All works by Camus. Albert Camus is a famous French writer and philosopher.
(1913 - 1960) in the 50s. was one of the "rulers of thoughts" of the world intelligentsia. The first publications that opened the first period of creativity, two small books of short lyrical essays “Inside Out and Face” (1937) and “Marriages” (1939) were published in Algeria. In 1938 Camus wrote the play "Caligula".
At the time, he was an active participant in the resistance. In those years, he published the essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" and the story "The Outsider" (1942), ending the first period of creativity.
Appeared in 1943 - 1944. “Letters to a German Friend” opens the second period of creativity, which lasted until the end of his life. The most significant works of this period are: the novel The Plague (1947); theatrical mystery "State of Siege" (1948); the play The Righteous (1949); the essay "Rebellious Man" (1951); the story "The Fall" (1956); a collection of short stories "Exile and Kingdom" (1957), etc. Camus also published three books of "Topical Notes" during this period (1950, 1953, 1958). In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize. His novel Happy Death and Notebooks were published posthumously.
It is not easy to get an idea of the philosophy of Albert Camus, since the views expressed in his literary and philosophical works “provide an opportunity for a wide variety of interpretations.” For all that, the nature of this philosophy, its problems and orientation have allowed historians of philosophy to unanimously evaluate it as a kind of existentialism. The worldview of A. Camus and his work reflected the features of the development of the European philosophical tradition.
Camus did not doubt the reality of the world, he was aware of the importance of movement in it. The world, in his opinion, is not arranged rationally. It is hostile to man, and this hostility goes back to us through the millennia. Everything we know about him is unreliable. The world is constantly eluding us. In his conception of being, the philosopher proceeded from the fact that "being can reveal itself only in becoming, while becoming is nothing without being." Being is reflected in consciousness, but “as long as the mind is silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything reciprocally echoes and is ordered in the unity it so desires. But at the very first movement, this whole world cracks and collapses: an infinite number of shimmering fragments offer themselves to knowledge. Camus considers knowledge as a source of transformation of the world, but he warns against the unreasonable use of knowledge.
Philosopher agreed that science deepens our knowledge about the world and man, but he pointed out that this knowledge is still imperfect. In his opinion, science still does not give an answer to the most urgent question - the question of the purpose of existence and the meaning of everything that exists. People are thrown into this world, into this story. They are mortal, and life appears before them as an absurdity in an absurd world. What is a person to do in such a world? Camus suggests in the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” to concentrate and, with maximum clarity of mind, realize the fate that has fallen and courageously bear the burden of life, not resigning itself to difficulties and rebelling against them. At the same time, the question of the meaning of life acquires special significance; the thinker calls it the most urgent. From the very beginning, a person must “decide whether or not life is worth living”. To answer this “ ” means to solve a serious philosophical problem. According to Camus, “everything else…. secondary." The desire to live, the philosopher believes, is dictated by a person's attachment to the world, in it "there is something more: stronger than all the troubles of the world." This attachment enables a person to overcome the discord between himself and life. The feeling of this discord gives rise to a sense of the absurdity of the world. Man, being reasonable, seeks to streamline, “transform the world in accordance with his ideas of good and evil. The absurd connects man with the world.”
He believed that to live means to explore the absurdity, to rebel against it. “I extract from the absurd,” the philosopher wrote, “three consequences—my rebellion, my freedom and my passion. Through the work of the mind alone, I turn into a rule of life that which was an invitation to death - and reject suicide.
According to A. Camus, a person has a choice: either live in his time, adapting to it, or try to rise above it, but you can also make a deal with it: “live in your age and believe in the eternal.” The latter does not impress the thinker. He believes that one can hide from the absurd by immersion in the eternal, escape into the illusion of everyday life or by following some idea. In other words, you can reduce the pressure of the absurd with the help of thinking.
People who try to rise above the absurd, Camus calls the conquerors. Camus found classic examples of conquering people in the works of the French writer A. Malraux. According to Camus, the conqueror is god-like, “he knows his slavery and does not hide it”, knowledge illuminates his path to freedom. The conqueror is the ideal person for Camus, but to be such, in his opinion, is the lot of the few.
In an absurd world, creativity is also absurd. According to Camus, “creativity is the most effective school of patience and clarity. It is also a stunning testimony to the only dignity of man: stubborn rebellion against his destiny, perseverance in fruitless efforts. Creativity requires everyday efforts, self-control, an accurate assessment of the boundaries of truth, it requires measure and strength. Creativity is a kind of asceticism (i.e., detachment from the world, from its joys and blessings - S.N.). And all this is “for nothing”... But it may be important not the great work of art itself, but the test that it requires from a person.” The Creator is similar to the character of ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus, punished by the gods for disobeying a huge stone rolling up a high mountain, which every time rolls down from the top to the foot of the mountain. Sisyphus is doomed to eternal torment. And yet, the spectacle of a stone block rolling down from a high mountain personifies the greatness of the feat of Sisyphus, and his endless torment serves as an eternal reproach to the unjust gods.
