Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Beauvoir, Simone de (1908-1986) – Philosophie"

Resumo: O arquivo pessoal da escritora paulista Lygia Fagundes Telles (1923-) faz parte do acervo do Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS), desde 2004. De máquina de escrever a originais e cartas recebidas de amigos e escritores, esse material ainda requer estudos acadêmicos. Este artigo trata da cessão desse rico manancial para os estudos sobre a obra lygiana bem como descreve seu conteúdo e discute a sua catalogação. O objetivo é fazer um levantamento crítico desse tesouro do arquivo da escritora, concentrando-se na observação de alguns grupos de objetos no conjunto do acervo, como treze cartas da escritora e filósofa francesa Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Por meio do estudo analítico da correspondência pessoal da autora brasileira, que reúne as teorias sobre arquivos pessoais e a crítica genética sobre a carta, este texto relaciona a documentação estabelecida no IMS à obra ficcional de Lygia Fagundes Telles, ressaltando o movimento permanente da escritora em manter a memória de si em seus escritos. Ao guardar, ainda em vida, numa instituição de acesso público, seus manuscritos, as cartas recebidas de seu círculo literário, entre outros textos que considerou de interesse geral para o conhecimento de sua obra, a autora de Conspiração de nuvens concebeu mais um misterioso projeto, cujas entrelinhas são estudadas aqui.Palavras-chave: arquivo literário; epistolografia; crítica genética; Lygia Fagundes Telles; Simone de Beauvoir.Abstract: The personal archive of the writer Lygia Fagundes Telles (1923-) from São Paulo is part of the Instituto Moreira Salles’ collection since 2004. The present paper deals with the rich source for studies concerning lygian works, as well as it describes the content and discuss its cataloging. The purpose here is to make a critical research of this writer archive treasure, focusing on the observation of object groups in the collection set, such as the thirteen letters written by the French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Through the analytical study of the Brazilian writer’s personal correspondence, which includes the theories on personal archives and genetic criticism regarding the letter, this paper connects the dossier located at IMS to Lygia Fagundes Telles’ fictional works, sticking out the writer’s constant movement to maintain herself-memory into her writings. The author of Clouds Conspiracy has conceived another mysterious project, during her life, keeping under the care of an institution with free access her manuscripts, the letters changed with her friends literary set, and other texts which she considered as having a general interest for the knowledge of her works. The implied sense of this project is studied here.Keywords: literary archive; epistolography; genetic criticism; Lygia Fagundes Telles; Simone de Beauvoir.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), em Por uma moral da ambiguidade (2005 [1947]) e especificamente no tópico intitulado “A atitude estética”, dedicou-se a pensar uma concepção de estética através da definição existencialista de liberdade. A liberdade, como um movimento humano original, é o que permite ao sujeito descobrir as razões de seus próprios atos; assim, uma atitude estética pretende afirmar qualquer obra de cunho estético (seja por exemplo um livro literário, uma pintura ou uma escultura) como um dado que o criador, isto é, aquele que escreve, pinta ou esculpe, tentará justificar enquanto for matéria da própria obra produzida. Ainda assim, a atitude estética apenas é possível se houver uma temporalidade, e o presente será o elemento fundamental para que tal ato seja praticado. Portanto, neste artigo objetiva-se discutir introdutoriamente o modo como Beauvoir abordou certa concepção de estética com base no movimento autêntico do homem em direção à liberdade.

Em 1960, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), acompanhada de Jean-Paul Sartre, visitou as principais cidades do sudeste, nordeste e centro-oeste brasileiro na companhia dos seus anfitriões Jorge Amado e Zélia Gattai. Os relatos dessa viagem integram o terceiro volume de sua autobiografia intitulada A Força das Coisas (1963). Neste artigo investigo a composição de suas descrições do Brasil em estreito diálogo com duas dimensões narrativas: os debates históricos-políticos que marcaram a sua estadia no país, tais quais as noções de “Terceiro Mundo” e de países subdesenvolvidos, e os movimentos de independências das ex-colônias europeias; e os projetos de construção de si elaborados nas suas obras autobiográficas; gênero textual que será apresentado com o auxílio dos estudos teóricos de Philippe Lejeune (1991) e Leonor Arfuch (2010).*In 1960, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) and Jean-Paul Sartre visited the main cities in the southeast, northeast and central-west Brazilian regions, accompanied by their hosts in the country, Jorge Amado and Zélia Gattai. This trip reports are part of Beauvoir's autobiography, namely its third volume, entitled A Força das Coisas (1963). In this paper, my goal is to inquire the composition of the philosopher's descriptions and reports of Brazil in a narrow dialogue with two narrative dimensions: the historical-political debates that marked her time in the South-American country, such as the concepts of "Third-World", underdeveloped countries, and the independence movements of the former European colonies; as well as the projects of Simone de Beauvoir's self-representation in her autobiographic works; literary genre that will be addressed with the aid of Philippe Lejeune (1991) and Leonor Arfuch’s (2010) theoretical studies.

