Surely we can call Simone de Beauvoir an existentialist without much ado? True, it is a label she later came to accept, yet not easily. De Beauvoir herself seems to have been adverse to labels, even ‘existentialist’. When she was first introduced to the philosopher Jean Grenier at the Café de Flore in 1943, he asked her: “And you Madame, are you an existentialist?” De Beauvoir writes of her reaction: “I had read Kierkegaard. In the context of Heidegger people had for some time talked about the philosophy of ‘Existenz’: but I was not familiar with the word ‘existentialist’, which Gabriel Marcel had just launched. Furthermore, Grenier’s question hurt my modesty and my pride.” In a way existentialism is an anti-label kind of philosophy. We are reminded not to pigeonhole people, including ourselves, too easily – a temptation which will invariably lead us into the trap of ‘bad faith’. Existentialism is also the philosophy of choice, which was of great interest to de Beauvoir. Choice operates on all levels of human existence, from choosing a career to choosing a candybar.

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