The Second Sex can be read as a compelling philosophical exploration of masculinity. Beauvoir proposes to understand masculinity as a situation. It is an impasse as men are stuck in a position where they seek recognition from women, but they construct women in such a way that the recognition women can give them is incomplete and unsatisfying. This understanding of masculinity is crucial for Beauvoir’s emancipatory agenda and suggests that men have nonaltruistic reasons to take part in feminist movements.

In the last decade, the importance of Simone de Beauvoir’s contribution to 20th-century French philosophy has been beyond debate. However, it can be tempting to read her contributions as the dated beginnings of feminist philosophy, and to believe that her work is only interesting from the perspective of the history of philosophy. To the contrary, this article claims that contemporary philosophers can and should take Beauvoirian philosophy as a source of fruitful insights on contemporary issues in political and moral philosophy (...) by showing the limited scope of two classic critiques of Beauvoir and by defending the relevance of her work for thinking about female submission and the importance of erotic experience. (shrink)

English Title “Living Philosophy: Beauvoir’s Memoirs as a philosophical ‘œuvre’”. This paper seeks to remedy the lack of philosophical analyses of the philosophical dimension of Beauvoir’s autobiographical work in using the existentialist link Beauvoir establishes between life and philosophy to make three points: first, her Memoirs constitute a crucial documentary resource to understand Beauvoir’s essays and the original philosophical stance she defends in them. Second, Memoirs show a two-way relationship between philosophy and life, on an epistemic and on a practical (...) level. Third, autobiography is a way to overcome the inherent flaws of philosophy when it’s written in 3rd person: only a literary account allows to make appear a singular universal that displays the tension between situation and freedom in an authentic way. (shrink)