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See also: Søren Kierkegaard 194–95 ■ Friedrich Nietzsche 214–21 ■ Martin Heidegger 252–55 ■ Jean-Paul Sartre 268–71
THE MODERN WORLD
Albert Camus Camus was born in Algeria in
- His father was killed a year
later in World War I, and Camus
was brought up by his mother in
extreme poverty. He studied
philosophy at the University of
Algiers, where he suffered the
first attack of the tuberculosis
which was to recur throughout his
life. At the age of 25 he went to
live in France, where he became
involved in politics. He joined the
French Communist Party in 1935
but was expelled in 1937. During
World War II he worked for the
French Resistance, editing an
underground newspaper and
Sisyphus was condemned eternally
to push a rock up a hill, but Camus
thought he might find freedom even
in this grim situation if he accepted
the meaninglessness of his eternal task.
eternity. Camus was fascinated by
this myth, because it seemed to
him to encapsulate something of the
meaninglessness and absurdity of
our lives. He sees life as an endless
struggle to perform tasks that are
essentially meaningless.
Camus recognizes that much of what
we do certainly seems meaningful,
but what he is suggesting is quite
subtle. On the one hand, we are
conscious beings who cannot
help living our lives as if they are
meaningful. On the other hand,
these meanings do not reside out
there in the universe; they reside
only in our minds. The universe as
a whole has no meaning and no
purpose; it just is. But because,
unlike other living things, we have
consciousness, we are the kinds of
beings who find meaning and
purpose everywhere.Recognizing the absurd
The absurd, for Camus, is the feeling
that we have when we recognize
that the meanings we give to life
do not exist beyond our own
consciousness. It is the result of
a contradiction between our own
sense of life’s meaning, and our
knowledge that nevertheless the
universe as a whole is meaningless.
Camus explores what it might
mean to live in the light of this
contradiction. He claims that it isonly once we can accept the fact
that life is meaningless and absurd
that we are in a position to live fully.
In embracing the absurd, our lives
become a constant revolt against the
meaninglessness of the universe,
and we can live freely.
This idea was further developed
by the philosopher Thomas Nagel,
who said that the absurdity of life
lies in the nature of consciousness,
because however seriously we take
life, we always know that there is
some perspective from which this
seriousness can be questioned. ■The struggle towards
the heights is enough
to fill a man’s heart.
Albert Camuswriting many of his best-known
novels, including The Stranger.
He wrote many plays, novels,
and essays, and was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in- Camus died in a car crash
aged 46, having discarded
a train ticket to accept a lift
back to Paris with a friend.
Key works1942 The Myth of Sisyphus
1942 The Stranger
1947 The Plague
1951 The Rebel
1956 The Fall