Cartas e diários íntimos são peças de arquivos privados, ou mesmo documentos da intimidade. Que valor as mulheres atribuem a seus diários e correspondências? Elas se empenham em sua conservação, atribuindo a esses papéis alguma função memorialística? Pretendemos focalizar três mulheres que muito se devotaram à escrita, a exemplo de homens célebres com quem elas conviveram: Juliette Drouet (1806-1883), companheira de Victor Hugo durante 50 anos, endereçou 22.000 cartas ao famoso escritor; Catherine Pozzi (1882- 1934), mulher letrada, epistológrafa e cultora do diário, viveu com o poeta Paul Valéry uma relação amorosa e intelectual, cujos traços ficaram profundamente gravados na obra de ambos; Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), intelectual renomada, parceira de Sartre, também se dedicou à epistolografia e à escrita de diários. O que nos dizem esses três casos acerca do eventual interesse feminino em relação ao arquivamento de si, ao cuidado na conservação desses escritos pessoais e às suas modalidades de uso?

Motivated by student survivors of sexual violence at the ‘University of Nike,’ this dissertation claims the denial of trauma is a central motor to the temporal operation of racialized patriarchy and its philonikian, or ‘victory-loving,’ notions of masculinity. I bear witness to this ‘temporality of denial’ in the institutional responses of the University of Oregon and UO-alum Phil Knight’s Nike corporation to the group sexual assault of Jane Doe by three university men’s basketball players. I also think through philosophies of overcoming this ancient operation of patriarchy in contemporary times. Simone de Beauvoir suggests that patriarchy provides tempting avenues to flee our freedom of becoming who we are by denying the ambiguity of our human subjectivity. Instead, human potential is funneled into hierarchical gendered destinies derived from ancient perceived binaries of natural, embodied sex difference prescribing masculine material, political, and ontological domination. Rape, war, and conquest are central to this logic, a logic racialized in the Modern era of European colonization. Recent trauma-informed feminist psychology suggests that denial is a psychological mechanism that has efficiently abetted patriarchal oppression throughout history. I suggest Plato, the ‘father’ of the contemporary Academy, may have recognized this in his philosophy. To overcome centuries of masculine bias in interpretation, I undertake a close feminist translation of the war veteran Socrates’ pursuit of the virtue ‘andreia’ (ἀνδρεία), both ‘manliness’ and ‘courage’ in the Greek, through several dialogues contextualized within their dramatic placement in the history of the Peloponnesian War. Socrates’ pursuit of ‘andreia’ includes a critique of the denials of philonikian ‘manliness’ and a hunt for an alternative philosophical understanding. I suggest this wisdom-loving ‘andreia’ is articulated as a gender-critical vision of the strength and courage of love to recollect and rebirth oneself in the aftermath of trauma. Finally, I return to Beauvoir’s feminist philosophy of freedom and its temporality of repetition to further distinguish the ‘forgetting’ of denial from the ‘forgetting’ involved in trauma’s overcoming. The latter requires we collectively sacrifice the destinies of patriarchal ontology as we continue to build a world in which victims of trauma might not only survive, but meaningfully live.

xii, 278 p.
My dissertation is an existential-phenomenological account of human relations and ethics in dialogue with feminist care ethics. Using the work of Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir, I describe how the ambiguity of human relationships results in an ambivalent ethical orientation, contingent as it is on negotiating the interrelated yet separable interests of the self and the other. Central to my work is a phenomenological description of maternal ambivalence (mothers' simultaneous desires to nurture and reject their children), an empirical case study that demonstrates how the conflicted nature of human relationships operates. Ultimately, I argue that ethical ambivalence is morally productive insofar as it helps one to avoid moral absolutism, recognize the alterity of others, attend to the particularities of situation, and negotiate one's own needs and desires with those of other people. This dissertation includes previously published material.
Committee in charge: Dr. Beata Stawarska, Co-Chair; Dr. Bonnie Mann, Co-Chair; Dr. Mark Johnson, Member; Dr. Sara Hodges, Outside Member

