Albert Camus, Intro

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Albert Camus, Intro

• Camus, Albert (1913-1960), French-Algerian
  novelist, essayist, dramatist, and journalist, a
  Nobel laureate whose concepts of the absurd and
  of human revolt address and suggest solutions to
  the problem of meaninglessness in modern human
  life.

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Albert Camus, A Quote

• "You will never be happy if you continue to
  search for what happiness consists of. You will
  never live if you are looking for the meaning of
  life."

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Life, part 1

• Born in Algeria, to a French father and a Spanish
  mother.
• Father was killed in 1914, beginning of WW I
• Raised in poverty by grandmother and mother, an
  illiterate charwoman.
• Tuberculosis ended his studies at the University
  of Algiers, forcing him also to abandon soccer
  and to curtail his life in the theater as a
  playwright, director, and actor.

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Life, part 2

• Became interested in politics, was briefly a
  member of the Communist Party, and in the 1930s
  began a career in journalism.
• Revealed the misery of the Arab population in
  Algeria led to dismissal from his newspaper job
• In 1940 went to Paris to work for the newspaper
  Paris-Soir.
• Began writing for the underground newspaper
  Combat in 1943

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Life, part 3

• Associated with the group of writers surrounding
  French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre,
  he and Sartre always agreed that Camus did not
  belong to the philosophical movement known as
  existentialism, of which Sartre was a major
  proponent.
• In 1957 he received the Nobel Prize for
  literature.

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Life, part 4

• Deeply troubled during his last years by the
  Algerian war for independence (1954-1962), he
  immersed himself in the theater and in work on an
  autobiographical novel
• About to be named director of a national theater
  at the time of his death in an automobile
  accident.

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World Views Approach to Life

• Theism
• Deism
• Naturalism
• Nihilism
• Existentialism
• Mysticism
• New Age

• Determinist
• Hedonist
• Idealist
• Pragmatist
• Pessimist
• Materialist

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Theism

• Greek for "god"
• Belief in one God who is personal and worthy of
  worship
• Who transcends the world but takes an active
  interest in it
• Who reveals his purpose for human beings through
  certain individuals, miraculous events, or sacred
  writings.
• Human beings can enter into a personal relation
  with him and petition him in prayer.
• He is morally perfect and infinitely powerful.

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Deism

• Transcendent God, created universe but then left
  it.
• God is not fully personal or sovereign over human
  affairs.
• Humans are part of the clockwork of the universe.
• We can determine what God is like by studying the
  universe.

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Hedonism

• Pleasure, the doctrine that pleasure is the
  sole or chief good in life and that the pursuit
  of it is the ideal aim of conduct.

Two important hedonistic theories were expounded
in ancient Greece.
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Egoistic Hedonists

• Egoistic hedonists--gratification of one's
  immediate personal desires, without regard for
  other persons, is considered the supreme end of
  existence. Knowledge is rooted in the fleeting
  sensations of the moment. Pleasure now vs. pain
  in the future.

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Rational Hedonists

• Epicureans, or rational hedonists, contended that
  the true pleasure is attainable only by reason.
  They stressed the virtues of self-control and
  prudence.

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Naturalism

• Matter exists eternally is all there is. God
  does not exist.
• Universe is a closed system and more random than
  a clock
• Humans are complex machines.
• History is linear, no overarching purpose.

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Pragmatic

• Pragmatism calls for ideas and theories to be
  tested in practice
• Upon the idea or theory produces desirable or
  undesirable results. According to pragmatists
• All claims about truth, knowledge, morality, and
  politics must be tested in this way.

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Nihilism, more a feeling philosophy

• Negation of everything, nothing has meaning
• No statement has validity, closed universe
  paradox.
• Humans are conscious machines w/o ability to
  effect destiny, therefore are dead.
• Nihilism is the natural child of naturalism.

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Determinist

• Every event, mental as well as physical, has a
  cause, and that, the cause being given, the event
  follows invariably.
• Denies the element of chance or contingency.
• Opposed to indifferentism, or indeterminism,
  preceding events do not definitely determine
  subsequent ones.

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QuickWrite 10/18/99, Monday

• Respond to this quote, A literature of despair
  is a contradiction in terms . . .In the darkest
  depths of nihilism I have sought only for the
  means to transcend nihilism.
• Or
• Free Write (about weekend?)

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Existentialism

• Cosmos is matter 2 forms subjective objective
• Existence precedes essence people make
  themselves who they are
• Objective world stands over/against humans
  appears absurd
• Against Absurd, authentic person must revolt
  create value

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Exist. slide 2, Moral Individualism

• "I must find a truth that is true for me . . .
  the idea for which I can live or die."
• --Soren Kierkegaard

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Exist. Slide 3, Subjectivity

• Personal experience and acting on one's own
  convictions are essential in arriving at the
  truth.
• Thus, the understanding of a situation by
  someone involved in that situation is superior to
  that of a detached, objective observer.

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Exist. slide 4, Choice Commitment

• Humanity's primary distinction, is the freedom to
  choose.
• Human beings do not have a fixed nature, or
  essence, as other animals and plants do each
  human being makes choices that create his or her
  own nature.
• Must accept risk responsibility.

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Materialist

• Doctrine everything explained as being or coming
  from matter, the ultimate reality
• Consciousness is physiochemical changes in the
  nervous system
• Highest values lie in material well being
  material progress

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Pessimist

• Doctrine that reality, life, and the world are
  evil rather than good.
• An entrenched negative state of mind, or a
  permanent expectation of the worst under all
  circumstances
• May arise, depending on the temperament of the
  individual, from the reaction of a person to the
  difference between the world as it is and the
  world as it could be.

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Pessimist cartoon
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Mysticism-stay tuned