ALBERT CAMUS

 Albert Camus was a French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, political essayist, a Nobel laureate
and, although he more than once denied it a Philosopher.
 Made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy in his novels,
reviews, articles, essays, and speeches—from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death
penalty.
 He is often described as an existentialist writer, though he himself disavowed the label.
 was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondavi, French Algeria
 His best-known works, including The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), are exemplars of
absurdism.
 Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957
 Died on January 4, 1960, in Burgundy, France.

WHY DID HE DENY THE TITLE EXISTENSIALIST

 He never showed much interest in (indeed he largely avoided) metaphysical and ontological questions
(the philosophical raison d’etre of Heidegger and Sartre). Of course there is no rule that says an
existentialist must be a metaphysician. However, Camus’s seeming aversion to technical philosophical
discussion does suggest one way in which he distanced himself from contemporary existentialist thought.
 Camus seems to have regarded existentialism as a complete and systematic world-view, that is, a fully
articulated doctrine. In his view, to be a true existentialist one had to commit to the entire doctrine (and
not merely to bits and pieces of it), and this was apparently something he was unwilling to do

AS AN EXISTENSIALIST
 focused on the meaning of life

Absurdity
- Camus argues that human beings cannot escape asking the question, “What is the meaning of
existence?” Camus, however, denies that there is an answer to this question, and rejects every
scientific, teleological, metaphysical, or human-created end that would provide an adequate
answer. Thus, while accepting that human beings inevitably seek to understand life’s purpose,
Camus takes the skeptical position that the natural world, the universe, and the human enterprise
remain silent about any such purpose. Since existence itself has no meaning, we must learn to
bear an irresolvable emptiness. This paradoxical situation, then, between our impulse to ask
ultimate questions and the impossibility of achieving any adequate answer, is what Camus calls
the absurd. Camus’s philosophy of the absurd explores the consequences arising from this basic
paradox.
- Camus’s understanding of absurdity is best captured in an image, not an argument: of Sisyphus
straining to push his rock up the mountain, watching it roll down, then descending after the rock
to begin all over, in an endless cycle. Like Sisyphus, humans cannot help but continue to ask after
the meaning of life, only to see our answers tumble back down.
- Camus’s philosophy can be thus read as a sustained effort to demonstrate and not just assert what
is entailed by the absurdity of human existence.
The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1943)
- Suicide and the inevitability of absurdity
- It is here that Camus formally introduces and fully articulates his most famous idea, the concept
of the Absurd, and his equally famous image of life as a Sisyphean struggle.

 Suicide as response to Absurdity

- “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide.
Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy.
All other questions follow from that” One might object that suicide is neither a “problem” nor a
“question,” but an act.
- Camus sees this question of suicide as a natural response to an underlying premise, namely that
life is absurd in a variety of ways.
- According to Camus, people commit suicide “because they judge life is not worth living”

 Religious solution as a response to absurdity

- Religious solution of positing a transcendent world of solace and meaning beyond the Absurd.
- Camus calls this solution “philosophical suicide” and rejects it as transparently evasive and
fraudulent. To adopt a supernatural solution to the problem of the Absurd (for example, through
some type of mysticism or leap of faith) is to annihilate reason, which in Camus’s view is as fatal
and self-destructive as physical suicide.

 Acceptance as a Response to Absurdity

- Camus’s view the only authentic and valid solution—is simply to accept absurdity, or better yet
to embrace it, and to continue living. Since the Absurd in his view is an unavoidable, indeed
defining, characteristic of the human condition, the only proper response to it is full, unflinching,
courageous acceptance. Life, he says, can “be lived all the better if it has no meaning.”
- “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine
Sisyphus happy.” he tells us, for the absurd hero is able to carry out a life as meaningless as
eternally rolling a boulder up a hill and find enjoyment in it anyway.
- “There is scarcely any passion without struggle”, this was also showed since struggles would
make people stronger
- He also encourages us to reject the idea of an afterlife
-
Meaning of Life/whole point
- Camus makes a rather bold claim on the meaning of life: there isn’t one and we can’t make one
either. However, Camus doesn’t see this meaninglessness as bad. He explains that to understand
that life is absurd is the first step to being fully alive. While the problem of living in a world
devoid of meaning is a big one, it is one to be solved like any other. We need to accept the fact
that life has no meaning, and make this as a motivation/inspiration to enjoy life
- “ the Absurd must not be evaded either by religion (“philosophical suicide”) or by annihilation
(“physical suicide”); the task of living should not merely be accepted, it must be embraced.”
The Rebel (L’Homme Revolte, 1951)
- “The purpose of this essay is … to face the reality of the present, which is logical crime, and to
examine meticulously the arguments by which it is justified; it is an attempt to understand the
times in which we live.
- incorporated suicide and the inevitability of absurdity plus revolt
- begins with the kind of revolt that rejects oppression and slavery, and protests against the world’s
injustice
- Distinguishing rebellious action from the rest, seeks to institute a new humanism as a response to
a meaningless world in order to instill solidarity, freedom, and hope amidst absurdity.
- it is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance in the face of the Absurd.
- Camus stresses that revolt creates values, dignity, and solidarity. “I revolt, therefore we are” is
his paradoxical statement which is also connected to“the only way to deal with an unfree world
is to become so absolutely free that [one’s] very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Quote:
“If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever,
then everything is possible and nothing has any importance.”
The Stranger/ The Outsider (L’Étranger, 1942)
- The whole point of this is that Mersault (the main character) believes that There was no difference
between life and death, everything was the same to him
- Life is absurd
- When Meursault comes to a full acceptance of his absurd position in the universe and cannot but
conclude that he is happy. Meursault accepts his own death and the indifference of the world to
his death.

Quotes:
“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger
“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

- Embodies all of the six existential themes:

 Freedom
- Freedom means that whatever happened prior to now do not influence what your next choice in
life will be, we are free to make any choice we want.
 Existence
- the awareness of our choices
 Passion
- are psychological feelings that we understand before thinking kicks in.
 Contingency.
- It basically says that life is unpredictable, prone to chance happenings, also to the unexpected.
 Individuality.
- An individual is a single unique member of a collectivity.
 Reflection.
- It refers to the capacity to bring that which we are unaware of into awareness.
The Plague (La Peste, 1947)
- The central irony in The Plague lies in Camus' treatment of "freedom."
- The citizens of Oran become prisoners of the plague when their city falls under total quarantine,
but it is questionable whether they were really "free" before the plague. Their lives were strictly
regimented by an unconscious enslavement to their habits. Moreover, it is questionable whether
they were really alive. It is only when they are separated by quarantine from their friends, lovers
and families that they most intensively love them. Before, they simply took their loved ones for
granted.
- Just as any rebellion against death and suffering is ultimately futile, so do the anti-plague efforts
seem to make little difference in the relentless progress of the epidemic. However, Camus' novel
declares that this rebellion is nonetheless a noble, meaningful struggle even if it means facing
never-ending defeat. In this way, The Plague is infused with Camus' belief in the value of
optimism in times of hopelessness. Everyone who chooses to fight the plague, to rebel against
death, knows that their efforts increase their chances of contracting the plague, but they also
realize they could contract the plague if they did nothing at all. In the face of such a seemingly
meaningless choice, between death and death, the fact that they make a choice to act and fight for
themselves and their community becomes even more meaningful; it is a note of defiance thrown
against the wind, but that note is the only thing through which someone can define himself.

Group 1:
Bacay, Jennievev
Camposano, Clarenz
Futol, Jenica Alyssa
Gamboa, Ryan
Quiambao, Charisse
Waje, Dharelle
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