Cette thèse a pour ambition de résoudre le problème central de la philosophie morale et politique qu'est celui du consentement à la soumission par la construction d'un concept philosophique de soumission et par la résolution du problème dans le cadre de la soumission féminine. Nous montrons 1/ que l'étude de la soumission est nécessaire à une théorie du pouvoir, qu'elle implique de changer de perspective pour adopter le point de vue de ceux sur qui le pouvoir s'exerce et décrire leur expérience, mais qu'elle semble contradictoire avec la liberté naturelle des individus; 2/ que lorsque l'on restreint l'analyse du problème du consentement à la soumission à la façon dont il se pose dans le cadre des rapports homme-femme, il est impossible de tenir ensemble le concept de consentement et celui de soumission. Si l'on adopte une perspective libérale, le consentement de l'agent prévaut et dissout la soumission dans sa spécificité; si, au contraire, l'on insiste sur la dimension structurelle de la soumission féminine, le consentement n'apparaît que comme un manifestation de la fausse conscience des opprimées; 3/ qu'en surmontant la dichotomie entre individu et structure par les apports de la théorie économique et de la philosophie beauvoirienne, le consentement à la soumission n'apparaît plus comme une contradiction mais comme un choix rationnel des femmes qui s'explique par leur situation et l'ambiguïté de leur existence. La soumission est fondée sur un consentement mais qui diffère du consentement juridique du libéralisme et, ainsi, n'est pas contradictoire avec la réalité de l'oppression qui se joue dans ce consentement même
This dissertation aims at resolving a central problem in moral and political philosophy, the problem of consenting to one' own submission, by building a philosophical concept of submission and resolving of the problem in the specific context of female submission. We argue that 1/ studying submission is crucial for a theory of power, that it implies a change of perspective in order to adopt the stand point of those on whom power is exerted and to describe their experience, but that such a study seems at odds with the natural freedom of individual; 2/ when one narrows the analysis to the problem of consent to submission in the context of male/female relations, it is impossible to hold together the concept of consent and the concept of submission. From a liberal perspective, the agent's consent prevails and dissolves submission in its specificity; conversely, when emphasizing the structural dimension of female submission, consent only appears as a demonstration of the false consciousness of the oppressed; 3/when one overcomes the agency/structure dichotomy through the methods and results of economic theory and Beauvoir's philosophy, consent to submission stops appearing as a contradiction, and is instead revealed as a rational choice of women, explained by their situation and the ambiguity of their existence. Submission is thus founded by a consent -a consent that is not the liberal legal consent and, as such, is not contradictory to the reality of the oppression at stake in this very consent

Cette étude esquisse un réseau dynamique des expériences mélancoliques chez Simone de Beauvoir, du point de vue de l’autobiographie et de la philosophie de l’existence. En transformant en désir d’exister la passion inutile de l’homme vers l'être chez Jean-Paul Sartre, la pensée beauvoirienne se repose sur la problématique de la morale, l’existence de l’individu concret et séparé du monde, ainsi que la relation intersubjective. Cependant elle aspire sans cesse à l’Absolu abstrait qui la conduit inévitablement à la frustration ontologique, qui est une structure inhérente à la mélancolie. Ainsi s’établit un dialogue permanent dans son oeuvre-vie, que nous ont révélé ses autobiographies, entre désir d’exister et non-désir qui est exprimé par l’apathie, la fatigue et le dégoût. Cela nous aide à déterminer l’existence de la mélancolie chez elle. La tâche est cependant rendue difficile par son ambition de décrire la totalité de la vie et du monde. De plus, les instants et les sentiments mélancoliques sont dispersés à travers toute une vie, racontée par l’autobiographe qui joue le jeu de l’ombre-claire. Bien que l'on risque de perdre ce qui en fait la spécificité et la complexité, la mélancolie nous paraît inaccessible sans la lier à ses métamorphoses. C’est pourquoi nous effectuons une étude soigneuse de ces autobiographies pour en suivre les instants et les sentiments : la solitude de l’ennui adolescent, la mélancolie d’amour, l’impuissance du sujet politique, le deuil des êtres chers, jusqu’à l’angoisse du temps et du vieillissement. Le premier chapitre tente de dégager une infrastructure philosophique de la mélancolie, qui est la tension entre désir d’exister et non-désir. La recension de la représentation littéraire et de l’ontologie phénoménologique de la mélancolie chez Sartre, et les nouveaux apports de Simone de Beauvoir dans l’après-guerre, nous incitent à discerner une théorie de la mélancolie féminine dans Le Deuxième Sexe. Étant donné la similitude des expériences vécues entre son projet féministe et son projet autobiographique, nous cherchons à construire un réseau intertextuel entre son écriture de soi et sa théorie anthropologique existentielle des femmes, en étudiant nécessairement les romans corrélés. En tenant compte du petit nombre de pages, notre choix se porte plutôt sur ses autobiographies, ainsi que sa théorie et ses romans sur les femmes qui servent de références essentielles. Dans les chapitres suivants, nous tachons d'explorer les expériences vécues par/avec Beauvoir, dans la mesure où elles concernent la mélancolie. Le deuxième chapitre porte exclusivement sur le récit d’enfance, en vue de son autonomie relative aux récits ultérieurs, et se concentre sur la solitude et l’ennui adolescent. Le troisième chapitre essaie d’établir une relation entre la passion amoureuse et la mélancolie. Le quatrième constate l'impuissance du sujet dans l’expérience de la guerre. Le cinquième tache de découvrir la relation entre mère et fille dans l’essai du deuil maternel, et à partir de cela, d’examiner son dernier roman pour connaître la diversité de la mélancolie féminine. Le dernier chapitre veut rassembler les moments indépassables de l’être humain autour de la mort et de l’angoisse du temps, pour éclaircir leur rapport à la mélancolie chez notre auteur
This study outlines a dynamic network of melancholic experiences in Simone de Beauvoir, from the perspective of autobiography and philosophy of existence. Transforming into "desire to exist", the useless passion human towards the Being in Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir's thought rests on the problem of morality, of the existence of the concrete and separate individual in the world, as well as the intersubjective relationship. However, Beauvoir aspires continually to the Absolute abstract which inevitably leads to the ontological frustration, which is an inherent structure to melancholy. This establishes an ongoing dialogue in her work and life, we have revealed her autobiographies, between desire for existence and non-desire which is expressed by apathy, fatigue and disgust. This helps us to determine the existence of melancholy at Beauvoir. However, the task is made difficult by its ambition to describe the totality of life and of the world. In addition, times and melancholy feelings are scattered throughout a lifetime, narrated by autobiographer who plays the game of shadow-clear. Although we risk losing what makes the specificity and complexity, melancholy seems unattainable without linking it to its metamorphoses. That's why we make a careful study of these autobiographies to follow the moments and feelings: solitude adolescent boredom, melancholy of love, the impotence of the political subject, mourning of loved ones, until the anxiety of time and aging. The first chapter discusses the philosophical infrastructure of melancholy, which is the tension between the desire to exist, and non-desire. The review of literary representation and the phenomenological ontology of Sartre melancholy, and new contributions of Simone de Beauvoir in the postwar, encourage us to discern a theory of feminine melancholy in The Second Sex. Given the similarity of experiences between her feminist project and autobiographical project, we seek to build an intertextual network between his self-writing and its existential anthropological theory of women, studying necessarily correlated novels. Considering the small number of pages, our choice is rather on his autobiographies, and his theory and novels about women which serve as key references. In the following chapters, we try to explore the experiences of / with Beauvoir, to the extent that they relate to melancholy. The second chapter focuses exclusively on the childhood story, to its autonomy on the later accounts, and focuses on loneliness and adolescent boredom. The third chapter tries to establish a relationship between the passion of love and melancholy. The fourth finds impotence of the subject in the experience of war. The fifth discover the relationship between mother and daughter in the essay of maternal grief, and from this, to look for his latest novel about the diversity of women's melancholy. The last chapter wants to gather the insurmountable moments of the human being around death and anguish of time, to clarify their relation about melancholy in our author

