Is The Second Sex Beauvoirs Application of Sartrean...

Is The Second Sex Beauvoirs Application of Sartrean Existentialism? ABSTRACT: Simone de Beauvoirs 1949 feminist masterpiece, The Second Sex, has traditionally been read as an application of Sartrean existentialism to the problem of women. Critics have claimed a Sartrean origin for Beauvoirs central theses: that under patriarchy woman is the Other, and that one is not born a woman, but becomes one. An analysis of Beauvoirs recently discovered 1927 diary, written while she was a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, two years before her first meeting with Sartre, challenges this interpretation. In this diary, Beauvoir affirms her commitment to doing philosophy, defines the philosophical problem of the opposition of self and other,†¦show more content†¦The political philosopher, Sonia Kruks, in a 1995 essay, writes that: The central claim of The Second Sex -- one is not born a woman but becomes one--presupposes Sartres argument that existence precedes essence: that human beings become what they are on the basis of no pre-given necessity or nature (Kruks 1). Ive argued myself, in a early essay, that this voluntarism reflects a Sartrean influence. Kate and Edward Fullbrook (1994) have challenged these interpretations of Beauvoir as a Sartrean, arguing that Beauvoirs metaphysical novel, She Came to Stay (1943), traditionally assumed to be an application of Sartres Being and Nothingness (1943), was actually its philosophical source. Another challenge to the traditional interpretation of Beauvoir as a Sartrean is found in Beauvoirs 1927 diary. Discovered by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, Beauvoirs adopted daughter and literary executor, after Beauvoirs death, and deposited in the BibliothÃ…  que Nationale in 1990, Beauvoirs handwritten diary has been transcribed by Barbara Klaw, with the assistance of Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, and myself. In the 1927 diary, written while Beauvoir was a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, two years before her first meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre in 1929, she lays out the foundations of her laterShow MoreRelatedExistentialism vs Essentialism23287 Words   |  94 PagesEssentialism vs. Existentialism Essentialism: A belief that things have a set of characteristics that make them what they are, amp; that the task of science and philosophy is their discovery amp; expression; the doctrine that essence is prior to existence While, Existentialism:A philosophical theory or approach, that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free amp; responsible agent, determining their own development through acts of the will. Existentialism * is