Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 1-3, The Aesthetic Attitude, Freedom and Liberation, The Antinomies of Action Summary and Analysis

Beauvoir has argued that every man has to do with other men but some will object that if freedom consists in being so related, one cannot will to be free because one is nearly almost always free by being around others. Beauvoir calls this attitude aesthetic because those who adopt it claim to only approach the world through detached contemplation. Many take this aesthetic attitude during moments of confusion and despair. Yet the present is still a moment of choice and action. Man never purely contemplates; he acts. The writer and the artist often approach the world through contemplation but there would be no point in it...