The 1929 agrégation jury judged Beauvoir the more rigorous philosopher of the two
Evidence
Beauvoir and Sartre met in the late 1920s. At the time, Sartre was a student at the École Normale Supérieure and had attempted his agrégation in 1928 without success (he had been too original, and the jury, which was fairly conservative, did not appreciate his style). Beauvoir was attending a conventional Catholic school for women, where she too was preparing for the agrégation. She was introduced to Sartre, and they studied together with other friends. Th e agrégation was very competitive. When they wrote it in 1929, Sartre was ranked fi rst, Beauvoir second (becoming, at age 24, the youngest person ever to receive the agrégation). Th e jury had hesitated for a long time. Th ey thought that Sartre was brilliant but that she was more rigorous and technical. Th ey agreed that, of the two, she was the philosopher! — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 31
Categorization
- XREF: Directly relevant to the core Beauvoir-Sartre authorship/influence debate this reader is researching — the jury’s early verdict on rigor challenges the standard narrative of Sartre as primary intellect. — connects to: Beauvoir ranked second to Sartre in the philosophy agrégation; Beauvoir deliberately concealed cases where she led Sartre intellectually — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 42
- SEED: Angle: the agrégation jury’s preference for Beauvoir’s rigor over Sartre’s brilliance as an early institutional data point in the authorship-influence question.
Broader Connections
- Beauvoir ranked second to Sartre in the philosophy agrégation
#contradicts(0.95) - Beauvoir deliberately concealed cases where she led Sartre intellectually
#complicates(0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 42