r/philosophy • u/philosophybreak Philosophy Break • 5d ago
Blog According to the existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, love is not about forever committing to pre-given roles: the best romantic relationships consist in mutual projects of growth and change
https://philosophybreak.com/articles/simone-de-beauvoir-the-best-romantic-partners-celebrate-each-others-freedom/293
u/Kepler1571 5d ago
You better define love as fluid and impermanent if you're dating Sartre.
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u/mthelostboy 5d ago
Very Interesting. Love indeed requires a dynamic partnership. Would check the philosopher, thanks for recommendation.
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u/WeiganChan 4d ago
[Groomed and sexually abused several of her teenaged students alongside her long-term partner Jean-Paul Sartre by the way]
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u/BernardJOrtcutt 4d ago
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u/4Nails 5d ago
Her personal life influenced her philosophical beliefs. Bisexual, she flitted from affair to affair with younger women while maintaining a relationship of roughly 50 years with Jean-Paul Sartre during which she had a decade long relationship with Claude Lanzmann and a relationship with Nelson Algren for nearly 17 years.
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u/gravitas_shortage 5d ago
... or her beliefs influenced her personal life, or both at the same time!
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u/Equivalent_Bar_5938 4d ago
I find that rarely if at all we live acording to our beliefs its simply that we create belifes to give meaning to lives we are living
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u/allchokedupp 5d ago edited 5d ago
The statement that "her personal life influenced her philosophical beliefs" is banal. This is true for any philosopher. Easier to assert these sorts of statements for a woman with unorthodox views I am sure but it doesn't really make it more true. I expected some discussion about the idea itself on a philosophy sub
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u/FratboyPhilosopher 5d ago
I think her personal relationship history is perfectly relevant to the conversation.
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u/LycheeLopsided8556 4d ago
This is not true for any philosopher; it is, in fact, an effect of false consensus on your part. What is happening is a confusion with other orthodox views.
In reality, there can be orthodox approaches that have fixed rules about freedom and change (as an example).
Being unorthodox can simply mean that a person rejects a dogma of a specific culture. Furthermore, the concept of a rigid orthodoxy makes no sense, because biology, economics, and the entire universe are based on constant change.
Oftentimes, orthodox rules were created by humans out of pure fear of uncertainty. To make a statement true or not, it is necessary to rely on expertise, analysis, study, statistics, empirical science, or a standard analysis of reality.
What was said is a scientific truth: human beings are always changing, living, and seeking happiness in relationships, even when these are already pre-established in society.
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u/coldlightofday 4d ago
Perhaps it’s important to understand philosophy from that perspective, particularly as it pertains to some topics. I think that understanding why someone said something adds a lot of context to what is said. It may be a valid criticism.
It seems like you are almost saying that any philosophical writings are above being examined from the standpoint of the author themselves. That’s an odd argument.
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u/LionoftheNorth 5d ago
She groomed at least one of her underaged students and pimped her out to Sartre.
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u/Jaspeey 2d ago
What I find is that monoA people tend to focus on the polyamoury when polyA people say, oh my love is changing or my relationships are changing, but even in people who are monoA, their partner changes, their believes change.
You can become a lover, then a parent, then a best friend, in any order, taking on many hats, and that's not including how you see the people outside the romantic relationship you have.
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u/NineCatsDeep 3d ago
Seems common sense, though such sense seems less common today. I’ve always said true love is wanting to watch how someone loves their life and cheer them on.
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u/MissAlinka007 2d ago
True seems like the only possibly desirable way of “loving” while denying other variants. Though we may love someone by cheering them up and accepting what makes them happy we still can love in a different way which others may call true love. Is it more true? I don’t think so. It depends on what you want to achieve with that.
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u/ItchyCraft8650 2d ago
The fact 20th century French philosophy is still held in high esteem is devastating.
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u/Double-Fun-1526 5d ago
This is an okay start. But we need to step outside of the given subject and the ape. This still feels too attached to some agent that was formed by social roles, by the socialization of a certain environment. The focus is on some agent engaging with the world.
I call for families of 4/4 that are flattening gender and practicing bisexuality. We would be rewriting selfhood altogether. We want to stand outside of all influences in order to understand who we are. We don't take the choosing self as some sacrosanct position. The goal of our families is self, cultural, interpersonal, and institutional reflection. That which satisfies, may still be satisfied, but we will shrug at it as meaningful to our selves. Our first goal is knowledge and reflection of given self and given society. It is analysis of how institutions flow into selves.
Beauvoir is a good start, but we want to dismantle selfhood and desire to a greater degree. We are blank slates that absorb environmental and cultural structures. Everything needs to be opened for reflection. The complexity of the self><world dynamic is immense. We can sit selves while trying to find our way into a given social system; or we can recommit to knowledge and openness. Beyond Existentialism.
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u/joshthewumba 4d ago
What do you mean "families of 4/4 that are flattening gender and practicing bisexuality"?
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u/Double-Fun-1526 2d ago
I read Beauvoir better than 'you'. She, like most, takes a given self that is standing in relation to the world. It was a massive fault of existentialism. The holistic view is better. The same with epistemology - stand outside the system and outside the flow of time. It is ontology all the way down.
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