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Simone
de Beauvoir is best known for her association with the French
Existentialist movement of the 1940s (a close relationship with
Jean-Paul
Sartre), and for the book that many claim gave
birth to the feminist theory in the twentieth century,
The Second Sex. Beauvoir was trained as a philosopher;
she was the ninth woman in France ever to receive a doctorate
in philosophy and, in 1929 at the age of twenty-one, the youngest
person ever to earn the degree. But throughout her life, she
thought of herself primarily as a novelist.
Beauvoir's
formative experiences - in particular her severe middle-class
Catholic upbringing, her loss of faith at the age of fourteen,
and the death of a dear girlhood friend - convinced her that
life's meaning is found not in abstractions or cosmic and universal
theories, but in the decisions individual people make day to
day. She rejected the building of philosophical systems in favor
of carefully examining everyday life, which she explored in
her novels and later in her autobiographical writings.
Beauvoir
held firmly to the basic principle of Existentialism,
that human beings are in no way bound by any kind of natural
law or divine plan. We are free to create ourselves out of the
resources in our society and environment; over time, our choices
make us who and what we are. Thus the central philosophical
question for Beauvoir is always: How shall I live? She is concerned
always with ethics: values, choices, and actions. She believes
that we are radically free, yet also finite; her work (especially
The Second Sex) explores the tensions that exist
between our liberty and our finitude, between our inalienable
freedom to choose and the constraints imposed by the choices
of others. She argues against nihilism and ethical relativism,
insisting that we all have an obligation to affirm both our
own radical freedom and the freedom of others in all that we
do. Wherever freedom is denied (for example, wherever there
is sexism, racism, or colonialism) each one of us has a moral
obligation to intervene. By whatever means necessary, we are
obligated to reestablish the freedom of our fellow human beings.
Freedom for all therefore must be our highest value - for without
it, we lose our very humanity.
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On
two audiotapes - about three hours in length.
Narrator: Lynn Redgrave
Author: Professor Ladelle McWhorter
Editor: Professor John Lachs and
Wendy McElroy
Publisher: Knowledge Products, Inc.
This
title is part of the Audio Classics Series by
Knowledge Products. Knowledge Products publishes a variety of
audio presentations on the great ideas and events of history.
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