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  • Simone de Beauvoir: Philosophical Writings
  • Sally J. Scholz (bio)
Simone de Beauvoir: Philosophical Writings. Edited by Margaret A. Simons with Marybeth Timmermann and Mary Beth Mader . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

Simone de Beauvoir once wrote, "A book is a collective object. Readers contribute as much as the author to its creation" (1964, 38). Although literature was her reference point, the insight could just as well extend to scholarly [End Page 197] books and, more importantly, to the philosophical works of Beauvoir herself. Ongoing and growing interest in her writing gives meaning to the project she began so many years ago. As she says, "The book that I write does not fill a void shaped in advance exactly like it. The book is first, and once it is, it is up to the reader to grasp its presence as the reverse of an absence: his freedom alone decides" (128).

In an implicit assertion of Beauvoir's status as a philosopher of note, Simone de Beauvoir: Philosophical Writings is the first volume in the University of Illinois Press's Beauvoir Series edited by Margaret A. Simons and Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir. This volume, itself edited by Simons with help from Marybeth Timmermann and Mary Beth Mader and a foreword by Le Bon de Beauvoir, marks an auspicious opening for the series. Readers find numerous invitations to join the collective object that is the book, and multiple readings disclose new avenues of communication with the author.

What emerges from the essays Philosophical Writings collects will neither shock nor surprise Beauvoir scholars but it is sure to delight. The essays span twenty-three years, from her student work analyzing a book by Claude Bernard in 1924 to two essays published for an American audience in 1947 ("An Existentialist Looks at Americans" and "What Is Existentialism?"). Much of the interim period is known as her "moral period." Simons includes five pieces from this period: "Pyrrhus and Cineas" (1944), "Existentialism and Popular Wisdom" (1945), "Moral Idealism and Political Realism" (1945), "An Eye for an Eye" (1946), and "Introduction to an Ethics of Ambiguity" (1946). Other essays include "A Review of Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty" (1945), "Jean-Paul Sartre" (1945), and "Literature and Metaphysics" (1946), each of which contributed to the mistaken impression that Beauvoir was more of a disciple than an innovator. But, as the authors of the introductions argue, a more nuanced reading enlightened by what we now know of the Beauvoir-Sartre relationship proves Beauvoir's originality as well as her critical reading of Sartre's texts. Finally, the second largest selection in the volume is the translation of the "Two Unpublished Chapters from She Came to Stay" (1943). Many, though not all, of these essays have been available in French collections. Although "An Eye for an Eye" was previously translated (Beauvoir 1947), this volume includes a new translation; "An Existentialist Looks at Americans" was originally published in English; all other essays are original translations. Collecting these particular pieces in one book invites a fresh look into Beauvoir's project—dare we say even her "system" of philosophy? Beauvoir adeptly applied her existentialist eye to everything from literature and the death penalty to American consumerism.

An introduction to each essay summarizes the selection and situates it historically as well as within the context of Beauvoir's philosophical oeuvre. Moreover, these introductions, by Kristana Arp, Nancy Bauer, Debra Bergoffen, [End Page 198] Edward Fullbrook, Sara Heinämaa, Eleanore Holveck, Sonia Kruks, Shannon Mussett, Hélène N. Peters, Margaret Simons, Karen Vintges, and Gail Weiss, bring together some of the luminaries of Beauvoirian scholarship. Beauvoir's dictum that "A book is a collective object" takes on new meaning as these scholars enter into a sort of dialogue regarding Beauvoir's philosophical project and the influence of these texts. Subjectivity and solidarity, existentialism and phenomenology—especially in literary texts—and public opinion are three sustaining topics of this extended conversation but readers will also notice many other currents uniting the essays. Candide's Garden serves as a counterpoint within two of Beauvoir's essays, and the droll but honest phrase, "No man is a hero to his valet...

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