Les fictions de Simone de Beauvoir constituent le centre de gravité d’une œuvre protéiforme. Encore largement méconnue et nettement dévaluée par rapport aux essais et aux Mémoires, l’œuvre romanesque de l’écrivaine se situe aux limites indécises du littéraire, du philosophique, de l’historique et de l’autobiographique. Son projet littéraire s’enracine dans l’existence, c’est pourquoi nous avons choisi d’étudier la genèse de l’œuvre romanesque et le processus d’invention de soi depuis les années de jeunesse jusqu’à la naissance de l’écrivaine et la reconnaissance publique de ce statut en 1943. Le projet d’écrire un « roman métaphysique », qui détermine des modalités d’écriture spécifiques, a été influencé et soutenu par une conception existentialiste de l’homme et du monde que Beauvoir est une des premières à définir dans l’après-guerre. Ce projet de nature éthique, qui porte l’idée d’une littérature « engagée », n’est pas seulement collectif dans les enjeux et les principes qui le sous-tendent, mais aussi singulier : derrière la permanence d’un éthos d’écrivain, on trouve chez Simone de Beauvoir un constant réajustement du roman à l’Histoire et à son expérience propre, ce qui explique les nécessaires mutations du roman et de l’écriture de L’Invitée à La Femme rompue. Par l’exploration d’un imaginaire et d’une écriture singulière, nous pensons redonner à Simone de Beauvoir la place qui lui revient dans l’histoire du roman français au XXe siècle, entre Gide, dont elle est l’héritière, et les représentants du Nouveau Roman
Simone de Beauvoir’s fictions are the center of gravity of a multifaceted body of work. Still relatively unknown and largely underestimated in comparison with her essays and memoirs, her fictional work is situated at the indistinct limits of the literary, the philosophical, the historical and the autobiographical. Beauvoir’s literary project has its roots in existence, which explains why I have chosen to study the genesis of her fictional work and the process of the invention of self from her youth up to her birth as a writer and the public recognition of this status in 1943. Her idea of writing a “metaphysical novel”, one that fixes specific writing requirements, was influenced and buttressed by an existentialist conception of the human being and the world that Beauvoir, one of the first, defined postwar. This basically ethical project, which assumes the idea of a literature of engagement, is not just collective in its stakes and the principles it underpins but is also singular : behind the permanence of a writer’s ethos, there is in Simone de Beauvoir a constant readjustment of the novel to History and to her own experience, elucidating the novel’s and her writing’s necessary mutations from She Came To Stay to The Woman Destroyed. Through the exploration of the imaginary and of a singular style, I wish to give Simone de Beauvoir her rightful place in the history of the 20th century French novel, between Gide, her predecessor, and the representatives of the “Nouveau roman”

