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Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–86)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-DD078-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-DD078-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/beauvoir-simone-de-1908-86/v-1

Article Summary

Simone de Beauvoir, a French novelist and philosopher belonging to the existentialist-phenomenological tradition, elaborated an anthropology and ethics inspired by Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre in Pyrrhus et Cinéas (1944) and Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté (The Ethics of Ambiguity) (1947). In her comprehensive study of the situation of women, Le deuxième sexe (The Second Sex) (1949), this anthropology and ethics was developed and combined with a philosophy of history inspired by Hegel and Marx. The most prominent feature of Beauvoir’s philosophy is its ethical orientation, together with an analysis of the subordination of women. Her concept of woman as the Other is central to twentieth-century feminist theory.

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    Citing this article:
    Lundgren-Gothlin, Eva. Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–86), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DD078-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/beauvoir-simone-de-1908-86/v-1.
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