Albert Camus
For Camus, life has no given meaning, yet we should not escape into despair or faith but live fully in revolt against the absurd.
Placement
The absurd: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Key ideas
- The absurd
- Revolt
- Sisyphus
Influence
Influenced by 5
Plotinus
influenced by ✓
Camus’s thesis Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism (1936) treated Plotinus’ union of reason and mystical ascent as a bridge from Greek thought to Augustine’s Christianity. A. Camus, Métaphysique chrétienne et néoplatonisme (1936); SEP “Albert Camus”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Plotinus › 204–270
Augustine
influenced by
Camus’s diploma thesis Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism (1936) studied Augustine’s answer to the problem of evil and the passage from Greek thought to Christianity. A. Camus, Métaphysique chrétienne et néoplatonisme (1936); SEP “Albert Camus”
Evidence: AI draft
Augustine › 354–430
Fyodor Dostoevsky
influenced by ✓
In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) Camus read Dostoevsky’s Kirillov as a figure of absurd logic, and he adapted Demons for the stage (Les Possédés, 1959). A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Kirilov”; Les Possédés (1959); SEP “Albert Camus”
Fyodor Dostoevsky › 1821–1881
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced by ✓
In The Rebel (1951) Camus took up Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism after the death of God and his affirmation of the world, while defending him against Nazi appropriation. A. Camus, L’Homme révolté (1951), “Nietzsche et le nihilisme”; SEP “Albert Camus”
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Simone Weil
influenced by
Camus published Weil’s posthumous The Need for Roots (1949) in his Espoir series at Gallimard, holding that no renewal of Europe could ignore its demands. S. Weil, L’Enracinement (1949), coll. Espoir, ed. A. Camus; SEP “Simone Weil”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Simone Weil › 1909–1943
Influenced 1
Roland Barthes
influenced ✓
Barthes took Camus’s L’Étranger (1942) as the model of a neutral, ‘white’ writing in Writing Degree Zero (1953), after an early essay on its style (1944). R. Barthes, Le degré zéro de l’écriture (1953); “Réflexion sur le style de L’Étranger” (1944); SEP “Albert Camus”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Roland Barthes › 1915–1980
Criticism
Criticizes 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
criticised
Camus argued in The Rebel (1951) that Hegel made history the sole judge of value, so that his heirs could justify ‘rational terror’ in its name. A. Camus, L’Homme révolté (1951), Part III, “Le terrorisme d’État et la terreur rationnelle”; SEP “Albert Camus”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Søren Kierkegaard influenced by
influenced by ✓
In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) Camus listed Kierkegaard, with his analysis of despair, among those who mapped the ‘absurd walls’ of existence. A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Les murs absurdes”; SEP “Albert Camus”
criticised
Camus called Kierkegaard’s leap a ‘philosophical suicide’: instead of holding to the absurd, Kierkegaard turns it into a criterion of the other world (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942). A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Le suicide philosophique”
Evidence: AI draft
Søren Kierkegaard › 1813–1855
Karl Marx
criticised
In The Rebel (1951) Camus read Marx as a prophet of the end of history whose messianism, in his heirs, justified sacrificing living people to a promised future. A. Camus, L’Homme révolté (1951), Part III, “La prophétie bourgeoise”, “La prophétie révolutionnaire”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Lev Shestov
criticised
Camus admired Shestov’s revolt against reason but judged that he too escapes the absurd by turning it into God, a ‘philosophical suicide’ (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942). A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Les murs absurdes”, “Le suicide philosophique”
Evidence: AI draft
Lev Shestov › 1866–1938
Karl Jaspers
criticised
Camus counted Jaspers among the ‘philosophical suicides’: having recognised the failure of reason, Jaspers leaps to transcendence instead of holding to the absurd (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942). A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Le suicide philosophique”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Jean-Paul Sartre
criticised
Camus held that revolutions justifying murder in history’s name end in terror (The Rebel, 1951), and answered Sartre’s journal Les Temps modernes in an open letter (1952). A. Camus, L’Homme révolté (1951); “Lettre au directeur des Temps modernes”, Les Temps modernes 82 (Aug. 1952); J.-P. Sartre, “Réponse à Albert Camus”, ibid.
Evidence: AI draft
Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980
Works
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
- 1951The Rebel
I rebel – therefore we exist; against revolutionary messianism.
Position
Camus started from the absurd: the clash between the human longing for meaning and clarity and a world that answers with silence. Neither religion nor philosophical leaps of hope may cover this up, but suicide is no answer either. Instead we must live in full awareness of the absurd, in revolt, freedom and passion – like Sisyphus, whom we are to picture as happy. In The Rebel he developed revolt into an ethic of solidarity: “I rebel – therefore we exist.” At the same time he warned against revolutions that kill in the name of history, which led to his break with Sartre. Though he rejected the label, he is read as a central existentialist.
Life & context
Camus grew up in poverty in Algeria; his father was killed in the First World War. Tuberculosis ended his hopes of an academic career. During the occupation he edited the resistance newspaper Combat in Paris, and he became famous with The Stranger. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 and died in a car accident in 1960.
Further main works
- The Stranger (1942)
- The Plague (1947)
- The Fall (1956)
Appears in
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