Voluptuousness and philosophy (About heart-to-heart secrets of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir)

Abstract

In this article, the subject of analysis is the relationship between philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and writer Simone de Beauvoir. For many years, their friendship and love were accompanied not only by collective creation, but also by speculations of love as anxious existential. The subject of freedom played a significant role in their philosophical reflection. Both of them believed that there is slavish psychology in modern society and claimed that freedom merits not only recognition but also worship.

Sartre thoroughly speculated on “Other” phenomenon. Many thinkers of the XXcentury considered this idea, but Sartre qualified the “Other” not as something exterior, but as an embodiment of one’s interior. French philosopher saw love as self-deceit. In addition to that, as shown the article, this feeling conceals plenty of paradoxes and illusions.

The juxtaposition of two concepts Sartre highlights – facticity and transcendence – plays an important role in this article. The first phenomenon can be easily seen in mundanity. Transcendence, on the other hand, leads human to the world of sublime. However, in real life these conditions mutually complement each other and change places. Facticity often turns into transcendence while transcendence becomes facticity. For Sartre and his companion free love involves neither sadism nor masochism, neither domination nor submission. But such free love is still far from being trouble-free. It is associated with eternal exhausting ineradicable conflict. But Sartre claims that self-deceit is an escape from something that cannot be escaped. Self-deceit phenomenon represents danger for any human existence scheme. It contains the risk of self-deceit. This can be seen as a paradox of consciousness. In its existence it is what it is and simultaneously is not what it is.

When speaking about self-deceit, Sartre points out that everyone is responsible for his being-for-other but is not a basis for it. My relationship with Other, notes Sartre, is wholly defined by my own attitudes towards an object, because I am an object to someone else. It is someone else that keeps the secret of my existence. He knows exactly who I am. But this secret is kept from me. Other covered itself of me. Love union can be proclaimed ideal if it exists without coercion, violence or despotic devotion. In J.-P. Sartre’s opinion love offers every man a complex of projects that are considered through his own abilities.

The authors raise different questions, which are covered in the article. What is the connection between these philosophical ideas and Simone de Beauvoir? Do they reflect the drama of their own emotional and erotic connections? The authors of the article have no doubt in it. Without Beauvoir there would be no Sartre. At least it would be not Sartre as we know him. His passion was the cause for her philosophical breakthroughs. The authors also discuss the version that states many of Sartre’s ideas belonged in fact to Beauvoir. She always denied the credibility of such theories. However, in philosophical circles the opinion that she was the intellectual donor of all that love phenomenology gained traction. If in her place as like-minded person was a man, the priorities would be set differently, but love intrigue adds a different angle to the story.

The documents left after Beauvoir’s demise prove wrong her statements of being uninvolved in Sartre’s philosophical arsenal. The experts claim that Beauvoir’s novel “She Came to Stay” contains overtones of ideas later echoed by Sartre.

In his work “Being and Nothingness” J.-P. Sartre presented a peculiar variation of love phenomenology. Though works of Simone de Beauvoir seem consonant with Sartre’s ideas, they carry an alternative version of free love.

How did people receive love as special gift? The article displays most philosophers acting evasive in response to this question. Different sexes exist and there’s nothing to add to this. However, there is a spectacular philosophical opinion on Myth of the Androgyne. Separated bodies of androgynes search for their other half to escape deprivation. For Beauvoir such interpretation applies more to love, perpetual effort to overcome the separation of human existence. Yet sexuality in this case is still taken for granted.

While delving into the history of philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir brings up names like Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, Merleau-Ponty. However, a reference to Sartre is vital. In “Being and Nothingness” J.-P. Sartre tries to oppose M. Heidegger’s claim that the very finiteness of human existence inevitably implies death. The philosopher is convinced that human existence indeed can be seen as finite, but in the same way, there is reason to interpret it as not bound by time. This idea goes along with the attempts of modern transhumanists to provide human with immortality. Beauvoir’s response to this is an idea both laconic and poignant: if human obtains eternal existence, he will lose the right to be called human. Human is mortal by definition. And individual mortality is replenished by immortality of humankind.

It’s not easy to abandon the feeling that Beauvoir responds to arguments extremely relevant nowadays. For her it is hard to imagine consciousness without a body. Yet such perspective is constantly brought up. Ethereal survival is no longer viewed as something unthinkable. A transfer of consciousness to a silicic medium now is seen as a socio-engineering project. In the meantime, according to Beauvoir, it is possible to imagine society reproducing through parthenogenesis. It is easy to imagine socium consisting of hermaphrodites only. Nevertheless, such train of thought is not very clear yet.

The authors point out that the problems of sadism and masochism have a paradoxical interpretation in French existentialism. In particular, J.-P. Sartre connects the analysis of these phenomena to the analysis of human existence. In a dispute with Simone de Beauvoir, he investigates the basic aspects of a so-called “love” philosophy. The main reference point here is the subject of choice, which allows every human to keep his autonomy, non-engagement in relation to others. Both Sartre and his companion believe that marriage and family don’t let human to exercise their own unlimited freedom. They interpret these concepts as old-fashioned and burdensome to both man and woman. However, in comprehending the essence of love these like-minded persons diverge in opinions. Beauvoir sees love exclusively in the emotional aspect while Sartre stands by a more rational viewpoint, claiming “transcendence” (existence) of love. They believed every human should be the creator of his own destiny. Apostasy from this existential principle manifests itself through two kinds of behavior: masochism and sadism.