This is so far the best non-fiction book I have read this year. Every single page contains something you wouldn't want to not highlight or not take note of. Simone explained in a clear and simple way the Existentialist philosophy and I was dazzled by the way she tackled heavy subjects that gravitate around it such as freedom, utility, revolution, the right to kill, the meaning of life.. She quoted,analysed and challenged many renown figures such as Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard....

"We are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite."

L’homme est une passion inutile.- Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Etre et le Néant (1943) Le propre de toute morale c'est de considérer la vie humaine comme une partie que l'on peut gagner ou perdre, et d'enseigner à l'homme le moyen de gagner.- Simone de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l'ambiguïté (1947) (*) Any philosophical work is an expression of a culture at a particular moment of time as well as of the individual author's personality and experience. The middle class Parisian intellectuals who produced

Good tips on how to not accidentally become a fascist, and other stuff. I'm not at all well-read in philosophy, but this relatively short text seemed to me to be an excellent introduction to existentialism. The whole idea around "ambiguity" (as I understand it) is that life isn't going to plop down a nicely wrapped package of Meaning into your lap - you have to create meaning in every moment. This contrasts with the idea of "absurdity" (see Camus), which suggests that not only can meaning not be...

This is one of my favorite books, and definitely my favorite philosophy book. It is by far one of the best books on existentialism. As you can tell from looking at the length of the book, she is very concise in her writing. This is a good thing as you don't have to put up with the fluff that some philosophers seem to enjoy so much. Don't be fooled by the length - this is not an easy read. I've read it 3 times and constantly want to go back for more because I get something new each time. For thos...

Oh, Simone. You lend thoughtful sobriety to Sartrean and Camus-ian existential whingeing. Frankly though, existentialist writings (in the form of philosophical treatises, NOT novels - in fact, NEVER novels) tire me. This one got a bit tedious - I dislike zigzagging from grandiosity to brutal specifics - but things picked up in the end. Favorite lines: (1) "My contemplation is an excruciation only because it is also a joy."(2) "The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity.

“Ethics is the triumph of freedom over facticity.”Beauvoir did a brilliant analysis of the ethical condition of man which Sartre at the end of his masterpiece Being and nothingness promised he would do,but he was unable to kept his promise. Since man is only an useless passion in Sartre's view,then how can we give any sense of ethical meaning in our daily conduct?That's why, people very often complained about the impracticality of existential philosophy. But Beauvoir, in this book,just made it c...

I occaisionally wake in the night and have difficulty getting back to sleep. During a difficult part of my life I was reading Seven Types of Ambiguity and noticed it put me to sleep. I started reading it when I woke in the night and found it helped. Over the last year The Ethics of Ambiguity has had this role. This is probably way more than you want to know about my sleeping habits, but it explains why it has taken me so long to finish this book. It also points-up how dense the writing is, and t...

Existentialism was, for a sweet minute, the new way to think about self and the world in the 20th century; but few—so very precious few—understood anything about it. Christians were probably the primary reason it bombed among traditionalists, but its novel language, complex ideas, and deep avowal of the value of personal choice were strong determinants of its unrecognized benefits. So what is it exactly that Existentialism offers? Simone de Beauvoir does a wonderful job drawing out the practical...

With the the Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir outlines an existentialist ethics, of which she was inspired to write by Jean-Paul Sartre’s promise to do so at the end of 'Being and Nothingness' in 1943. A book that he wrote many notes for, but which he never completed. The Ethics of Ambiguity is one of de Beauvoir’s most intriguing and original philosophical works. But is the theory it contains defensible? And does it give us practical guidance for how to live our lives? This, of course is...

De Beauvoir largely succeeds here in refuting the ridiculous claims that people used when trying to argue against the existentialists. Her prose is fairly straight forward (at least compared to Sartre's) and her arguments are very well crafted. You really get a sense in this work of how existential thought arose as a response to the butchery of the second world war. She puts a more human face on her ideas than Sartre. Her concept of ambiguity in the book's conclusion deftly predicts much of the

To attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.

“For a freedom wills itself genuinely only by willing itself as an indefinite movement through the freedom of others; as soon as it withdraws into itself, it denies itself on behalf of some object which it prefers to itself: we know well enough what sort of freedom the P. R. L. demands: it is property, the feeling of possession, capital, comfort, moral security. We have to respect freedom only when it is intended for freedom, not when it strays, flees itself, and resigns itself. A freedom which

"Existentialism does not offer to the reader the consolation of an abstract evasion; existentialism proposes no evasion." SdBAs a nascent reader of philosophy I was fatigued by the on-again-off-again lucidity of her discourse, but not enough to quit. The accessibility and meaning of her prose oscillated; for me comprehension ebbed and flowed from page to page. However, the steadfast reader endures, trusting that at some point her heady prose will make sense and then BAM! they do, the proverbial

I don’t know what de Beauvoir I’d saying half the time, but when I do know what she’s saying blows my mind.

I was told this was a good book for "beginners" but I struggled so much with this, have been reading it since May and had to push myself through. What Simone says is nevertheless fascinating and vital to the existential school of thought but the density of this text was too heavy for me. I am going to try Simone's fiction and read some hopefully easier texts and then maybe I can revisit this.

The term "existentialism" has been, like "postmodern" or "hipster," so stretched to death that it has long since stopped meaning anything at all. But Simone de Beauvoir makes a good go of trying to fit the ethics of an existentialist age-- one defined, not by meaninglessness as is so often presupposed as ambiguity-- into a more comprehensive framework for understanding the world. She finds herself, in true existentialist fashion, developing more questions than answers, and more negations and dea...

It surprised me that I enjoyed this book so much, because normally I can't stand studying ethics. However Simone de Beauvoir made some very strong, valid points in this piece. Having lived through both the world wars and being very involved, along with Sartre, in the French political scene she was able to gain tremendous insight into the ethical dilemmas that come around with any human action on a large scale. The section titled 'The Antimonies of Action' was particularly interesting as she diss...

I liked this book, but I am not sure I will remember it in a few weeks. I don't read a lot of philosophy, and I probably picked up this book because it was cheap at Half-Priced Books and because I like SdB and Sartre, and their separate discussion about freedom. However, I have not read Being and Nothingness, which I should read and then reread this book to know what the exact critique is. Still, I found it useful in "diagnosing" different people's types of covering up their knowledge that they

It is indeed a tour de force on de Beauvoir's part to succeed in turning the absurdity of the human condition into a dialectic of ambiguity which proposes that "we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite." This book is actually a very uplifting and liberating book which does not propose an evasion from our human condition but a way to transcend it.