ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author traces the development of her fundamental notion of ambiguity from Pyrrhus and Cineas to The Second Sex. She also explicates the notion of disclosure of existence as Beauvoir appropriates it in connection to the notion of the appeal to the Other. The author explains that Beauvoir’s reflections on philosophy, the role of literature, and her usage of multiple modes of expression are all part of her phenomenological method. She shows that Beauvoir’s phenomenology supports an ethics of authenticity that champions ambiguity and freedom. Beauvoir introduces an important distinction between the physiological body, which she refers to under the banner of “biological data,” and the lived body of embodied intentional free consciousness. In addition to phenomenology as a philosophical method, metaphysical literature is another methodological tool that can bring about the disclosure of existence that Beauvoir’s ethico-political imperative necessitates.