In the essay " Rebellious man”, reflecting on his time as the time of the triumph of the absurd, Camus writes: “We live in an era of masterfully executed criminal plans.” The previous era, in his opinion, differs from the current one in that “previously, atrocity was lonely, like a cry, and now it is as universal as science. Just yesterday prosecuted, today crime has become law.” The philosopher notes: “In modern times, when evil intent dresses up in the robes of innocence, according to the terrible perversion characteristic of our era, it is innocence that is forced to justify itself.” At the same time, the boundary between false and true is blurred, and the rules are dictated by force. Under these conditions, people are divided "not into righteous and sinners, but into masters and slaves." Camus believed that our world is dominated by the spirit of nihilism. Awareness of the imperfection of the world gives rise to rebellion, the purpose of which is the transformation of life. The time of the domination of nihilism forms a rebellious person.
According to Camus, rebellion is not an unnatural state, but quite natural. In his opinion, “in order to live, a person must rebel,” but this must be done without being distracted from the initially put forward noble goals. The thinker emphasizes that in the experience of the absurd, suffering has an individual character, while in a rebellious impulse it becomes collective. Moreover, “the evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone.”
In an imperfect world, rebellion is a means of preventing the decline of society and its ossification and decay. “I rebel, therefore we exist,” writes the philosopher. He considers rebellion here as an indispensable attribute of human existence, uniting the individual with other people. The result of the rebellion is a new rebellion. The oppressed, having turned into oppressors, by their behavior prepare a new revolt of those whom they turn into the oppressed.
According to Camus, "in this world there is one law - the law of force, and it is inspired by the will to power", which can be implemented through violence.
Reflecting on the possibilities of using violence in revolt, Camus was not a supporter of non-violence, since, in his opinion, "absolute non-violence passively justifies slavery and its horrors." But at the same time, he was not a supporter of excessive violence. The thinker believed that "these two concepts need self-restraint for the sake of their own fruitfulness."
Camus differs from a simple rebellion by a metaphysical rebellion, which is a "revolt of man against the whole universe." Such rebellion is metaphysical because it challenges the ultimate goals of humans and the universe. In an ordinary rebellion, a slave protests against oppression, "a metaphysical rebel rebels against the lot prepared for him as a representative of the human race." In metaphysical rebellion, the formula "I rebel, therefore we exist," characteristic of ordinary rebellion, changes to the formula "I rebel, therefore we are alone."
The logical consequence of metaphysical rebellion is revolution. At the same time, the difference between a rebellion and a revolution is that “... a rebellion kills only people, while a revolution destroys both people and principles at the same time.” According to Camus, the history of mankind has known only riots, but there have not yet been revolutions. He believed that “if a true revolution had taken place only once, then history would no longer exist. There would be blissful unity and calm death.”
The limit of the metaphysical rebellion is, according to Camus, the metaphysical revolution, during which the great inquisitors become the head of the world. The idea of the possibility of the appearance of the Grand Inquisitor was borrowed by A. Camus from F. M. Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. The Grand Inquisitors establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. They can do what God couldn't do. The kingdom of heaven on earth as the embodiment of universal happiness is possible "not thanks to the complete freedom of choice between good and evil, but thanks to power over the world and its unification."
Developing this idea on the basis of the analysis of the representations of F. Nietzsche about the nature of freedom, A. Camus comes to the conclusion that “the absolute power of the law is not freedom, but absolute freedom from law is no greater freedom. Empowerment does not give freedom, but lack of opportunity is slavery. But anarchy is also slavery. Freedom exists only in a world where both the possible and the impossible are clearly defined.” However, "today's world, apparently, can only be a world of masters and slaves." Camus was sure that “domination is a dead end. Since the master can in no way give up dominion and become a slave, the eternal fate of masters is to live unsatisfied or be killed. The role of the master in history comes down only to reviving the slave consciousness, the only one that creates history. According to the philosopher, "what is called history is only a series of long-term efforts undertaken for the sake of gaining true freedom." In other words, “... history is the history of labor and rebellion” of people striving for freedom and justice, which, according to Camus, are connected. He believed that it was impossible to choose one without the other. The philosopher emphasizes: “If someone deprives you of bread, he thereby deprives you of freedom. But if your freedom is taken away, then be sure that your bread is also under threat, because it no longer depends on you and your struggle, but on the whim of the owner.
