Simone de Beauvoir — "I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity."
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.
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"To be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future."
"The greatest adventure is to live your life as if it were a work of art."
"To be free is to be responsible."
"The greatest scandal of the world is the one we are all guilty of: the fact that we are born."
"I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end."
French existentialist philosopher whose The Second Sex (1949) is the foundational text of modern feminist theory. Closely associated with Jean-Paul Sartre (lifetime partner and existentialist co-founder) and Albert Camus (existentialist contemporary in Paris). For an intellectual contrast, see Camille Paglia, American cultural critic and Sexual Personae author — Paglia argues for biological-essentialist roots of gender that Beauvoir's social-construction view — 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman' — explicitly rejects. The two are the cleanest constructed-vs-essentialist poles in feminist theory.
The standard scholarly entry points to Simone de Beauvoir's work: Toril Moi (Duke, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor) — Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman (1994); Margaret A. Simons (Southern Illinois University, Emerita) — Beauvoir and The Second Sex (1999); Kate Kirkpatrick (Oxford, Regent's Park College) — Becoming Beauvoir: A Life (2019). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Simone de Beauvoir.
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