Skandal śmierci: Simone de Beauvoir o ludzkiej skończoności
The Scandal of Death: Simone de Beauvoir on Human Finitude

Summary/Abstract: Death and finitude were important characteristics of the human condition for the existentialists, including Simone de Beauvoir. Defining human activity as disclosing the world, the philosopher fulfilled this task through the act of writing. The theme of death appeared frequently in her works, and her memoirs can be considered an example of (auto)thanatography. Being a witness to someone’s dying forced her to contemplate finitude, which makes it possible to extract from her works a certain philosophical conception of death, based both on rebellion and fear of death (death as a ‘scandal’, an ‘accident’, a ‘violation’), and on relief that we are mortal (death as giving meaning to the totality of human life). The fear of death is a natural phenomenon, but the persistent horror becomes an obsession, one that Beauvoir herself manifested on finitude. The source of this obsession was the experience of oppression, of discrimination on the basis of both gender and age. Ultimately, however, the existentialist proposes an attitude of heroic affirmation; she also suggests ways in which we can overcome fear and accept our own finitude.

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