Biography Born in Algeria, 1913 Grew up in Belcourt,
Algiers
Slide 4
More Bio Grew up in poverty, but was spotted as an academic
talent by Louis Germain, who helped him to obtain a high school
scholarship. In 1957, after Camus won his Nobel Prize for
Literature, he dedicated it to Germain. Camus could have probably
been a professional athlete, but his contraction of tuberculosis
ended those dreams. Side effects from the disease plagued him for
life.
Slide 5
More Bio After his first bout with TB, Camus spent a year
recuperating with his uncle, Gustave Acault. Gustave was an
autodidact well known for his wit. He fostered Camus love of
literature. Also, Camus was influenced by Jean Grenier, who
introduced him to philosophy. Grenier would move to the University
of Algiers in 1933 and Camus followed as a student. There Camus was
introduced to Bergson, Nietzsche, and Communistic influences.
Slide 6
More Bio In 1932, Camus married a Bohemian actress named Simone
Hie. She was engaged to one of Camus friends, but he married her
two years later despite the fact. The marriage was plagued with
troubles, as Hie was addicted to morphine. She would publicly
embarrass him and sleep with his friends. They divorced in
1940.
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Philosophy Camus, under the persuasion of his uncle, joined the
Communist/Socialist party and became an advocate for revolutionary
syndicalism. syndicalism noun1.a form or development of trade
unionism, originating in France, that aims at the possession of the
means of production and distribution, and ultimately at the control
of society, by federated bodies of industrial workers, and that
seeks to realize its purposes through general strikes, terrorism,
sabotage, etc.possessioncontrol 2.an economic system in which
workers own and manage industry.economic systemwhich
Slide 8
More Bio Camus was eventually ousted from the party because he
sympathized with Algerian nationalists, who had no rights at this
time. In 1938, he started a newspaper called the Algerian
Republican. This closed with the beginning of WWII and Camus moved
to Paris. He started to pursue his writing and was married a second
time (he also had two children). He gained notoriety as a writer
for Combat, the underground newspaper of the French
Resistance.
Slide 9
More Bio In 1942 The Stranger was published. Though he
published many things in between, he became even more famous in
1947 for The Plague (La Peste). Also during this time, Camus went
on a tour of the Americas as a lecturer (he was well received,
btw). From 1945 to 1952, Camus was friends with Jean Paul Sartre,
who heavily influenced his philosophy and way of thinking/writing.
Also, around 1950 Camus TB worsened.
Slide 10
More Bio Camus was killed in a car wreck (July 1960). He had
The First Man, an unfinished novel, in his briefcase. This novel
was found and published (in 1995).
Slide 11
Books/Works 1937 - The Wrong Side and the Right Side (L'envers
et l'endroit) 1938 - Nuptials (Noces) 1938 - Caligula (performed
1945) 1942 - The Stranger (L'tranger) 1942 - The Myth of Sisyphus
(Le Mythe de Sisyphe) 1944 - The Misunderstanding (La Malentendu)
1947 - The Plague (La Peste) 1948 - State of Siege (L'Etat de sige)
1950 - The Just (Les Justes) 1951 - The Rebel (L'Homme rvolt) 1956
- The Fall (La Chute) 1957 - Exile and The Kingdom (L'exil et le
royaume) 1970 - A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse) published
posthumously 1995 - The First Man (Le premier homme) published
posthumously
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Philosophy Absurdist Philosophy In philosophy, "The Absurd"
refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and
meaning in life and the human inability to find any. In this
context absurd does not mean "logically impossible," but rather
"humanly impossible. The universe and the human mind do not each
separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the
contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously. Absurdism,
therefore, is a philosophical school of thought stating that the
efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail
(and hence are absurd) because the sheer amount of information,
including the vast unknown, makes certainty impossible. As a
philosophy, absurdism also explores the fundamental nature of the
Absurd and how individuals, once becoming conscious of the Absurd,
should react to it.
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Absurdism and Nihilism Absurdism is very closely related to
existentialism and nihilism and has its origins in the 19th century
Danish philosopher, Sren Kierkegaard, who chose to confront the
crisis humans faced with the Absurd by developing existential
philosophy. Nihilism The philosophical doctrine suggesting the
negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most
commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism
which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or
intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not
inherently exist, and that any established moral values are
abstractly contrived.
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Existentialism The early 19th century philosopher Sren
Kierkegaard is generally considered the founder of existentialism.
He maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving
his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately
and sincerely, in spite of many existential obstacles and
distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and
boredom.
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Principle of Existentialism They are obsessed with how to live
one's life and believe that philosophical and psychological inquiry
can help. They believe there are certain questions that everyone
must deal with (if they are to take human life seriously), and that
these are special -- existential -- questions. Questions such as
death, the meaning of human existence, the place of God in human
existence, the meaning of value, interpersonal relationship, the
place of self-reflective conscious knowledge of one's self in
existing. Note that the existentialists on this characterization
don't pay much attention to "social" questions such as the politics
of life and what "social" responsibility the society or state has.
They focus almost exclusively on the individual.
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More By and large Existentialists believe that life is very
difficult and that it doesn't have an "objective" or universally
known value, but that the individual must create value by
affiriming it and living it, not by talking about it. Existential
choices and values are primarily demonstrated in ACT not in words.
Given that one is focusing on individual existence and the
"existential" struggles (that is, in making decisions that are
meaningful in everyday life), they often find that literary
characterizations rather than more abstract philosophical thinking,
are the best ways to elucidate existential struggles. They tend to
take freedom of the will, the human power to do or not do, as
absolutely obvious. Now and again there are arguments for free will
in Existentialist literature, but even in these arguments, one gets
the distinct sense that the arguments are not for themselves, but
for "outsiders." Inside the movement, free will is axiomatic, it is
intuitively obvious, it is the backdrop of all else that goes on.
There are certainly exceptions to each of these things, but this is
sort of a placing of the existentialist-like positions.
Slide 17
Famous Existentialists Soren Kierkegaard Rene DesCartes
Frederich Nietzche Jean Paul Sartre Franz Kafka Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chuck Palahnuik Stanley Kubrick
Slide 18
Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900) was a German
philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations
of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the
enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in
life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in,
rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his
philosophy is the idea of life-affirmation, which involves an
honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive
energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often
referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers along
with Sren Kierkegaard (18131855), Nietzsche's revitalizing
philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural
life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters, psychologists,
philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.
Slide 19
Sartre Sometimes called the Father of Existentialism: Sartre
maintained that the concepts of authenticity and individuality have
to be earned but not learned. We need to experience death
consciousness so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really
important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not
knowledge Existence precedes essence Thus, the human beings through
their own consciousness create their own values and determine a
meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined
the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of many
existentialist philosophers from Kierkegaard to Heidegger.
Slide 20
Sartre Won a Nobel Prize in 1964, but refused it! Life has no
meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Man is
condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is
responsible for everything he does. One always dies too soon - or
too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with
a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are -
your life, and nothing else.
Slide 21
Is he an absurdist? This word Absurd has had an unhappy history
and I confess that now it rather annoys me. When I analyzed the
feeling of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, I was looking was
looking for a method and not a doctrine. I was practicing
methodical doubt. I was trying to make a tabula rasa, on the basis
of which it would then be possible to construct something. If we
assume that nothing has any meaning, then we must conclude that the
world is absurd. But does nothing have any meaning? I have never
believed we could remain at this point.
Slide 22
Is he an existentialist? No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre
and I are always surprised to see our names linked. We have even
thought of publishing a short statement in which the undersigned
declare that they have nothing in common with each other and refuse
to be held responsible for the debts they might respectively incur.
It's a joke actually. Sartre and I published our books without
exception before we had ever met. When we did get to know each
other, it was to realise how much we differed. Sartre is an
existentialist, and the only book of ideas that I have published,
The Myth of Sisyphus, was directed against the so-called
existentialist philosophers.
Slide 23
The Stranger For Camus, life has no rational meaning or order.
We have trouble dealing with this notion and continually struggle
to find rational structure and meaning in our lives. This struggle
to find meaning where none exists is what Camus calls, the absurd.
So strong is our desire for meaning that we dismiss out of hand the
idea that there is none to be found. Camus wrote The Stranger as an
enticement to his readers, to think about their own mortality and
the meaning of their existence. The hero, or anti-hero, of The
Stranger is Meursault. His life and attitudes possess no rational
order. His actions are strange to us, there seems to be no reason
behind them. We are given no reason why he chooses to marry Marie
or gun down an Arab. For this, he is a stranger amongst us. And
when confronted with the absurdity of the stranger's life society
reacts by imposing meaning on the stranger. -The Camus Society