Beauvoir’s transcendence concept is largely non-Sartrean, especially in The Second Sex

Evidence

Th e uniquely Beauvoirian sense of transcendence at play in Pyrrhus and Cinéas continues throughout the works she published in the later 1940s. Transcendence takes on an ethical dimension when incorporated in an existentialist account of oppression in Th e Ethics of Ambiguity, in which Beauvoir makes clear that transcendence is achieved, not in the relatively ephemeral labor required for the maintenance of life, but in the “constructive movements” of men and women who set up the world of tomorrow and push the progress of humanity forward (EA, 82–83). Th e concept of transcendence gains its greatest prominence in Th e Second Sex, in which Beauvoir couples transcendence with the Hegelian concept of immanence in her analyses of female oppression. Th roughout these works, Beauvoir occasionally trades between a Sartrean sense of transcendence and her own sense of transcendence, but, particularly in Th e Second Sex, the predominant meaning of the concept is not Sartrean. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 578

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s working interest in the Beauvoir–Sartre authorship/influence debate: shows Beauvoir maintaining a distinct philosophical concept rather than being derivative. — connects to: Beauvoir synthesized Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, exceeding both, to write the Second Sex — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 63; Beauvoir’s Second Sex reuses Sartre’s slimy imagery to describe feminine sexuality — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 386; Beauvoir’s concept of sexual difference derives from Merleau-Ponty, not Sartre. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 399 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle: Beauvoir’s immanence/transcendence coupling as the hinge on which she breaks from Sartrean ontology — a case study in how a concept migrates and transforms between philosophical partners.

Broader Connections

• Beauvoir innovated by pairing Hegel’s immanence with transcendence only in The Second Sex #corroborates (0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 594
• Beauvoir’s transcendence and immanence derive from gendered biology, not Sartrean metaphysics #corroborates (0.82) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 600
• Beauvoir’s concept of transcendence evolves from Sartre’s metaphysics toward an active Hegelian sense #expands (0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 591
• Beauvoir’s The Second Sex applied existentialist method to the history of patriarchy #qualifies (0.72) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 666