Rethinking Existentialism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
The Core ◽  
Jean Paul

Rethinking Existentialism argues that the core of existentialism is the theory that Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre described when they popularized the term in 1945: the ethical theory that we ought to treat human freedom as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other value. The book argues that Beauvoir and Sartre disagreed over the structure of this freedom in 1943 but that Sartre came to accept Beauvoir’s view by 1952, that Frantz Fanon’s first book should also be classified as a canonical work of existentialism, and that Beauvoir’s argument for a moral imperative of authenticity is a firmer ground for existentialism’s ethical claim than any of the eudaimonist arguments offered by Fanon and Sartre. It develops its arguments through critical contrasts with Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book concludes by sketching contributions that this analysis of existentialism can make to contemporary philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy.

What Is Existentialism?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Clear Definition ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
The Core ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Definition Of

Articles and books on existentialism generally eschew precise philosophical definition of their subject matter and disagree with one another over which ideas, issues, and thinkers should be classified as existentialist. This loose categorization distorts readings of the texts that are claimed to fall under it. This book argues for a precise conceptualization of existentialism grounded in the definition it was given by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre when the term was first popularized. Existentialism is therefore defined as the ethical theory that we ought to treat the freedom at the core of human existence as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other values. This chapter argues for the need for a clear definition and presents an overview of how the book develops its analysis.

Sex, Love, and Letters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith G. Coffin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Gay Liberation ◽  
Betty Friedan ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Francois Mauriac ◽  
Feminist Movements

When this book's author discovered a virtually unexplored treasure trove of letters to Simone de Beauvoir from Beauvoir's international readers, it inspired the author to explore the intimate bond between the famed author and her reading public. This correspondence, at the heart of the book, immerses us in the tumultuous decades from the late 1940s to the 1970s — from the painful aftermath of World War II to the horror and shame of French colonial brutality in Algeria and through the dilemmas and exhilarations of the early gay liberation and feminist movements. The letters provide a glimpse into the power of reading and the power of readers to seduce their favorite authors. The relationship between Beauvoir and her audience proved especially long, intimate, and vexed. The book traces this relationship, from the publication of Beauvoir's acclaimed The Second Sex to the release of the last volume of her memoirs, offering an unfamiliar perspective on one of the most magnetic and polarizing philosophers of the twentieth century. Along the way, we meet many of the greatest writers of Beauvoir's generation — Hannah Arendt; Dominique Aury, author of The Story of O; François Mauriac, winner of the Nobel Prize and nemesis of Albert Camus; Betty Friedan; and, of course, Jean-Paul Sartre — bringing the electrically charged salon experience to life. The book lays bare the private lives and political emotions of the letter writers and of Beauvoir herself. Her readers did not simply pen fan letters but, as the book shows, engaged in a dialogue that revealed intellectual and literary life to be a joint and collaborative production.

scholarly journals “The Mandarins”: Simone de Beauvoir’s Artistic Method

2018 ◽  
pp. 96-109
Author(s):  
Yu. V. Korelskaya
Keyword(s):  
Albert Camus ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Postwar Literature ◽  
Outer Line ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Literary Methods ◽  
Intimate Life

Simone de Beauvoir is a representative of one of the leading philosophical schools in the middle of the 20th century. The article presents Beauvoir’s artistic method, applied in her novel The Mandarins, and examines the theoretical and biographical sources of the novel. The author demonstrates the place that the novel has in the Beauvoir’s literary and philosophical heritage and reveals the genre features of the work, introducing some special terms such as engaged, modern or philosophical novel and testimonial autobiographical project. The article also analyzes the novel’s literary form and the binary structure of the narrative. The study of the main characters, who are Henri Perron, Anne Dubreuilh and her husband Robert, allows to give a couple of narrative lines. First of them is the inner line that opens the reflective, contemplative and intimate life of one of the main characters – Anne. The second one is the outer line that means that the reader receives the information about characters from the Henry’s actions. Basing on this structure, we draw a conclusion about the modifications in the genre of existential novel in the postwar years. The new themes can be found in the literature. Authors introduce to readers the certain social reality through the inner life of some characters – intellectuals, novelists or philosophers. The thesis about the inner transformation of the genre is proved on Beauvoir’ and Jean-Paul Sartre’s works and on the prewar works of Sartre and Albert Camus. Beauvoir’s new literary methods and plots, which are the logical development of her work, made her novel one of the pioneers in the postwar literature.

Beauvoir and the Risks of Freedom

PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Kristeva
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Marcel Proust ◽  
Melanie Klein ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
The Past ◽  
Louis Aragon ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Society Of The Spectacle ◽  
The Status ◽  
The University

Julia Kristeva's recent interest in the work of Simone De Beauvoir stems from a concern to identify transformative possibilities in the “society of the spectacle”—a term Kristeva appropriates from Guy Debord to diagnose contemporary society's reduction of personal identity, sociality, and meaning to the status of mere representation. Over the last fifteen years, the spectacle constitutes one of the central notions employed by Kristeva to measure the significance of twentieth-century figures as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Aragon, and Roland Barthes (discussed in The Sense and Non-sense of Revolt and Intimate Revolt), as well as the three women she addresses in her biographical trilogy on female genius—Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein, and Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. In 1996, in The Sense and Non-sense of Revolt, Kristeva promised to return to the work of Beauvoir in the light of her analyses of Sartrean revolt. The past several years have begun to fulfill that promise. In 2002 Kristeva dedicated the conclusion to her trilogy on female genius to Beauvoir, and in 2003 she presented a lecture entitled “Beauvoir présente,” subsequently included in La haine et le pardon in 2005. The essay published here was presented in January 2008 as the keynote lecture at a conference in celebration of Beauvoir's centenary, which was initiated by a committee from the University of Paris 7 chaired by Kristeva.

