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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 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/beauvoir-simone-de-1908-86/v-1

1. Life

Simone de Beauvoir was born on 9 January 1908 in Paris and lived there almost all her life. Her parents belonged to the bourgeoisie and provided her with a traditional Catholic education. After studies at the Sorbonne, Beauvoir took an agrégation in philosophy in 1929 (that is, a higher teaching exam) at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure. There she met Jean-Paul Sartre, with whom she entered a lifelong bond of intellectual companionship. They never married, nor had any children, but stayed together in a free liaison, allowing intimate relations with others.

In the 1930s, they both studied the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, and the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard. During and after the war, Beauvoir developed an interest in Hegel and Marx, especially in the philosophy of the young Marx. In 1945 Beauvoir, Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty founded Les Temps Modernes, a literary, philosophical and political journal. The same year, Sartre and Beauvoir became known as ‘existentialists’, a label they reluctantly accepted. Both became leading intellectuals of their generation, politically engaged but non-affiliated leftists. Beauvoir, for her part, also inspired and participated in the feminist movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

Generally, Beauvoir is better known as a novelist than as a philosopher. Still, during the 1940s she produced a number of philosophical essays, the most important being Pyrrhus et Cinéas (1944) and Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté (The Ethics of Ambiguity) (1947). This was followed by Le deuxième sexe (The Second Sex) (1949), labelled one of the most influential books of the twentieth century; its underlying philosophical structure reveals her thought in its mature phase. Novels like L’Invitée (She Came to Stay) (1943) and Tous les hommes sont mortels (All Men are Mortal) (1946), are also organized around philosophical questions.

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Citing this article:
Lundgren-Gothlin, Eva. Life. 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/sections/life-21796.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.

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