Textual analysis techniques have been applied to a variety of domains including business ([23]; [76]; [85]), management ([58]; [27]; [46]), philosophy ([60]; [85]; [87]), politics ([29]; [30]; [56]), and sociology ([10]; [15]; [78]), to name just a few. Whereas these domains are distinct, there is a degree of consistency in the underlying approach. Under the overarching category of textual analysis reside a variety of distinct analytic techniques ([11]; [47]; [52]), including word (bigram) frequency analysis, sentiment analysis, and LDA. This section contains a summary of published research making use of these textual analysis techniques.

In some respects, word and by extension, bigram frequency analysis is one of the simplest forms of textual analysis. In its most basic construction, this technique represents the counting of the number of occurrences of a given individual word or phrase ([47]; [73]). This is useful, as frequent terms or phrases can suggest the focus of a given document. As indicated by [62], “word frequency analysis is important for information retrieval and keyword extraction from a particular document” (p. 3). However, one should be careful not to conflate simple word frequency with either importance or reader focus. Whereas one might initially assume that higher-frequency words are attuned to more diligently by a reader, research by [50] suggests that “high-frequency words receive shorter fixations and are skipped more often than low-frequency words” (p. 3). Further, [6] found that focusing too much on word frequency can result in one overlooking “the text’s syntactical structure” (para. 2). This is consequential, as what an author feels compelled to elaborate on might actually work against reader attention. In short, one should take care not to infer more than is implied by word or bigram frequency.

Applications of textual analysis can be, and frequently are, extended to include sentiment analysis. Depending on the lexicon selected, the sentiment analysis can be constrained to an assessment of the text’s polarity (i.e., positive or negative), its degree of positivity/negativity, or its emotional content ([73]). The AFINN sentiment lexicon ([57]) measures sentiment at the word-level (i.e., unigrams) on a scale of −5 to +5, with no neutral values. Prior applications of sentiment analyses have been wide-ranging. Given its prominence, it is reasonable to question the utility of sentiment analysis, or ask why it has been routinely applied as part of textual analyses. [9] indicated that sentiment analysis is “highly useful for studying public perception… and provides a timely method to analyze opinion topics” (p. 146). At the term-level, word selection can influence reader response and convey author intent. However, sentiment assessments are not necessarily straightforward exercises. [71] explained that “sentiment analysis in real-world settings faces the common issue of domain dependency” (p. 2). Interpretation is always context-dependent. This is especially problematic in the domain of philosophy, in which the technical understanding of topics and terms can be radically different from those commonly held or used ([18]; [63]; [81]; [93]). One approach for dealing with this concern is for one to consider context directly and explicitly. As indicated by [94], “by capturing how word-level sentiment emerges from surrounding context”, one is able to produce “a more nuanced and transparent understanding of which words or phrases drive the overall sentiment” (p. 321). Consistent with this view, applications of sentiment analysis, especially as it relates to philosophical works, should make the analytic context specific. This can be accomplished by providing the segments of texts being analyzed prior to the application of sentiment analysis techniques so that the context is defined adequately.

LDA was developed by [13] and is a computer-based approach for conducting thematic analysis. This approach uses an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to identify latent topics, or themes, within a text based on the aggregation of terms that were determined mathematically to occur frequently together ([13]; [73]). This approach has been applied extensively. Through these applications, insights have emerged that are worthy of consideration. First, as indicated by [51], “LDA-driven topic modelling has the potential to enrich… research by providing a quantitative summary of key themes and qualitatively unveiling their evolution over time” (p. 596). This is because an application of LDA to a text holds the potential to produce insights that would not be gained otherwise, and due to the algorithm, the produced themes are repeatable and verifiable. However, like sentiment analysis, LDA thematic analysis is not without its risks. [53] noted that an application of LDA “risks analytical ambiguity, because topic models primarily capture patterns of word co-use and may conflate issues with frames” and that “fuller frame reconstruction therefore requires additional interpretative or relational analysis beyond topic extraction” (p. 2). Further, research by [39] found that LDA “does not read the nuances in the context of phrases” being analyzed (p. 11). As a result, and similar to that of sentiment analysis, an application of LDA benefits from the addition of context and explication as one applies this analytic technique. Consequently, one should consider providing the textual material being analyzed, either in terms of sentiment or themes, to the degree practicable.