scholarly journals Age, Gender and Existentialism in the Late-Life Bildungsroman

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Petrou
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Female Masculinity ◽  
Or Education ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Michael Chabon

This dissertation aims to reveal the echo of modernist existentialism in postmodern late-life fiction. In a close reading of works by Alistair MacLeod, Nick Hornby and Michael Chabon, as well as my own creative work, I have explored the continually shifting models of gender and age, as characters progress towards development and navigate questions of the self. Issues of modes of masculinity from the rural to the urban, as well as female masculinity are investigated in this sample of varying works of fiction. Grounded in an analysis of the philosophy and fiction of Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, with reference to traditional Bildungsroman (coming-of age, or education novel), I hope to have demonstrated the similar, but newly interpreted existential trajectory of self-development in contemporary narrative. This is reflected in postmodern and contemporary narratives that challenge existing conventions while prizing modernist philosophical tenets. Combining theoretical and creative acumen, this work aims to contribute to age and gender studies, while offering a fresh approach to scholarly work.

scholarly journals Søren Kierkegaards reception - Redaktionelt forord

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Birgitte Eskildsen
Keyword(s):  
Albert Camus ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Jean Paul

Ved jubilæumsåret hæld bidrager SLAGMARK nr. 68 til fejringen af 200-året for Søren Kierkegaards fødsel med et tema om Kierkegaard-receptionen. Lars Christiansen belyser receptionshistoriens begyndelse med Georg Brandes’ læsninger af Kierkegaard. Manuela Hackel diskuterer aktualiseringen af centrale temaer hos Kierkegaard inden for den franske eksistentialisme, hos Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir og Albert Camus. I den anledning genoptrykker SLAGMARK Sartres foredrag ”Den enkelte almene”, der blev afholdt på et internationalt kollokvium i Paris i forbindelse med Kierkegaards 150 års jubilæum. Anders Dræby Sørensen undersøger Kierkegaards gennemslag inden for den humanistiske psykologi, psykoterapi og psykiatri.

scholarly journals Age, Gender and Existentialism in the Late-Life Bildungsroman

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Petrou
Keyword(s):  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Female Masculinity ◽  
Or Education ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Michael Chabon

This dissertation aims to reveal the echo of modernist existentialism in postmodern late-life fiction. In a close reading of works by Alistair MacLeod, Nick Hornby and Michael Chabon, as well as my own creative work, I have explored the continually shifting models of gender and age, as characters progress towards development and navigate questions of the self. Issues of modes of masculinity from the rural to the urban, as well as female masculinity are investigated in this sample of varying works of fiction. Grounded in an analysis of the philosophy and fiction of Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir, with reference to traditional Bildungsroman (coming-of age, or education novel), I hope to have demonstrated the similar, but newly interpreted existential trajectory of self-development in contemporary narrative. This is reflected in postmodern and contemporary narratives that challenge existing conventions while prizing modernist philosophical tenets. Combining theoretical and creative acumen, this work aims to contribute to age and gender studies, while offering a fresh approach to scholarly work.

From Absurdity to Authenticity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Webber
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Interpersonal Conflict ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Core

This chapter elucidates the existentialist problem of absurdity and analyses the eudaimonist responses offered by Fanon and Sartre. The core claim of existentialism that the reasons we encounter reflect our values, which we can choose to revise or replace, seems to entail that there can be no ultimate reason to prefer one set of values over another. Yet existentialism is the ethical theory that we ought to treat the freedom at the core of human existence as intrinsically valuable and the foundation of all other value. Eudaimonist arguments for authenticity hold it to be essential for avoiding anxiety, despair, and interpersonal conflict. But they can establish at best that we should recognize human freedom, not that we should respect or promote it. And they cannot provide overriding reasons for this recognition, only reasons that might be outweighed by other reasons grounded in the agent’s values.

Traces of War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Davis
Keyword(s):  
Albert Camus ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Trauma Studies ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Elie Wiesel ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Sarah Kofman ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The legacy of the Second World War remains unsettled; no consensus has been achieved about its meaning and its lasting impact. This is pre-eminently the case in France, where the experience of defeat and occupation created the grounds for a deeply ambiguous mixture of resistance and collaboration, pride and humiliation, heroism and abjection, which writers and politicians have been trying to disentangle ever since. This book develops a theoretical approach which draws on trauma studies and hermeneutics; and it then focuses on some of the intellectuals who lived through the war and on how their experience and troubled memories of it continue to echo through their later writing, even and especially when it is not the explicit topic. This was an astonishing generation of writers who would go on to play a pivotal role on a global scale in post-war aesthetic and philosophical endeavours. The book proposes close readings of works by some of the most brilliant amongst them: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Charlotte Delbo, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, Louis Althusser, Jorge Semprun, Elie Wiesel, and Sarah Kofman.

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