It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.

To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.

Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity

Simone de Beauvoir, novelist, dramatist, and philosopher, was the most distinguished woman writer in modern France. A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of Jean-Paul Sartre. In "The Ethics of Ambiguity," Madame de Beauvoir penetrates at once to the central ethical problems of modern man: what shall he do, how shall he go about making values, in the face of this awareness of the absurdity of his existence? She forces the reader to face the absurdity of the human condition and then, having done so, proceeds to develop a dialectic of ambiguity which will enable him not to master the chaos, but to create with it.

Alexandru Pisica's Key Ideas from The ethics of ambiguity, tr
by Simone de Beauvoir

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Discover Key Ideas from Books on Similar Topics

Alexandru Pisica's Key Ideas from The ethics of ambiguity, trby Simone de Beauvoir

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

Discover Key Ideas from Books on Similar Topics

Alexandru Pisica's Key Ideas from The ethics of ambiguity, tr
by Simone de Beauvoir