Albert Camus
1913-1960 · French Algerian · Existentialism, Moral Philosophy, Absurdism, Political Philosophy, Literature
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
Growing up in poverty in Algiers — his father killed at the Marne before he turned one, his mother barely literate — Camus absorbed early what no theory supplies: the stubborn weight of concrete life against abstraction. Awarded a Nobel at forty-four, he died three years later in a car crash, the manuscript of his unfinished novel in the mud beside him.
Topics Albert Camus addresses
- the absurd
- philosophical suicide
- revolt
- la mesure
- Sisyphus and the rock
- absurd freedom
- the silence of the world
- metaphysical revolt
- historical revolt
- neither victims nor executors
- the scrupulous murderer
- ends and means
- Mediterranean thought
- la pensée de midi
- revolutionary violence
- Hellenism against historicism
- the judge-penitent
- lucidity
- fidelity
- the plague as metaphor
- Caligula and the impossible
- state terror
- the civilian truce
- the death penalty
Questions to put to Albert Camus
The Absurd and Sisyphus
- What do you mean by the absurd?
- Why is suicide the one truly serious philosophical problem?
- What's the difference between philosophical suicide and physical suicide?
- How can Sisyphus be happy pushing his rock forever?
- What does it mean to live without appeal?
Revolt and Measure
- What's the difference between a rebel and a revolutionary?
- How does the slave's No contain a Yes?
- What do you mean by measure or limit?
- Why do you think the ends don't justify the means?
- How can Kaliayev be both a murderer and a moral figure?
- What's at stake for you in the critique of revolutionary violence?
The Rebel and the Break with Sartre
- What's your argument against Hegel and Marx in The Rebel?
- How did you understand Sartre's attack on you in 1952?
- Why did you address your reply to Monsieur le Directeur instead of to Sartre by name?
- What did you mean by accusing the revolutionary tradition of rational murder?
- Do you regret how the friendship ended?
Algeria and the Civilian Truce
- What did you mean when you said you'd defend your mother before justice?
- Why did you call for a civilian truce instead of supporting Algerian independence?
- How do you see the place of the pieds-noirs in Algeria's future?
- Why did you fall mostly silent on Algeria after 1956?
- Can you help me understand your position on the FLN's use of violence against civilians?
The Stranger and The Plague
- Why does Meursault kill the Arab on the beach?
- What does Meursault's indifference at his mother's funeral mean?
- How should I understand the plague as a metaphor?
- What's the difference between Tarrou's sainthood and Rieux's healing?
- Why is the Arab in The Stranger never named?
The First Man and the Silent Mother
- What were you trying to say about your mother in The First Man?
- How did growing up in poverty in Belcourt shape your thinking?
- What does it mean to be a man who has inherited nothing?
- Why does your father's death at the Marne matter so much to you?
- What's the connection between your mother's silence and the silence of the world?
Converse with Albert Camus on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Albert Camus's own writing, cited to the page.