He considers bourgeois freedom an invention. According to Albert Camus, “freedom is the cause of the oppressed, and its traditional defenders have always been people from the oppressed people”.
Analyzing the prospects of human existence in history, Camus comes to a disappointing conclusion. In his opinion, there is nothing left for a person in history but “to live in it ... adjusting to the topic of the day, that is, either to lie or to remain silent.”
In his ethical views, Camus proceeded from the fact that the realization of freedom must be based on realistic morality, since moral nihilism is destructive.
Formulating his moral position, Albert Camus wrote in "Notebooks": "We must serve justice, because our existence is arranged unfairly, we must multiply, cultivate happiness and joy, because our world is unhappy."
The philosopher believed that wealth is not necessary to achieve happiness. He was against achieving individual happiness by bringing misfortune to others. According to Camus, "Man's greatest merit is to live in solitude and obscurity."
The aesthetic in the work of the philosopher serves as an expression of the ethical. Art for him is a means of discovering and describing the disturbing phenomena of life. It, from his point of view, can serve to improve society, as it is able to interfere during life.
Camus, Albert (Camus, Albert) (1913-1960). Born November 7, 1913 in the Algerian village of Mondovi, 24 km south of the city of Bon (now Annaba), in the family of an agricultural worker. His father, an Alsatian by birth, died in the First World War. His mother, a Spaniard, moved with her two sons to Algiers, where Camus lived until 1939. In 1930, graduating from high school, he fell ill with tuberculosis, the consequences of which he suffered all his life. Becoming a student at the University of Algiers, he studied philosophy, interrupted by odd jobs.
Concerns about social problems led him to the Communist Party, but a year later he left it. He organized an amateur theater, from 1938 he took up journalism. Released in 1939 from military conscription for health reasons, in 1942 he joined the underground organization of the Resistance "Komba"; edited her illegal newspaper of the same name. Leaving in 1947 work in "Comba", he wrote journalistic articles for the press, subsequently collected in three books under the title Topical Notes (Actuelles, 1950, 1953, 1958).
Books (10)
Backside and face. Compositions
This book presents the philosophical legacy of the Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus.
The philosophy of Camus, like all good literature, is impossible to retell. You can talk to her, agreeing and objecting, but putting at stake not abstract arguments, but the experience of your own "existence", the metaphysical alignment of your fate, in which a wise and deep interlocutor will appear.
Caligula
"Caligula". The play, which has become a kind of creative manifesto of French existentialist literature - and still does not leave the stages of the whole world. A play in which, in the words of Jean Paul Sartre, "freedom becomes pain, and pain sets you free."
Years, decades have passed, but both literary critics and readers are still trying - each in his own way! — to comprehend the essence of the tragedy of the insane young emperor, who dared to look into the abyss of eternity...
The myth of Sisyphus
According to Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. True, according to another source, he traded in robbery. I don't see a contradiction here. There are different opinions about how he became the eternal worker of hell. He was reproached primarily for his frivolous attitude towards the gods. He divulged their secrets. Aegipah, the daughter of Ason, was abducted by Jupiter. The father was surprised at this disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, knowing about the abduction, offered Asop help, on the condition that Asop would give water to the citadel of Corinth. He preferred the blessing of earthly waters to heavenly lightning. The punishment for this was hellish torment. Homer also tells that Sisyphus shackled Death.
A fall
Be that as it may, after a long study of myself, I have established the deep duplicity of human nature.
Digging through my memory, I realized then that modesty helped me to shine, humility to win, and nobility to oppress. I waged war by peaceful means and, showing disinterestedness, I achieved everything that I wanted. For example, I never complained that I was not congratulated on my birthday, that this significant date was forgotten; my acquaintances were surprised at my modesty and almost admired it.
Outsider
A kind of creative manifesto that embodies the image of the search for absolute freedom. "Outsider" denies the narrowness of the moral standards of modern bourgeois culture.
The story is written in an unusual style - short phrases in the past tense. The cold style of the author later had a huge impact on European authors of the second half of the 20th century.
The story reveals the story of a man who committed a murder, who did not repent, refused to defend himself in court and was sentenced to death.
The opening line of the book became famous, “My mother died today. Maybe yesterday, I don't know for sure. Bright work full of existence, which brought Camus worldwide fame.
Camus' rhetoric is a separate issue that will probably remain wallowing in the closed tabletop of history until the end of his life. Camus within the framework of historicism is predictable, as is his path of becoming from the primary nihilistic to the final moralistic humanism of the level of the Self-Taught de La Nausée, only the oxymoron of humanistic thought occurs when the humanist opens his mouth, the same happened with Camus.