Cette thèse analyse la production littéraire de Virginia Woolf au prisme de la philosophie de Simone de Beauvoir. Après avoir situé les deux autrices dans leurs contextes originaux, leurs trajectoires transnationales et leurs résonances théoriques seront examinées à la lumière des renégociations de leurs œuvres par les critiques ultérieurs. En particulier, cette thèse se concentre sur la notion phénoménologique d'intercorporéité, c'est-à-dire sur la théorie selon laquelle les sujets sont incarnés et relationnels, enchevêtrés dans un processus de devenir matériel et idéologique constant. Cette notion est adaptée à une étude de l’œuvre romanesque de Woolf à travers une approche phénoménologique et écologique du personnage. Ce regard féministe et philosophique jette une lumière nouvelle sur les essais, les esquisses autobiographiques et les romans de Woolf, démontrant ainsi la productivité des perspectives pluralistes dans les études littéraires
This thesis investigates Virginia Woolf’s literary production through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy. After situating the two authors within their own original contexts, their transnational trajectories and theoretical resonances will be examined in the light of subsequent critics’ renegotiations of their works. In particular, this thesis focuses on the phenomenological notion of intercorporeality, namely on the theory that subjects are embodied and relational, entangled in a process of constant material and ideological becoming. This notion is adapted to a study of Woolf’s fiction through a phenomenological and ecological approach to character. This feminist and philosophical lens sheds new light on Woolf’s essays, autobiographical sketches, and fiction, thereby showing the productivity of pluralistic perspectives in literary studies
Questa tesi indaga la produzione letteraria di Virginia Woolf attraverso la filosofia di Simone de Beauvoir. Dopo aver collocato le due autrici all'interno dei loro contesti originari, le loro traiettorie transnazionali e le loro risonanze teoriche saranno esaminate alla luce delle rinegoziazioni delle loro opere da parte della critica successiva. In particolare, questa tesi si concentra sulla nozione fenomenologica di intercorporeità, ovvero sulla teoria secondo cui i soggetti sono incarnati e relazionali, invischiati in un processo di costante divenire materiale e ideologico. Questa nozione viene adattata allo studio della narrativa di Woolf attraverso un approccio fenomenologico ed ecologico al personaggio. Questa lente femminista e filosofica getta nuova luce sui saggi, gli schizzi autobiografici e la narrativa di Woolf, mostrando così la produttività delle prospettive pluralistiche negli studi letterari

