Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence evolves from Sartre’s metaphysics toward an active Hegelian sense

Evidence

Pyrrhus and Cinéas thus uses “transcendence” to refer not only to the upsurge of the for-itself, nor only to the projection of the self into the world through any conscious activity, but also to an active mode of existence, fi lled with accomplishments and a continual surpassing of a given state of aff airs. One salient diffi culty with the simultaneous presence of these concepts of transcendence in this work, however, is the incommensurability of the former Sartrean senses of transcendence with the latter sense of transcendence as constructive activity. Where the latter Beauvoirian sense excludes passivity and repose from transcendence, the metaphysical sense includes any movement of intentional consciousness, even those that occur in moments of passivity. Transcendence cannot consistently refer to any subjective movement of consciousness and yet to the considerably more circumscribed set of human actions that accomplish, produce, or push back the boundaries of the present. … Th e eventual maturation of the concept of transcendence in Th e Second Sex, in which transcendence designates an active, creative mode of existence, indicates that Beauvoir ultimately fi nds a more Hegelian sense of transcendence to be more fruitful than a metaphysical sense of transcendence. Pyrrhus and Cinéas, at any rate, clearly breaks beyond a Sartrean sense of transcendence to develop a sense that is more illuminating for questions concerning the human need for meaningful action in the world. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 591

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Second Sex’s famous transcendence/immanence distinction and to the broader Sartre-Beauvoir influence debate — Beauvoir departing from rather than borrowing Sartre’s category. — connects to: Beauvoir’s The Second Sex applied existentialist method to the history of patriarchy — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 666; Sartre’s reading recast Beauvoir’s Hegelian consciousness-world unity into his own lack-and-negation framework — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 244; Hegelian Other-mediation marks the central early Beauvoir-Sartre divide — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 253 (+7 more)
• SEED: An essay angle: tracing the single term ‘transcendence’ across Beauvoir’s oeuvre as a case study of how philosophical concepts migrate and mutate between thinkers.
• DEFINE: Distinguishes three senses of transcendence operating in Pyrrhus et Cinéas: Sartrean for-itself upsurge, projective activity, and constructive-accomplishment activity.
• QUESTION: The author claims Beauvoir’s mature transcendence is ‘more Hegelian’ — worth checking which Hegel sources and how this reading stacks against the Beaufret/Heidegger lineage.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence developed independently from Sartre’s, not from borrowing #contradicts (0.92) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 576
• Beauvoir innovated by pairing Hegel’s immanence with transcendence only in The Second Sex #qualifies (0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 594