Albert Camus
Albert Camus (19131960) and Absurdism
.
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”1[1] The statement reveals one of the dilemmas of the philosophy of Absurd [also called as Absurdism] which Camus sought to answer. The Algerianborn French thinker Albert Camus was one of the leading thinkers of Absurdism. He was actually a writer and novelist with a strong philosophical bent. Absurdism is an offshoot of Existentialism and shares many of its characteristics. Camus himself was labeled as an ‘Existentialist’ in his own life, but he rejected this title. He was not the first to present the concept of Absurd but it was owing to him that this idea gained popularity and influence, and it transformed into a proper philosophical movement of Absurdism. His famous novels include
The Stranger [also translated as
The Outsider
] and
The Fall
, while The
Myth of
Sisyphus
is his most important book with regard to his philosophy of the Absurd. He was one of the youngest people to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, when he became a Nobel Laureate in 1957. It is an ironic fact that he died in a car accident in 1960, as he had once remarked that the most absurd way to die would be in a car accident. Camus was a friend of Sartre and worked with him for quite some time, but the two got separated over the issue of communism, as Sartre was a Marxist while Camus opposed it believing that this would lead to totalitarianism. The foundations of the concept of Absurd can be traced back to the deeply religious Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, also regarded as the forefather of Existentialism. Kierkegaard describes the Absurd as a situation in life which all the rational and thinking abilities of a person are unable to tell him which course of action to adopt in life, but in this very uncertainty he is
.
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”1[1] The statement reveals one of the dilemmas of the philosophy of Absurd [also called as Absurdism] which Camus sought to answer. The Algerianborn French thinker Albert Camus was one of the leading thinkers of Absurdism. He was actually a writer and novelist with a strong philosophical bent. Absurdism is an offshoot of Existentialism and shares many of its characteristics. Camus himself was labeled as an ‘Existentialist’ in his own life, but he rejected this title. He was not the first to present the concept of Absurd but it was owing to him that this idea gained popularity and influence, and it transformed into a proper philosophical movement of Absurdism. His famous novels include
The Stranger [also translated as
The Outsider
] and
The Fall
, while The
Myth of
Sisyphus
is his most important book with regard to his philosophy of the Absurd. He was one of the youngest people to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, when he became a Nobel Laureate in 1957. It is an ironic fact that he died in a car accident in 1960, as he had once remarked that the most absurd way to die would be in a car accident. Camus was a friend of Sartre and worked with him for quite some time, but the two got separated over the issue of communism, as Sartre was a Marxist while Camus opposed it believing that this would lead to totalitarianism. The foundations of the concept of Absurd can be traced back to the deeply religious Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, also regarded as the forefather of Existentialism. Kierkegaard describes the Absurd as a situation in life which all the rational and thinking abilities of a person are unable to tell him which course of action to adopt in life, but in this very uncertainty he is