Thesis (MPhil (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study critically explores the meaning of difference in continental philosophy. Concomitantly, it reflects on the norm, with regard to, firstly, the authorities within the philosophical community who take it upon themselves to distinguish, on a “corporate” and/or intellectual level, between the normal and that which is different from the norm; secondly, the apparatus of limitation employed to constitute, legitimate and reinforce this distinction, alongside distinctions between the conventional and the peculiar, the traditional and the marginal, the philosophical and the non-philosophical, the essential and the secondary or supplementary, as well as, the same (or subject) and the other. The focus on these distinctions is narrowed to the field of phenomenology, more particularly, how the anthropologistic readings of Phenomenology of Spirit by the exponents of early French phenomenology not only add force to the canonical reception of Hegel as a follower of a philosophical tradition governed by solipsism and individualism, but also perpetuate two traditional concepts; to wit, otherness as something threatening that must be overcome and self-other relationships as inexorably violent. A reinterpretation of the dialectic of recognition reveals not only Hegel’s appreciation of the degree to which subjectivity is indebted to otherness, but also his notion of friendship as the reciprocal preservation of the other’s otherness. This notion of friendship is appropriated by Simone de Beauvoir, whose engagement with Hegel constitutes a radical departure from French phenomenology; by implication, normal practice. Beauvoir, both personally and in her work, confronts the philosophical community with the short-sighted, often destructive, ways in which it delimits the canon, particularly with regard to its “othering” of women and its disregard for the specificity of difference. In keeping with the anthropological spirit of the respective readings of Hegel, the study itself takes the form of an autobiography. It traces the intellectual journey of a non-Western, non-white, non-male scholar, from her sense of not belonging in the world of continental philosophy, to her critical engagement with Hegel, mediated by Beauvoir. In the process it aims to show that otherness matters and how it matters. Furthermore, it calls for writing and reading differently so as to encourage non-hegemonic philosophy.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie is ‘n kritiese verkenning van die betekenis van differensie in die kontinentale filosofie. Gepaardgaande hiermee, word besin oor die norm, met betrekking tot, eerstens, diegene wat gesaghebbend binne die filosofiese gemeenskap, d.w.s. met ‘n self-opgelegde mandaat om te onderskei, op ‘n “korporatiewe” en/of intellektuele vlak, tussen die norm en dit wat afwyk van die norm; en tweedens, die begrensing bepaal, wat aangewend word om hierdie onderskeid, tesame met onderskeidings tussen die konvensionele en die eie, die tradisionele en die marginale, die filosofiese en die nie-filosofiese, die sentrale en die sekondêre of aanvullende, asook (die)selfde (of subjek) en die ander, te konstitueer, legitimeer en versterk. Hierdie onderskeidings word ondersoek binne die veld van die fenomenologie; in die besonder, hoe die antropologistiese vertolkings van Phenomenology of Spirit, deur die verteenwoordigers van die vroeë Franse fenomenologie, die kanonieke beeld van Hegel as aanhanger van ‘n filosofiese tradisie, wat deur solipsisme en individualisme aangedryf word, bekragtig en daarmee saam twee tradisionele konsepte bestendig, naamlik, andersheid as ‘n bedreiging wat oorkom moet word en self-ander verhoudings as noodwendig gewelddadig. ‘n Herinterpretasie van die dialektiek van herkenning openbaar nie net Hegel se waarneming van die mate waartoe subjektiwiteit afhang van andersheid nie, maar ook sy idee van vriendskap as die wedersydse behoud van die ander se andersheid. Hierdie nosie van vriendskap word toe-geëien deur Simone de Beauvoir, wie se inskakeling met Hegel radikaal afwyk van die Franse fenomenologie, dus ook van standaard praktyk. Beauvoir, beide in persoon en in haar werk, konfronteer die filosofiese gemeenskap met die kortsigtige, dikwels afbrekende, wyse waarop hul die kanon begrens, veral met betrekking tot hul “be-andering” van vroue en hul minagting van die spesifisiteit van differensie. In ooreenstemming met die antropologiese gees van die onderskeie vertolkings van Hegel, neem die studie self die vorm van ‘n outobiografie aan. Dit volg die intellektuele verkenning van ‘n nie-Westerse, nie-wit, nie-manlike student, aanvanklik vanuit haar gevoel van ontuiswees in die wêreld van die kontinentale filosofie, tot haar kritiese inskakeling met Hegel, bemiddel deur Beauvoir. Hiermee wil die studie wys dat andersheid saak maak en hoe dit saak maak. Voorts beroep dit op ‘n anderse skryf en lees om sodoende nie-hegemoniese filosofie aan te moedig.