Collectively, these approaches (i.e., LDA, sentiment, word, and bigram analyses) have been beneficially applied across a variety of different fields, domains, and contexts. As the previous research suggests, word (bigram) frequency analysis, sentiment analysis, and LDA are commonly applied textual analysis techniques. One can apply these techniques to a variety of domains, including philosophy and existentialism. To determine if an application of these techniques to de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity would be beneficial, it is essential to examine previous research on that work.

As previously indicated, research on de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity has covered a wide range of topics and perspectives. Existing research has examined topics ranging from education ([84]) to feminism ([2]; [20]; [83]), and from political violence ([37]) to race ([16]), among others. Whereas each of these studies contributes something potentially meaningful to an understanding of this consequential work by de Beauvoir, it is the research related to the topics of ethics ([32]; [75]; [77]; [80]) and ontology ([5]) that are the most directly relevant to the aims of this study. As such, insights from these studies are worthy of further examination and development.

Because the application of The Ethics of Ambiguity ([24]) to the area of ontology holds a single published work, and the topic of ontology is in some respects more fundamental than that of ethics, this research is examined first. As explained by [5], “Beauvoir…builds on the ontological framework set up in Being and Nothingness,” but concludes that her “argument does not necessarily presuppose the full-blown version of Sartre’s ontology.” (p. 268). This ontological positioning quickly moves to a consideration of de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics. Arp explained that as a consequence of the ontology adopted by de Beauvoir, she “concentrates only on the relation between individual human beings and ‘the human world established by man’s projects and ends’, not on the relation between humans and the in-itself” (p. 268). This insight provides a useful transition point to consider the published research focused most directly on de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics.

It stands to reason that if there was going to be a body of research associated with de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, a significant amount of that research would be focused upon the ethical positions staked within that text. This is certainly the case. Further, the research of [5] illustrates that it is a relatively small step from looking at the ontological position established by de Beauvoir to examining the ethics presented in her work. Much can be derived from a review of the research, which is primarily focused on that ethical construct. As previously referenced, there is a significant body of work focused on de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics ([32]; [75]; [77]; [80]). For [75], “de Beauvoir’s ethics springs from the heart and leads to a relational experience in a constructive moment. Modern utilitarian ethics and universal morality are thus undermined; a context for the emergence of a postmodern ethics of freedom is established,” and that “by exposing the ambiguity of the human context, de Beauvoir successfully unites individual freedom and human solidarity” (p. 21). For [80] the term ambiguity covered “a wide semantic spectrum,” and that for de Beauvoir the term “designates the co-implication of inner agency and external constraints that, in their partiality, neither abstract rationalism/idealism nor social objectivism/materialism can succeed in unravelling” (p. 13). From Slattery and Morris’ work, the notion of freedom stands out as an important point of focus, whereas from Terzi, one is confronted by the complexity associated with de Beauvoir’s notion of ambiguity in her existentialist ethics. Gayman’s work ([32]), while focused, at least indirectly, on that of de Beauvoir, is most directly an assessment of Arp’s treatment of de Beauvoir’s work rather than a unique assessment of the work itself. Similarly, [77]’s focus was on applying de Beauvoir’s work to understand Confucian role ethics ([77]). As such, these works are acknowledged, but not interrogated further.

Whereas this research has been both extensive and varied, there is not a comprehensive textual analysis conducted on the key categorical terms related to the essential distinction made by de Beauvoir in this work, that is, between the concepts of the absurd and ambiguity, and their respective correlates of absurdity and ambiguous. This is consequential as these terms, as developed by de Beauvoir, are philosophically irreducible to each other, and can only be grasped adequately in contradistinction to each other. This study aims to address this gap in the existing research through the application of the research method presented in the following section (Section 3).

