Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher, novelist, feminist, public intellectual and activist, and one of the major figures in existentialism in post-war France.  She is best known for her trailblazing work in feminist philosophy, The Second Sex, but her original contributions to existentialism and phenomenology can be found across her work.  Beauvoir has made enduring contributions to the fields of ethics, social and political philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology and feminist philosophy and her significance as an activist and public intellectual are clear. Beauvoir’s life and work continue to inspire contemporary research and debate in the discipline of philosophy and beyond. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Want to learn more about Beauvoir? Consider these courses:

PHI 120: Perspectives in Philosophy
PHI 220: Ethics
PHI 314: Modern Social and Political Thought
PHI 330: Existentialism and Phenomenology
PHI 361: Feminist Philosophies

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who is famous for uncompromising criticisms of traditional European morality and religion, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and social and political aspects of modernity. Many of these criticisms rely on psychological diagnoses that expose false consciousness infecting people’s received ideas. Nietzsche also used his analyses to support original theories about the nature of the self and provocative proposals suggesting new values that he thought would promote cultural renewal and improve social life by comparison to life under the traditional values he criticized. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein continues to influence current philosophical thought in topics as diverse as logic and language, perception and intention, ethics and religion, aesthetics and culture, and even political thought. At the start of World War I, Wittgenstein joined the Austrian army. He was taken captive and spent months of the war at a prison camp. It was during the war that he wrote the notes and drafts of his first important work. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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