Ce travail, qui propose une lecture de l’ensemble de l’œuvre autobiographique de Beauvoir, ne vise pas l’exhaustivité. Il cherche plutôt à restituer une image plus exacte de la trajectoire, de l’évolution et des infléchissements de ce projet monumental. De nombreux écrits jusque-là ignorés ont été publiés, dans des temps récents, de façon posthume. Ces textes nouveaux contribuent à ébranler une image simplificatrice ou réductrice de Beauvoir – celle qui le plus souvent se profile, de manière exclusive, soit à travers Le Deuxième sexe, soit à travers le couple Sartre-Beauvoir, soit à travers la conversion politique. Lire de manière méthodique les écrits autobiographiques de Beauvoir, c’est tenter de comprendre comment une intellectuelle et une écrivaine se construit et se distingue. Elle prend certes le contre-pied de ses origines familiales et culturelles. Mais elle va aussi parfois à l’encontre de ses propres tropismes. Une lecture précise, chronologique, mettant en rapport les différentes strates du texte, révèle de telles contradictions. Dans ce dispositif, les Cahiers de jeunesse, récemment publiés en 2008, jouent un rôle particulier. Ils montrent comment la vie intellectuelle de Beauvoir est d’abord une vie intérieure, spirituelle, qui prend même parfois des allures mystiques. Ils montrent surtout, au départ de la vocation littéraire et philosophique, une veine introspective qui fut contrariée un temps par deux tendances antinomiques : d’une part la fascination pour le roman (genre nettement valorisé aux yeux du couple Sartre-Beauvoir) et d’autre part, l’obsession grandissante à l’égard de l’Histoire majuscule. A ces deux facteurs, il faut en rajouter un troisième : le refoulement lié à la défiance à l’égard de l’intime, nettement alimentée par le compagnonnage intellectuel avec Sartre. Dans cette perspective, il m’a paru essentiel de confronter les journaux de Beauvoir, en particulier son Journal de guerre, au texte des Mémoires, qui d’ailleurs y fait constamment référence – sans compter qu’ils intègrent parfois des fragments de journal. Il apparaît, d’une façon générale, que la relecture des journaux, œuvre de toute une vie, a été constante, qu’elle a nourri l’écriture des Mémoires, que celle-ci, conséquemment, a oscillé, selon un mouvement pendulaire, entre l’introspection et la rétrospection. Les Mémoires sont à l’évidence une reconstruction du passé comme tout récit mémorial. Ils le sont plus encore lorsqu’on songe au texte princeps qui les a précédés, et lorsqu’on prête attention à leur archéologie.L’entreprise des Mémoires se présente comme une solution de compromis à l’égard de ces pulsions contradictoires. Elle propose une combinaison originale entre l’écriture de l’intime et l’écriture de l’Histoire, l’écriture de soi et l’écriture des autres. Mais c’est l’ensemble du projet, l’ensemble des écrits autobiographiques qui met en évidence la complexité des intentions et des registres, c’est cet ensemble qui donne pleinement la mesure du projet singulier de Beauvoir.Tous les gestes d’écriture qui composent l’entreprise mémoriale sont indissolublement liés, et en même temps, ils ne se ressemblent pas tout à fait. Une telle diversité des écrits intimes et mémoriels, à la fois totalisatrice et foisonnante, pourrait contribuer à revisiter une théorie parfois un peu figée de l’autobiographie qui tend à classer des sous-genres cloisonnés en les rapportant à des critères distincts, ou en les considérant sous la catégorie générale de l’écriture de soi
This study, which offers a reading of all the autobiographical writings of de Beauvoir, is not intended to be exhaustive. Its aim is rather to provide a more exact picture of the trajectory, the evolution and the shifting movement of her massive project. Many previously unknown writings have been published posthumously in recent times. These new texts contribute to the undermining of a simplistic and reductive image of de Beauvoir, an image drawn exclusively either from The Second Sex, from the Sartre - de Beauvoir couple, or from her political conversion.In a methodical reading of de Beauvoir’s autobiographical writings, one can attempt to grasp how a woman intellectual and writer constructs herself and marks herself off from others. She undoubtedly turns against her familial and cultural origins, but she is also capable of going against her own tropisms. A precise chronological reading that relates the different strata of the text reveals such contradictions. In such an approach, the Cahiers de jeunesse, published in 2008, play an important role. They show how de Beauvoir’s intellectual life is at first an interior, spiritual life that sometimes even has something mystical about it. Above all, at the outset of a literary and philosophic vocation, the Cahiers show an introspective vein that was for a time thwarted by two opposite tendencies: on the one hand a fascination with the novel (a genre that was highly valued in the Sartre-de Beauvoir couple), on the other hand a growing obsession with History. To these two factors a third must be added: a repression linked to a distrust of the intimate that was clearly fed by the intellectual companionship with Sartre. In this perspective, I thought it essential to confront de Beauvoir’s journals, in particular her Journal de guerre, to the text of the Mémoires, which in any case constantly refer to it and even integrate fragments from it. It would appear in a more general way that her re-reading of the journals, the work of her entire life, was constant, that it fed into the writing of the Mémoires, which as a consequence oscillate in a pendulum movement between introspection and retrospection. The Mémoires are clearly a reconstruction of the past, like all memoir narratives, but that becomes even more true when one thinks of the original text that preceded them and when their archaeology is taken into account.The Mémoires as a project are to be seen as a compromise between these contradictory urges. The enterprise provides an original combination of writing the intimate, writing History, writing the self and writing the other. However it is the project in its totality, the entire autobiographical corpus, that demonstrates the complexity of intention and register, it is this totality that makes it possible to take the measure of de Beauvoir’s singular project.All the gestures of writing that make up the memorial enterprise are indissolubly linked and at the same time different from one another. Such a diversity of intimate and memorial writing, at once systematic and multiple, may contribute to a revisiting of a somewhat rigid theory of autobiography that tends either to isolate sub-genres, classifying them by reference to distinct criteria, or else to bring everything back to the general category of writing the self

The thesis inquires into the theme of political judgement and aims to rethink it from the perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence. It seeks to take up the contemporary challenge of political judgement that remains inadequately addressed within recent theorizing: how, given the modern breakdown of metaphysical absolutes, to reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity able to confront the ambiguous, plural and complex character of our postfoundational world. Against this background, the thesis aspires to reclaim the distinctly historical orientation of twentieth-century existentialism, in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. It draws on their aesthetic sensibility to resuscitate the human judging ability in its worldly ambiguity and point towards an account of political judgement capable of facing up to the challenges of our plural and uncertain political reality. Retrieving their vigilant assumption of the situated, worldly condition of human political existence and the attendant perplexity of judging politically, the aim of the thesis is to suggest how the existentialists' insights can be brought to bear on contemporary problematics of political judgement that seem to elude the grasp of abstract standards and predetermined yardsticks.