“The content of the Plague is the struggle of the European Liberation Movement against fascism,” according to Camus, but as soon as this idea is revealed, Camus’ Plague sharply turns into a tumor of Camus himself, a malignant formation in the face of a brown infection that, under the threat of the occupying authorities, took up arms and went against its own countries, the continent and beyond the Soviet Union, Camus lost the idea that collaborationism flourished, and liberation movements were really active only in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece, one has only to look at the figures of resistance losses and it will be clear that even vaunted Poland did not make any contribution to the real struggle against the occupying authorities, rather, on the contrary, supporting Russophobia and anti-Semitism, she was only glad that the Ivanovs left their country. But one has only to look at the foreign voluntary formations of the Wehrmacht and the SS and the situation immediately becomes clear, because collective resistance in reality turned out to be only one plague - red, with the assistance of another.
Camus, a former Eurocommunist of 35 and an associate of the ideas of socialism, the world revolution and lustrations according to Marx, the death of the individual and the praise of dead leaders, once a person who allegedly denies the individual meaning of human life becomes an inveterate humanist and just a wonderful person who criticizes Sartre for being a communist and supports freedom through a revolution, although he himself was the same two days ago, but maybe he didn’t read Marx, therefore he doesn’t know about the revolution as a natural process, oh, those French commie mods. And he completes his metamorphoses to progressive man with his Plague.
The idealization and romanticization of Camus resistance is directly related to his participation in such during Ww2, it’s only a pity that these organizations up to 43 years only did what they fought with each other, not wanting to take a position and sat printing newspapers, unlike Yugoslav, whose resistance was called the People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia, during which 400 thousand partisans were killed, but 20 thousand French dead from the resistance, apparently, according to Camus, are stronger against this background, if only he were reminded that 8 thousand more French died fighting for Hitler, as and the majority of Europeans, who not only did not want to resist, but even more, took up arms and willingly went into battle with the Germans for the liberation of Europe and Russia. And then Camus betrays the fact that the novel turns out to be not only about fascism and totalitarianism, but about the whole being as a whole, well then, okay, the idiot thought, it turned out to be a philosopher. Any argument of a humanist is an inflated childish opinion generalized from reality, which the humanist himself seems quite reasonable and kind, to the point of voicing this thought and not accepting or ignoring this rhetoric by the interlocutor.
Such characters as Rie are caricatured and idealized Pavlik Morozovs, who, if they existed in life, they were so zealously revered by the same post-war romantic humanists as Camus, not real people of resistance, because the main task of resistance is liberation from oppression at any cost, life they cost nothing, but for Camus it is a whole manifesto of a partisan and a rebel, the hope of an empty soul of a European man. The pathos with which he brings all this as a person who calmly traveled around Europe during the occupation, while others fought, and then, under the auspices of an imaginary battle, sat and occasionally printed waste paper in order to later, at the end of the war, issue this manifesto of a moralistic partisan of a humanistic persuasion. Bravo, Albert A real soldier Camus.
Man is an unstable being. He has a sense of fear, hopelessness and despair. At least, this is the view expressed by the adherents of existentialism. Close to this philosophical doctrine was Albert Camus. The biography and creative path of the French writer is the topic of this article.
Childhood
Camus was born in 1913. His father was a native of Alsace and his mother was Spanish. Albert Camus had very painful childhood memories. The biography of this writer is closely connected with his life. However, for each poet or prose writer, their own experiences serve as a source of inspiration. But in order to understand the cause of the depressive mood that reigns in the books of the author, which will be discussed in this article, one should learn a little about the main events of his childhood and adolescence.
Camus' father was a poor man. He was engaged in hard physical labor at a winery. His family was on the brink of disaster. But when a significant battle took place near the Marne River, the life of Camus Sr.'s wife and children became completely hopeless. The fact is that this historical event, although it was crowned with the defeat of the enemy German army, had tragic consequences for the fate of the future writer. During the Battle of the Marne, Camus' father died.
Left without a breadwinner, the family was on the verge of poverty. This period was reflected in his early work by Albert Camus. The books "Marriage" and "Inside Out and Face" are dedicated to childhood spent in need. In addition, during these years, young Camus suffered from tuberculosis. Unbearable conditions and a serious illness did not discourage the future writer from striving for knowledge. After leaving school, he entered the university at the Faculty of Philosophy.
Youth
Years of study at the University of Algiers had a huge impact on Camus' worldview. During this period, he made friends with the once famous essayist Jean Grenier. It was during his student years that the first collection of short stories was created, which was called "Islands". For some time he was a member of the Communist Party Albert Camus. His biography, nevertheless, is more connected with such names as Shestov, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. They belong to thinkers whose philosophy largely determined the main theme of Camus's work.
