Clear all
Persona #71

Simone de Beauvoir

1908–1986
French philosopher, novelist, foundational figure of modern feminist theory

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman — existentialist freedom met by the structural situation of women

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where personas disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid (32 attributes) is shown.

Attribute Simone de Beauvoir
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature implicit
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality implicit
Matter · Extent Finite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality implicit
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Immediate
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method N/A
Energy · Extent Finite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Emergent
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Non-conserved
Information · Granularity implicit

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each persona's writings reveal about their stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Simone de Beauvoir

Linear, uni-directional, non-deterministic. Beauvoir's philosophy of time is closer to Sartre's than to Heidegger's but adds the dimension of historical structure that situates the individual project.

Space

Simone de Beauvoir

Conventional twentieth-century.

Matter

Simone de Beauvoir

Substantival, conserved. Beauvoir's phenomenology of embodiment — particularly female embodiment — is one of her major contributions; the body is the situation, not merely the instrument, of consciousness.

Observer

Simone de Beauvoir

A single embodied consciousness, plural and structurally situated among others. Active agency through the project of authentic freedom. Metaphysical agency: None.

Energy

Simone de Beauvoir

Conventional twentieth-century.

Information

Simone de Beauvoir

Cosmic-scale: conserved. Personal-identity: non-conserved — Beauvoir is an atheist about death.

Internal Tensions

Where each persona's working synthesis strains against itself.

Simone de Beauvoir

Beauvoir's relation to organised second-wave feminism was complicated by her long partnership with Sartre — she was sometimes read as the philosophical second to a male principal, against the substance of her own work. The deeper philosophical tension between universalist existentialist freedom and the structural situation of women is the productive engine of The Second Sex; subsequent feminist theory has pushed both sides of the tension in directions Beauvoir herself did not pursue.