The Phenomenology of Adventure: Simmel, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Jankélévitch

This article is concerned with the philosophical question of what it is like to experience an adventure. It draws from four works that discuss this question, namely Georg Simmel’s “The Adventure,” Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Nausea,” de Beauvoir’s “Ethics of Ambiguity,” and Vladimir Jankélévitch’s “Adventure, Boredom, Seriousness.” From these works, three characteristics of adventurous experiences are drawn. The first is that adventure is something that can only exist in contrast with everyday life. The second is that adventure has a goal-directed structure. The last is that adventures have a different structure in hindsight than they have in the moments that they are lived. These characteristics are used to shed new light on the desire for adventure and a meaningful life in contemporary society.