This section contains a comprehensive summary of statements from The Ethics of Ambiguity ([24]), focused on the terms absurd and absurdity. As indicated in the introduction (Section 1), “the notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity” ([24]: p. 129). As such, the absurdacts as an important point of contradistinction to ambiguity in this work. Consequently, these statements are foundational for understanding de Beauvoir’s pivot from the absurd to the ambiguous. The statements associated with the term absurd are presented in , and those associated with the term absurdity are presented in .

Table 1. Comprehensive summary of statements including the term Absurd in The Ethics of Ambiguity.

Much existential insight can be gained from a review of de Beauvoir’s statements on the absurd ([24]). There were 12 such occurrences in The Ethics of Ambiguity, which accounts for 20% of the occurrences analyzed in this study. Whereas not each of the sentences in will be referenced, selecting a few of the key statements is useful for exploring de Beauvoir’s treatment of the absurd. First, de Beauvoir noted that “existentialism is a philosophy of the absurd” (p. 10). Second, within this existential perspective, one must justify one’s own existence or be condemned to “the absurd facticity of an existence which remains forever unjustified” ([24]: p. 45). Freedom figures prominently in the existential project. As de Beauvoir said, one can “realize one’s freedom in its empathy and absurd form of freedom of indifference” (p. 47). This existential freedom is situated most directly in the living of one’s life. For de Beauvoir, “a life justifies itself only if its effort to perpetuate itself is integrated into its surpassing” (p. 83). There are limits and consequences to this freedom. As de Beauvoir explained, one is forced to choose “between the negation of one freedom or another,” and that “every war supposes a discipline, every revolution a dictatorship, every political move a certain amount of lying” (p. 113). The fulcrum point of de Beauvoir’s argument is that “to declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning” (p. 129). This statement (number 11 in ) includes the term ambiguous, and therefore occurs again in (in which it is statement 7).

Collectively, these statements suggest that for de Beauvoir, existence is not reducible to the absurd, but that it is shaped, necessarily, by confronting it. This understanding is extended by analyzing statements including the term absurdity.

Table 2. Comprehensive summary of statements including the term absurdity in The Ethics of Ambiguity.

Within there are 12 occurrences of the term absurdity, from de Beauvoir’s text ([24]), which represents 20% of the occurrences analyzed. Similar to the analysis of the statements including the term absurd, this overview focused attention on a few statements that reflect key attributes of de Beauvoir’s treatment of existential absurdity. As indicated previously (Section 1), for de Beauvoir, “the notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity” (p. 129). Much of The Ethics of Ambiguity is focused on parsing this distinction. For de Beauvoir, absurdity is associated with “the pure moment” (p. 26), “a life which sought outside of itself the justifications which it alone could give” (p. 52), “facticity” (pp. 71, 97), and “choice” (p. 94). It is probably not too reductionist to assert that existentialism is focused on life, the living of one’s life, and the questioning of accepted ideologies associated with what constitutes a good life. A commonly accepted convention is that parents owe a degree of sacrifice to their children. De Beauvoir considers such a construct absurd, noting that “one can not, without absurdity, indefinitely sacrifice each generation to the following one; human history would then be only an endless succession of negations which would never return to the positive; all action would be destruction and life would be a vain flight” (p. 105). Such a view challenges much of accepted ideology and praxis. However, as de Beauvoir stated, “absurdity challenges every ethics” (p. 129).

Within , statement 11 contains the term ambiguity, and is therefore included in (in which it is statement 19), and statement 12 contains the term ambiguous, and is therefore included in (in which it is statement 8). Through this analysis of de Beauvoir’s treatment of the absurdand absurdity ([24]), one is able to situate them beneficially with and against the concepts of ambiguityand the ambiguous. This understanding is extended further in the following section.

