1001Philosophers

Jean-Paul Sartre vs Simone de Beauvoir

Sartre and Beauvoir were lifelong philosophical partners and intellectual collaborators, with Beauvoir's work both shaped by and decisively reshaping the existential framework Sartre articulated in Being and Nothingness. The two should be read together rather than in succession.

At a glance

Jean-Paul SartreSimone de Beauvoir
Dates1905 – 19801908 – 1986
NationalityFrenchFrench
EraContemporaryContemporary
Movements Existentialism, Continental Philosophy, Marxism Existentialism, Feminism, Continental Philosophy
Profile Jean-Paul Sartre → Simone de Beauvoir →

Where they agree

Both held that human existence is fundamentally free and self-constituting, both rejected the idea of a fixed human essence, both took political engagement as a test of authentic existence, and both treated literature as a serious philosophical instrument. Beauvoir helped develop the framework Sartre laid out, and Sartre helped develop the political existentialism Beauvoir extended.

Where they disagree

Beauvoir held that Sartre's account of freedom did not adequately address the situation of the other — the way one's freedom can be suppressed, ignored, or constituted as the inessential other by social and historical structures. The Second Sex argues that women have been constituted as the second sex by an asymmetry of recognition that Sartre's individualist existentialism could not by itself analyze. Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity also gives a more fully worked-out existentialist ethics than Sartre had developed, particularly on the obligations of free agents to one another.

Representative quotes

Jean-Paul Sartre

  • “Hell is other people.”

    Alors, c'est ça l'enfer. Je n'aurais jamais cru... vous vous rappelez: le soufre, le bûcher, le gril... ah! Quelle plaisanterie. Pas besoin de gril, l'enfer, c'est les autres.

  • “Existence precedes essence.”

    L'existence précède et commande l'essence.

  • “Man is condemned to be free.”

    Existentialism Is a Humanism, 1946

Simone de Beauvoir

  • “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”

    On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.

  • “I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth, and truth rewarded me.”

    All Said and Done (1972), p. 16 ISBN 1569249814

  • “If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”

    All Men Are Mortal, 1946

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