justification groundedinexperience(thephenomenalworld)willre-emergeinmoresophis- ticatedforminBeauvoir’slaterwriting.Thesenseoftheurgencyofthequestion ‘WhydoIexist?’remainsathemeeveninherlastnovella,LesBellesImages,in whichsheputsthisquestioninthemouthofachildandquestionsthecapacityof consumeristsocietytoofferanadequateresponse(BIe,20). The philosophy of Henri Bergson is also important for Beauvoir’s early philosophical formation (Simons, 2003). She takes from him the view that words,withtheir‘well-definedoutlines’,cannotcapture‘thedelicateandfugitive https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press 4 WomenintheHistoryofPhilosophy impressionsofourindividualconsciousness’,athoughtthatwillalsorecurinher later fiction (CJ, August 13, 1926, 57; DPS, 58). This sense, that each private consciousnessisclosedinonitselfandcanneverdirectlycommunicatewiththe consciousnessofanother,ispartofthelegacyofDescartes.Itisaconsequenceof hisdualismthatwhileeachofusknowsimmediatelythatwearethinkingthings, andsoknowsthatourownideasandimpressionsoftheworldexist,themindsof otherscannotbeimmediatelyaccessed.Theproblemofsolipsism,thequestionof how we can knowthatweare not the one and onlyconsciousness, thuslooms large. Communicating with others, through the use of public, material signs, cannot give us full access to the other’s private interiority. It may be because Beauvoir was already interested in this problem that her teacher, Brunschvicg, encouraged her to write a dissertation on Leibniz, who, in his Monadology, acceptsthateachindividualperspectiveontheworldisshutofffromtheother, constitutinga‘windowlessmonad’thatcanonlyknowitsownideasorsubjective perceptions (MD, 266). To explain the correspondence that exists between our perceptionsandthoseofotherpeople,LeibnizproposesthatGodcoordinatesall theindividualperspectivesinharmony,sothatweacquiretheillusionofexisting inanobjectivelyexistingmaterialworld.Beauvoirsayslittleaboutthisdisserta- tioninherdiariesbutseemsdissatisfiedwithLeibniz,whichisunderstandable, giventhatshehadlostherfaithinGod.So,theproblemofsolipsismcontinuedto loomlargeforher,andsheremainedforsometimeasolipsist(WD,320).The temptationtoadopt a solipsistic attitudetowards the world willbea feature of centralcharactersinmanyofhernovels.Theywillonlybewrenchedoutoftheir solipsism by being forced to recognise the existence of the consciousness of othersasitimpingesontheirownself-assessmentandprojects. Aswellastracingherphilosophicalformation,herstudentdiariesaredomin- atedbytwothemesthatarenotinheritedfromthisphilosophicalbackground.The first islove,inparticularherloveforhercousin, JacquesChampigneulles, and thesecondtherelatedquestionofourrelationswithothers.Intheautobiography thatshebeganpublishinginherfiftiethyear,therelationshipwithJacquesplays a relatively minor role, while her friendship with Elizabeth Lacoin, whom she callsElizabethMabille,or‘Zaza’,entersearlierintotheaccountofheryouthand extendsthroughoutthenarrative(MD,91–6).Bycontrast,Jacquesispresentedas acousinwhomherfamilythoughtshemightmarry,andwhomshebelieved,on andoff,thatsheloved,butwhoalsoannoyedher(MD,198–211,232–4,241–3, 263–4). Yet it is clear from the diaries she kept from 1926 to 1929 that her infatuationwithhimoccupiedadominant,evenobsessive,placeinhermentallife anddevelopingsenseofselfduringthisperiod.Shebeginsbybeing‘completely involvedinthegreatjoy’ofthisfriendshipandfeelingthattheyhaveamutual understanding,acommunionofsouls(CJ,October29,1926,148;DPS,142).By https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026802 Published online by Cambridge University Press