Like the previous section, this section contains a comprehensive summary of statements from [24]The Ethics of Ambiguity, though in this section, the focus is on the statements containing the terms ambiguity and ambiguous. As suggested by the title of her book, ambiguity is the focal point of inquiry. As such, these statements form the essential core of this study. The statements associated with the term ambiguity are presented in , and those associated with the term ambiguous are presented in .

Table 3. Comprehensive summary of statements including the term ambiguity in The Ethics of Ambiguity.

Given that the title of de Beauvoir’s work is The Ethics of Ambiguity, it is perhaps not surprising that there are more statements made containing the term ambiguity than the other terms selected for analysis. As indicated in , there are 26 occurrences containing the term ambiguityin the text. This accounts for 44% of the total occurrences analyzed in this study. Of these 26 occurrences, two (statements 1 & 15) are section headings, statement 19, as previously indicated, is also included as statement 11 in , and statement 15 includes the term ambiguous, and is included in (as statement number 4).

[24] contended that “as long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition.” (p. 7). This places ambiguity close to the core of existentialist philosophy. As de Beauvoir explained, “from the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity” (p. 8). More precisely, as developed by de Beauvoir, existentialist ethics stands in contrast to the approach by those who have accepted dualism which has been focused on “eliminating the ambiguity by making oneself pure inwardness or pure externality, by escaping from the sensible world or by being engulfed in it, by yielding to eternity or enclosing oneself in the pure moment” (p. 8). However, as de Beauvoir explained, from an existentialist perspective, “to attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it” (p. 13). As such, “an ethics of ambiguity will be one which will refuse to deny a priori that separate existants can, at the same time, be bound to each other, that their individual freedoms can forge laws valid for all” (p. 18). Ambiguity, for de Beauvoir, resides at the core of “existence” (p. 58) and the “human condition” (p. 57). Within this existence, freedom has a place of prominence.

Freedom is essential to existentialism. For [24], “the ambiguity of freedom…introduces a difficult equivocation into relationships with each individual taken one by one” (p. 136). This “ambiguity of freedom,” for de Beauvoir, “implies the outrage of violence” (p. 142). The term ambiguity is used by de Beauvoir to situate humans in their existence and to provide insight into the nature of their freedom. In fact, ambiguity is the point of inquiry and focus in de Beauvoir’s ethics. The insights developed here can be further contextualized by examining de Beauvoir’s use of ambiguous, which is presented in .

Table 4. Comprehensive summary of statements including the term ambiguous in The Ethics of Ambiguity.

Within , there are 9 occurrences (15% of the total occurrences), of which 3 statements (statements 4, 7 & 8) have been presented previously. As such, the remaining 6 statements will be focused on more closely here. For de Beauvoir, “the characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost, and to teach man the means of winning,” but that this “original scheme of man is ambiguous” (p. 23). Additionally, de Beauvoir described both “reality” (p. 25) and the human “condition” (pp. 102, 115) as ambiguous. Ambiguous situations make definitive action problematic. As de Beauvoir explained, “in an underground revolutionary movement, when one discovers the presence of a stool-pigeon, one does not hesitate to beat him up; he is a present and future danger who has to be gotten rid of; but if a man is merely suspected of treason, the case is more ambiguous” (p. 149). As this quote makes clear, the ambiguity problematizes ethics, which holds very real implications for human action.

Section 4.2 contained a comprehensive summary of the 59 occurrences made by [24] in The Ethics of Ambiguity related to the terms: a) absurd(n = 12), absurdity (n = 12), ambiguity (n = 26), and ambiguous (n = 9). Collectively, these statements suggest much about the existentialist ethics developed by de Beauvoir. This understanding can be extended further by analysing the frequent words and bigrams of merit associated with these statements.

Whereas care should be taken not to reduce meaning to frequency, as essential insights can always be quite rare in terms of their respective degree of repetition within a text, understanding term frequency can be useful for establishing, at least in a provisional and limited sense, key elements of focus. This section contains the results of the analysis of words and bigrams of merit. The initial words of merit, occurring 3 or more times, related to the four analytic categories are presented in .

