Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of Influence

Introduction

Introduction Christine Daigle and Jacob Golomb This collection of original essays explores a thorny question: the philosophical and literary relationship between Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. These two flamboyant intellectuals have marked the philosophical, literary, and political scene of twentieth-century Europe and are still influential today in various fields. However, there is a lingering problem that we aim to explore in this international collection, namely, the question of the nature of the intellectual exchange between the two. Sartre has enjoyed a broader reception of his works, whereas the reception of Beauvoir’s works has been plagued by multiple problems. Her work has not been treated with the same academic seriousness as that of other philosophers, notably Sartre’s.1 Furthermore, many of her important philosophical essays have only very recently been made available to the English-speaking world.2 Although not every piece of writing by Sartre has been translated, it is still undeniable that the scholarly researches devoted to his philosophy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon literary world, have been much more numerous than those devoted to Beauvoir.3 As surprising as this may be, and despite the increased amount of attention her thought is getting, Beauvoir is still, unfortunately, not considered a philosopher in her own right for reasons we will address below. While the present collection aims to set the record straight, we do not wish to naively adopt the opposite view of Beauvoir’s and Sartre’s works. If the history of the reception of Beauvoir’s works is the history of an occultation from the philosophical scene, the point is not for us to simply put her in the forefront and by the same token to put Sartre in the shadow. More pointedly, we wish to explore the intricacies of their intellectual relationship in order to question how each developed their own thinking in light of the other’s own development, and to examine how there might have been a crisscrossing of influence between the two. It is to this task that the contributors of this volume have dedicated themselves . Job Name: -- /302299t 2 Christine Daigle and Jacob Golomb Although there were many similarities between the two thinkers’ positions— philosophical, literary, and political—their differences might be significant enough to say that they proposed independent, yet related, philosophical views. After all, they both accepted the label “existentialist,” and insofar as they did, they shared a similar philosophical perspective on the human condition. However , we want to critically examine the prevalent view that Beauvoir was merely a follower of Sartre.4 Hence the question arises: can we respond to the claim that “had there been no Sartre, there would be no Beauvoir” with an exclamation that “had there been no Beauvoir, there would be no Sartre either”? Our aim is to check whether these claims are valid and to what extent, if any, they are justifiable. We are dealing here primarily with a rehabilitation and not with a condemnation. Thus, we hope to be able, with the invaluable assistance of the contributors to this volume, to shed some new light on the main reasons— sociological, political, and, of course, also biographical and philosophical—for Beauvoir’s intentional or unintentional withdrawal from the forefront of the European intellectual stage mainly before, but even after, Sartre’s death. Beauvoir–Sartre: The Personal Affair Beauvoir and Sartre met in the late 1920s. At the time, Sartre was a student at the École Normale Supérieure and had attempted his agrégation in 1928 without success (he had been too original, and the jury, which was fairly conservative , did not appreciate his style). Beauvoir was attending a conventional Catholic school for women, where she too was preparing for the agrégation. She was introduced to Sartre, and they studied together with other friends. The agrégation was very competitive. When they wrote it in 1929, Sartre was ranked first, Beauvoir second (becoming, at age 24, the youngest person ever to receive the agrégation). The jury had hesitated for a long time. They thought that Sartre was brilliant but that she was more rigorous and technical. They agreed that, of the two, she was the philosopher!5 Soon after they met, they became a couple, and Sartre said to Beauvoir that although their love was a necessary one, they could still enjoy contingent affairs . The arrangement was for them to be together but to be free and, mostly, to be honest with one another and to tell...