A la fin de adolescence, Simone de Beauvoir se détache de son origine bourgeoise et de sa foi catholique. Elle se défait du narcissisme qui était au départ de sa vocation d'écrivain. Jusqu'à la deuxième guerre mondiale, les questions socio-politiques ne la préoccupent guère. Elle fait l'expérience de l'existence d'autrui et des conditions de la liberté. Compagne de Sartre, elle adhère de tout son être à l'existentialisme. Elle surmonte son indifférence et renonce à l'" œuvre d'art " pour se consacrer à une littérature engagée. Elle est particulièrement touchée par la condition des femmes, puis celle des vieillards. Dans "Le deuxième Sexe" et "La vieillesse", elle analyse en profondeur leur aliénation et leur misère en donnant une image dramatiquement nouvelle. Ses idées ont violemment choqué, mais leur influence perdure. Nous avons tenté de montrer que Simone de Beauvoir a, sans concession, mis en œuvre, dans ses écrits et ses actes, sa pensée éthique, fondée sur la liberté et la responsabilité ; même quand ses révélations lui valaient une opposition haineuse et dangereuse. Elle a critiqué sans relâhe la société des " bien-pensants " et engagé son être tout entier au service de ses idées
In her late teens, Simone de Beauvoir distanced herself from her upper class bourgeois background, full of hypocrisies ; she rejected the catholic faith. She got rid of her narciccism, at the root of her writer's vocation. Until the Second War, social-political questions were out of her mind. But through personal events, she became aware of the Other and conditions for liberty. Partner of Jean Paul Sartre, she entirely embraced existentialism in her life and works. She devoted her efforts to commited literature in her novels and essays. She is more specifically concerned with women and elderly conditions. In Le deuxième sexe and La vieillesse, she analyses thoroughly the causes of women alienation and the miserable living conditions of elderly people ; she sheds on those subjects a dramatically new light. Her ideas were very shocking for the majority of people, but they were true and influenced until today. We tried to demonstrate that Simone de Beauvoir, without any concession, has put in practice her ethical thought based on liberty and responsability ; even when her revelations attracted hateful and dangerous relations. She commited herself without any compromise to her ideas

Abstract Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) studied philosophy at L’Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne. Like many other intellectuals of the time, she taught in a lycée. Influenced by Husserl and Heidegger, she wrote a phenomenological study of the experience of radical freedom (The Ethics of Ambiguity, 1949). She preferred to express her philosophical views in works of fiction: She Came to Stay (1943), All Men Are Mortal (1946), and The Mandarins (1954). Active in the Resistance, she wrote political essays, increasingly turning her attention to feminist theory. Her groundbreaking The Second Sex (1949) influenced feminist thinking around the world. She later turned to writing autobiography, using her life as an example of the complex situation of politically active intellectual women who are also fully engaged daughters and lovers (Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, 1958; The Prime of Life, 1960; The Force of Circumstance, 1963). Reflecting on the death of her mother, she began to write about ageing: The Coming of Age (1970) and All Said and Done (1972). She continued to write political essays, many of them severely critical of the United States (America Day by Day, 1948).

Feminist autobiography is a genre with long-standing literary and philosophical tradition, still some aspects, like, autobiography as “death writing” have come to scholarly attention as of relatively recent. The conceptual framework hinged on the concepts of “tanatography” (defined as an account of a person’s death) and “autotanatography” (defined as an account of one’s own death) makes it possible to take a fresh look into feminist writings from 19th and 20th centuries (Alice James and Simone de Beauvoir). Among the questions for the critical reflection we can mention the following ones: issues of memory and forgetting, of death of the significant other, of aging, of suicide, of literary death (ending the writing career path). Autothanatography is self-death-writing, instead of self-life-writing, even if death is an experience that cannot be had for oneself. The current article takes a look into the auto-death-writing of two women writers: Alice James (1848-1892) – a sister of William and Henry James and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Although both women’s lives are set almost a century apart and none of them define herself as a feminist writer, their memoirs are written from the vantage point of imminent death. In the first case (James’s) we can speak of her posthumously published diaries, especially their second part written after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Whereas in the latter (Beauvoir’s) case the autothanatological vibe is felt throughout the whole series of her memoirs (“Memoirs of a dutiful daughter”, “The prime of life”, “Force of circumstance”, “A very easy death”), but especially in the oeuvre “All is said and done” – the writing in anticipation of one’s death. The aspect that is common to both writers is that their memoirs exhibit the strategy of recollection, of re-reading their life events anew in the wake of the end (physical and/or authorial).