Thinker · TH-0036
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French-Algerian novelist, essayist and journalist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. He is often grouped with the existentialists,…
Albert Camus was a French-Algerian novelist, essayist and journalist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. He is often grouped with the existentialists, though he rejected the label. His central theme is the absurd: the collision between the human demand for meaning and a world that offers none. He argued that the right response is neither suicide nor a leap into hope, but lucid revolt, freedom and passion within the absurd.
Key ideas
- The absurd arises from the confrontation between human longing for meaning and the world's silence.
- Suicide and philosophical 'leaps' of faith both evade the absurd rather than facing it.
- Revolt, freedom and passion are the fitting responses; one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
- Rebellion affirms a shared human value and sets limits on violence done in its name.
Major works
- L'Étranger (The Stranger, 1942)
- Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942)
- La Peste (The Plague, 1947)
- L'Homme révolté (The Rebel, 1951)
In the conversation
- Discussion Camus and the Buddhists: two ways of refusing the question of life’s meaning
- Debate Taylor’s happy Sisyphus shows meaning is purely subjective
- Question Camus and Heidegger both rejected the label. So who actually counts as an existentialist?
- Debate ‘Does life have meaning?’ is a recent European question most traditions would not ask
- Discussion Is “what is the meaning of life?” a modern European question?