Early Philosophical Writing

Abstract

In the 1940s Simone de Beauvoir published two strictly philosophical works, Pyrrhus and Cineas in 1944, and The Ethics of Ambiguity in 1947.¹ In the second volume of her memoirs she speaks of the first of these two philosophical works as follows. Early in 1943 Sartre had introduced her to Jean Grenier,² who asked her whether she was an existentialist. She recalls her embarrassment at the question, notwithstanding the fact that she had read Kierkegaard and was familiar with the expression existential philosophy which, she says, had been applied for some time to the writings of Heidegger. Yet she didn’t, she confesses, understand the meaning of the word existentialist, a word which had only recently been coined by Gabriel Marcel. Besides, she adds, ‘Grenier’s question clashed with my modesty and my pride alike. I was not of sufficient importance, objectively considered, to merit any such label; as for my ideas, I was convinced that they reflected the truth rather than some entrenched doctrinal position.’³