Table 5. Initial words of merit related to the four analytic categories.

In examining the most frequent words of merit, occurring 3 or more times, related to [24] statements containing the terms absurd, absurdity, ambiguity, or ambiguous (), the term of focus was the most frequent word of merit across each of the four categories. This result is not surprising as the selection protocol dictated that the selected term must be in each of the respective statements. The next insight is that there was a significant degree of similarity in the most frequent words of merit across the four categories. As an example, the term freedom was prevalent in statements containing, absurd, absurdity, and ambiguity. Such a result suggests two things. First, freedom is an important construct for de Beauvoir’s construction of existentialist ethics, since it cuts across most of the analyzed categories. Second, freedom is not a particularly useful distinguishing topic since it appears frequently across the respective categories. Similar assessments can be made for terms like, existence, ethics, condition, failure, and future. The terms ten (n = 3) and thousand (n= 3) under category of absurdity, was actually a bigram (), and occurred somewhat idiosyncratically within one sentence. More specifically, it was a hypothetical, numeric example that was referenced multiple times within the statement to carry the point through to its intended conclusion. The point being made, rather than the numeric value, was the actual focus of the statement. Removing the categorical terms of assessment, common terms across the categories, and the idiosyncratic terms provided a refined set of terms for analysis. The refined terms are presented in .

Table 6. Refined words of merit related to the four analytic categories.

Focusing on the most refined frequent words of merit, occurring 3 or more times, for the categorical terms of analysis resulted in a more focused point of inquiry. Under the category of absurd, one finds the terms action (n= 4), surpassing (n = 3), and time (n = 3). These terms are well grounded in existentialism ([3]; [8]; [36]; [65]). Existence is time-bound, and the existentialist project is a form of action in which one surpasses being in the project of one’s becoming. It is perhaps unsurprising that these quintessential existentialist terms were found under the absurd, which is the existentialist concept against which [24] situated her ethics. Under the category of absurdity, the only word of merit that remained was facticity (n = 3). Among these occurrences, De Beauvoir described “the absurdity of facticity”, and “the triumph of freedom over facticity” (p. 97).

The category of ambiguityholds the greatest number of frequent words of merit. Among those to be found under this category are world (n = 6), truth (n = 4), attitude (n = 3), human (n = 3), oneself (n= 3), and pure (n = 3). Within this context, [24] referenced pure inwardness, pure externality, and pure moment. Again, terms like world, human, and oneself are not altogether atypical for those operating within existentialist philosophy. There is little to be gained from interrogating those terms much further here. However, there is some worthy insight to be derived from looking at de Beauvoir’s notions of truth and attitude. In terms of truth, de Beauvoir asserted that “to attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it” (p. 13), that “the nihilist attitude manifests a certain truth,” (p. 57), and that one, “understands, dominates, and rejects, in the name of total truth, the necessary partial truths which every human engagement discloses” (p. 68). In terms of attitude, de Beauvoir contended that it is within the nihilist “attitude that one experiences the ambiguity of the human condition,” (p. 57), and that “ambiguity is at the heart of his very attitude” (p. 68). There were no unique words of merit associated with the category of ambiguity.

The insights gained from an analysis of the words of merit can be extended by an analysis of the most frequent bigrams of merit. The results of that analysis are presented in .

Table 7. Most frequent bigrams of merit related to the four analytic categories.

Because bigrams tend to occur less frequently than words ([31]; [70]; [82]), it made sense to be less restrictive in the frequency required to report the bigrams of merit. Whereas a filter of 3 or more occurrences was used in assessing the words of merit, a filter of 2 or more occurrences was used in assessing the bigrams of merit. Even still, very few bigrams of merit were generated, and some of those were idiosyncratic. There were no bigrams of merit for the category of absurd. For the category of absurdity, the only bigram of merit was the phrase ten thousand (n = 3). As previously discussed, that phrase was a specific hypothetical used to convey a point developed by [24]. As such, the phrase itself holds little utility as a unit of inquiry.

