German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” In other words, our experience of life is determined by what we think it means or the interpretations we impose upon it. Those meanings and interpretations include all the ways we have been conditioned and socialized to view the world. All of us are wearing preconceived-colored glasses.
What if we are never truly relating to the world as it really is, but we are only relating to our socially constructed concept of it. What if Susan and Bob are never really relating to each other as they are, but Susan is relating to her Bob-concept and Bob is relating to his Susan-concept - concepts chock-full of a lifetime of conditioning.
I wonder what would happen if ten minutes from now we all pulled off our preconceived-colored glasses and truly saw, understood and received the world and each other as we truly are.
Wait. That might be kind of scary, right? We reveal a certain part of ourselves we want others to see and filter it accordingly. We don’t necessarily want the real us to be on display for everyone to view. There’s a reason our Facebook picture is like ten years younger.
But if we could see the world and others without all our preconceived notions, I wonder how we would respond - surprised, shocked, sad, heartbroken?
In Part Two of this series, “Philosophers You’ve Never Heard Of”, I want to introduce you to a philosopher who showed me how my preconceived-colored glasses can hurt, even oppress people.
And Then There was Simone
Have you ever lost sleep wondering why Simone de Beauvoir doesn’t seem to get the credit she deserves? Probably not. I get it. But next to the Detroit Lions never making it to a Super Bowl, Simone being snubbed in the world of philosophy is deeply perplexing.
Everything you need to know about what happened to her is illustrated in the above picture of Simone de Beauvoir. This wasn’t a fashion statement. This was 1950.
In hindsight, Simone’s only mistake was her 51-year relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. It was a man’s world in the halls of intelligentsia, and Simone was often cast into the shadows of Sartre. Don't get me wrong, Sartre is a existential philosophical giant. Being and Nothingness was a game-changer for me. But let’s just say he got more than a little boost by the force of Simone’s intellect.
But partly because it was a man's world and partly because of Jean-Paul's acclaim, Simone (IMO) did not get her just due. It’s no secret women have persistently been underrepresented in philosophy. Little Julie is likely not to be encouraged to pursue a higher education that sharpens, deepens, expands and leverages her intellect to bolster her brilliance and contribution to the world.
You might be on your first cup of coffee, reading this, and wondering why anything about some obscure French philosopher whose name you couldn’t pronounce even if you watched her YouTube pronunciation videos … is worth reading.
Give me a chance here.
It’s my conviction that the work of Simone de Beauvoir is monumentally significant and relevant to my life, your life, and the whole of humankind. Because she is not well-known to the masses, I’m going to sketch out a profile of her, and highlight a few of Simone’s most consequential ideas and what they offer our lives today. The philosophical thoughts of Simone de Beauvoir, particularly in the areas of freedom, ethics, and the complexities of the human situation, have had a profound impact on my journey and the life I live now.
Who is Simone de Beauvoir?
Simone de Beauvoir was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Yes, she was a busy woman! Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both existential philosophy and feminist theory.
Simone de Beauvoir was born on January 9, 1908. She died seventy-eight years later, on April 14, 1986. At the time of her death she was honored as a crucial figure in the struggle for women’s rights, and as an eminent writer, having won the Prix Goncourt, the prestigious French literary award, for her novel The Mandarins.
Simone, the Writer
In her autobiographies, Beauvoir often makes the claim that although her passion for philosophy was lifelong, her heart was always set on becoming an author of great literature. She succeeded in writing some of the best existentialist literature of the 20th century. As other philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus discovered, existentialism’s concern for the individual thrown into an absurd world and forced to act, lends itself well to the artistic medium of fiction.
All of Beauvoir’s novels incorporate existential themes, problems, and questions in her attempt to describe the human situation in times of personal turmoil, political upheaval, and social unrest. She published four novels, the most famous of which were She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins (1954). Simone de Beauvoir gave an interview about her fiction writing, which was published in the Paris Review - Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35.
Simone pointed to English novelist George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss as deeply influencing her as a writer. She said of Eliot, “I wanted terribly much to be, like her, someone whose books would be read, whose books would move readers.”
Simone, the intellectual
Simone was active in the French intellectual scene all of her life, and a central player in the philosophical debates of the times both as an author of philosophical essays, novels, plays, memoirs, travel diaries and newspaper articles, and a founder and editor of a political French Journal, Les Temps Modernes.
Beauvoir's intellectual zeal was nourished by her father who provided her with carefully edited selections from the great works of literature and who encouraged her to read and write from an early age.
Beauvoir passed the baccalauréat exams in mathematics and philosophy in 1925. So much for the myth that women can’t excel in Math. She then studied mathematics at the Institut Catholique and literature and languages at the Institut Sainte-Marie, passing exams in 1926 for Certificates of Higher Studies in French literature and Latin, before beginning her study of philosophy in 1927. Studying philosophy at the prestigious Sorbonne University, Beauvoir passed exams for Certificates in History of Philosophy, General Philosophy, Greek, and Logic in 1927, and in 1928, in Ethics, Sociology, and Psychology. She wrote a graduate diplôme on Leibniz for Léon Brunschvig and completed her practice teaching at the lycée Janson-de-Sailly with fellow students, Merleau-Ponty and Claude Lévi-Strauss – with both of whom she remained in philosophical dialogue.
Simone, the Catholic turned Atheist
Simone’s father was an atheist, but her mother was a staunch Catholic and devoted herself to educating her children according to the church’s tenets. She began her education in the private Catholic school for girls, where she remained until age 17. Beauvoir had been a deeply religious child as a result of her education and her mother’s training. However, at the age of 14, she had a crisis of faith and unequivocally decided that there was no God. She remained an atheist until her death.
People say that Simone was inspired to become an intellectual because she was caught between her father’s atheism and her mother’s Catholicism. A devout lifelong atheist, she reflected at the end of her life that while many of her philosophical ideas evolved over the decades, her atheism remained unflinching. She held a strong conviction that the dogmas of religion preclude the critical thinking and analytical reasoning necessary for philosophical inquiry and for the evolution of human thought itself.
Simone is not the only notable philosopher with a religious upbringing who became Atheist. Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Feuerbach come to mind. (The live links above to Nietzsche and Feuerbach relate to their beliefs on God and religion.)
Simone and Jean-Paul
Simeone de Beauvoir was also famous for being the life-long companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, a notable French philosopher, playwright, novelist, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. Had Beauvoir and Sartre had Facebook pages, their relationship status would have been: “It’s Complicated”, and that would be the biggest understatement ever made. In this post, I don’t plan to explore their volatile relationship, which was fraught with controversy. If you want to explore this in more detail, one of the most comprehensive writings about their relationship is, Tete-a-Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre by Hazel Rowley.
If you are interested in exploring the life of Simone de Beauvoir in greater detail, Kate Kirkpatrick’s biography, Becoming Beauvoir: A Life, would be a good place to start. Kirkpatrick also recommends these five books for understanding Beauvoir and her legacy.
A usefully crafted 5-minute video that summarizes her life might help get the gist of who she is:
Simone de Beauvoir was a feminist. Not just any feminist, but perhaps one of the most consequential feminism pioneers in all of history. For this reason, I want to discuss this in a little more detail.
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