The concept of mitsein in the philosophy of Simone De Beauvoir and Martin Heidegger

It is a complicated process for a woman to realize her existence and to find her own self in this existence. Simone De Beauvoir has shown a roadmap in her book, The Second Sex, so that women can be aware of their own existence and define their own self. In the historical process of the existence of the individual, a distinction between the sexes has been determined, and therefore the existence of woman has been seen as something other than that of man. Beauvoir represented in the book that women are made into objects and the reasons for this situation. At this point, Beauvoir stated the necessity of learning to co-exist as human beings as his aim in the introduction to his book. While examining the situation of women, Beauvoir included Hegel's master-slave dialectic and Martin Heidegger's definition of mitsein. The content of the study on Beauvoir's definition of mitsein is about how mitsein and master- slave dialectic can be together without conflict. Heidegger mentioned in his most influential work Being and Time that mitsein belongs to the essence of Dasein. Heidegger, in Being and Time, examined how the concept of being has been forgotten and what being means. Heidegger has made an ontological study of the problem of Being through the concept of Being of Dasein. Heidegger has also used the concept of mitsein in Beauvoir based on existential philosophies. The main purpose of this study is to reveal the significance of the concept of mitsein within the framework of existential thoughts by considering the important concepts in the philosophies of both philosophers, such as others, transcendence, immanence, and to create a synthesis between these two philosophers again based on the concept of mitsein. Key Words: Beauvoir, Heidegger, mitsein, other, das Man, existentialism, selfness