Only human activity, unlike animal reproduction, can involve genuine projects.
Evidence
Here we have the key to the whole mystery. On the biological level a species is maintained only by creating itself anew; but this creation results only in repeating the same Life in more individuals… . In the animal, the freedom and variety of male activities are vain because no project is involved… . Whereas in serving the species, the human male also remodels the face of the earth, he creates new instruments, he invents, he shapes the future. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 599
Categorization
- QUESTION: Beauvoir’s cited passage explicitly genders the life/transcendence distinction male, which sits awkwardly with feminist readings; worth tracing how the author handles this.
- XREF: connects to: The possible becomes real only through a person’s project, not as pre-existing logical possibility