In terms of the category ambiguity, there were three bigrams of merit: a) fundamental ambiguity (n=2), b) human condition (n =2), and c) positive aspect (n =2). Given its centrality to existentialism, a focus on the human condition is not surprising. However, addressing fundamental ambiguity is more promising. De Beauvoir admonished that we should “assume our fundamental ambiguity” as “it is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting” (p. 9), and that “the fundamental ambiguity of the human condition will always open up to men the possibility of opposing choices” and that “freedom will never be given; it will always have to be won,” and that this is what was meant by understanding “the future as a permanent revolution” (p. 118). As revealed by this articulation, the concept of fundamental ambiguity can be seen as doing a significant amount of existential and philosophical work in de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity. In terms of positive aspects, de Beauvoir noted that “the taste for adventure… always implies that freedom is realized as an independence in regard to the serious world and that, on the other hand, the ambiguity of existence is felt not as a lack but in its positive aspect” (p. 58). The development of this positive aspect of ambiguity was important enough to de Beauvoir that she entitled a section of her work “The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity” (p. 74).

For the category of ambiguous, the only bigram of merit with 2 or more occurrences was the phrase ambiguous condition (n = 2). In this context, [24] explained that “we see the sophism on which his [a tyrant’s] is based: of the ambiguous condition which is that of all men, he retains for himself the only aspect of a transcendence which is capable of justifying itself; for the others, the contingent and unjustified aspect of immanence” (p. 102), and that “the word future has two meanings corresponding to the two aspect of the ambiguous condition of man which is lack of being and which is existence; it alludes to both being and existence” (p. 115). Thusly situated, much of the existential work of being, for de Beauvoir, occurs within the ambiguous condition of existence.

The most frequent words and bigrams of merit reveal something of the content of de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity and the way she situated([24]), developed, and contextualized it in contradistinction to the absurd. The understanding developed in this section can be extended beneficially by examining the results of the sentiment and thematic analyses conducted on the four analytic categories of this study.

Computer-based algorithms can be useful for assessing the sentiment and thematic content of texts objectively. As indicated previously (Section 3), the AFINN lexicon was used to assess the rhetorical sentiment of the comprehensive statements within each of the four respective analytic categories of this study, whereas LDA was used as the basis for determining the thematic terms. The distribution of sentiment scores, by category, is presented in .

As indicated previously (Section 3), AFINN sentiment scores are bound by a range of −5 (extremely negative) to +5 (extremely positive), with no neutral terms (i.e., 0 sentiment score). As indicated in , there is little observable difference in terms of sentiment across the four categories. For the statements for the term absurd, there was a mean AFINN sentiment score of −0.1 (SD = 2.1, Mdn = −1, mode = 2, range = −3 to 3), for the statements for the term absurdity, there was a mean AFINN sentiment score of -0.6 (SD = 2.2, Mdn = −1, mode = −2, range = −3 to 4), for the statements for the term ambiguity, there was a mean AFINN sentiment score of −0.3 (SD = 2.0, Mdn = −1, mode = −2, range = −4 to 3), and for the statements for the term ambiguous, there was a mean AFINN sentiment score of −0.5 (SD = 2.3, Mdn = −2, mode = −2, range = −3 to 4). In terms of either the data visualization () or the underlying descriptive statistics provided, there is very little difference in the central tendency and dispersion of the AFINN sentiment scores across the four analytic categories.

Figure 1. Boxplot of AFINN sentiment scores for the four analytic categories.

For context, it is potentially useful to highlight some of the more extreme positive and negative terms driving the AFINN sentiment score for each of the four analytic categories. For each category, these extreme terms are provided with the AFINN sentiment score listed parenthetically. For the term absurd, key negative terms included crime (−3) and criminal (−3), and the most positive term was won (3). For the term absurdity, key negative terms were dead (−3), destruction (−3), die (−3), outrage (−3), and violence (−3), and the most positive term was triumph (4). The most negative term for the category of ambiguity was hell(−4), with the key positive terms being happy(3), perfect (3), and won (3). Lastly, for the category of ambiguous, the most positive term was winning (4), and the key negative terms were charged (−3), lost (−3), and treason (−3).

Taken together, the analytic category terms, the corresponding words and bigrams of merit, along with their sentiment-driving terms, can form a basis for a thematic analysis of the category statements. The results of that thematic analysis are presented in .

Table 8.Initial thematic terms related to the four analytic categories.

As previously indicated (Section 3), LDA is an algorithm-based method for identifying underlying themes, based on statistical patterns existing among the co-occurrence of words, in a given text. In general, words that appear together frequently might indicate a potential theme. Given the relatively few statements analyzed, the minimum number of themes available (i.e., two) was selected, and these were subsequently combined into a meta-theme for each of the four analytic categories. The initial results are presented in . To reiterate, beta values reflect a given term’s probability of occurring in a given topic. For the category of absurd, the thematic terms (beta values) were absurd (0.046), man (0.038), action (0.031), every (0.031), freedom (0.031), existence (0.031), and surpassing (0.023). The category of absurdity contained the terms absurdity (0.034), ten (0.034), thousand(0.034), will (0.031), and one (0.025). For the category of ambiguity, the thematic terms were ambiguity (0.053), one(0.022), will (0.029), freedom (0.022), and world (0.018). Lastly, the analytic category of ambiguous included the terms ambiguous (0.048), existence (0.043), man (0.041), failure (0.030), and ethics(0.028).

These initial thematic terms provided a useful starting point for the thematic analysis. First, the four categorical terms (e.g., absurd, absurdity, ambiguity, and ambiguous) were the most probable terms in each of the respect categories. This is not too insightful, but it provides some evidence by which to assess that the algorithm is functioning properly. Second, there is a degree of commonality in the thematic terms generated across the four analytic categories. This does not mean that the categories are the same, but rather reflects that [24] dealt with common themes in developing her ethics of ambiguity vis-à-vis the absurd. As an example, the thematic terms of manand existence were found in both the analytic categories of the absurd and the ambiguous, and freedom was found in both absurd and ambiguity. These thematic terms could be interpreted as the fulcrum points of de Beauvoir’s theory and argument. These thematic terms were refined by removing the categorical terms and those terms found to be common among the categories. Those results are presented in .

Refining the initial thematic terms related to the four analytic categories () resulted in a reduced set of terms (). In fact, the list went from 22 terms

Table 9. Refined thematic terms related to the four analytic categories.

down to 5 (~77% reduction). The refined thematic terms for the category of the absurd were action and surpassing. No terms emerged from the refinement process for the category of absurdity. Only the thematic term world remained for the category of ambiguity, whereas the terms failure and ethics were retained for the category of ambiguous. Again, these thematic terms were the ones that were unique and potentially informative to their respective categories. For the category of absurd, the terms action and surpassing could be categorized under a theme of struggle. For the category of ambiguity, the thematic term world could suggest the inherent context of the existential struggle. Lastly, the terms failure and ethics for the term ambiguous, might suggest a theme of contestability, both in terms of outcomes and respective valuations.

Collectively, these results suggest a topical and thematic coherence, if not consistency, among the four analytic categories studied in [24]The Ethics of Ambiguity. This was established first through an analysis of de Beauvoir’s statements containing the terms absurd, absurdity, ambiguity, and ambiguous, and subsequently through an analysis of the corresponding words and bigrams of merit, sentiment, and thematic analyses. Whereas in the aggregate these statements tended toward a slight negative sentiment, there was not a pronounced difference among the four analytic categories. Additionally, there was an observed consistency in the thematic terms, with notions like existence and freedom figuring prominently.