Albert Camus was an extremely active person. His biography is rich. As a student, he played sports. Then, after graduating from university, he worked as a journalist and traveled a lot. The philosophy of Albert Camus was formed not only under the influence of contemporary thinkers. For some time he was fond of the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky. According to some reports, he even played in an amateur theater, where he happened to play the role of Ivan Karamazov. During the capture of Paris, at the beginning of the First World War, Camus was in the French capital. He was not taken to the front due to a serious illness. But even in this difficult period, Albert Camus led a rather active social and creative activity.
"Plague"
In 1941, the writer gave private lessons, took an active part in the activities of one of the underground Parisian organizations. At the beginning of the war, Albert Camus wrote his most famous work. The Plague is a novel that was published in 1947. In it, the author reflected the events in Paris, occupied by German troops, in a complex symbolic form. Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for this novel. The wording - "For the important role of literary works that confront people with the problems of modernity with penetrating seriousness."
The plague starts suddenly. Residents of the city leave their homes. But not all. There are townspeople who believe that the epidemic is nothing but punishment from above. And don't run. You have to be humble. One of the heroes - the pastor - is an ardent supporter of this position. But the death of an innocent boy forces him to rethink his point of view.
People are trying to escape. And the plague suddenly recedes. But even after the worst days are behind, the hero does not leave the thought that the plague can return again. The epidemic in the novel symbolizes fascism, which claimed millions of inhabitants of Western and Eastern Europe during the war years.
In order to understand what the main philosophical idea of this writer is, one should read one of his novels. In order to feel the mood that prevailed in the early years of the war among thinking people, it is worth getting acquainted with the novel The Plague, which Albert wrote in 1941 from this work - the sayings of an outstanding philosopher of the 20th century. One of them - "In the midst of disasters, you get used to the truth, namely, to silence."
outlook
At the center of the French writer's work is the consideration of the absurdity of human existence. The only way to deal with him, according to Camus, is to recognize him. The highest embodiment of absurdity is an attempt to improve society through violence, namely fascism and Stalinism. In the works of Camus, there is a pessimistic belief that evil cannot be defeated completely. Violence breeds more violence. And a rebellion against him can’t lead to anything good at all. It is this position of the author that can be felt while reading the novel "The Plague".
"Outsider"
At the beginning of the war, Albert Camus wrote many essays and stories. Briefly it is worth saying about the story "The Outsider". This work is quite difficult to understand. But it is precisely in it that the author's opinion regarding the absurdity of human existence is reflected.
The story "The Outsider" is a kind of manifesto, which was proclaimed in his early work by Albert Camus. Quotes from this work can hardly say anything. In the book, a special role is played by the monologue of the hero, who is monstrously impartial to everything that happens around him. “The condemned is obliged to morally participate in the execution” - this phrase is perhaps the key.
The hero of the story is a man in a sense inferior. Its main feature is indifference. He is indifferent to everything: to the death of his mother, to someone else's grief, to his own moral decline. And only before his death, pathological indifference to the world around him leaves him. And it is at this moment that the hero realizes that he cannot escape the indifference of the world around him. He is sentenced to death for the murder he committed. And all he dreams about in the last minutes of his life is not to see indifference in the eyes of people who will watch his death.
"A fall"
This story was published three years before the death of the writer. The works of Albert Camus, as a rule, belong to the philosophical genre. Fall is no exception. In the story, the author creates a portrait of a man who is an artistic symbol of modern European society. The hero's name is Jean-Baptiste, which is translated from French as John the Baptist. However, the character of Camus has little in common with the biblical one.
In The Fall, the author uses a technique characteristic of the Impressionists. The story is told in the form of a stream of consciousness. The hero tells about his life to the interlocutor. At the same time, he tells about the sins that he committed, without a shadow of regret. Jean-Baptiste personifies the selfishness and scarcity of the inner world of the Europeans, the writer's contemporaries. According to Camus, they are not interested in anything other than achieving their own pleasure. The narrator periodically digresses from his biography, expressing his point of view on this or that philosophical issue. As in other works of art by Albert Camus, in the center of the plot of the story "The Fall" is a man of an unusual psychological warehouse, which allows the author to reveal in a new way the eternal problems of being.
After the war
In the late forties, Camus became a freelance journalist. He permanently stopped public activities in any political organizations. During this time he created several dramatic works. The most famous of them are "Righteous", "State of Siege".
The theme of the rebellious personality in the literature of the 20th century was quite relevant. The disagreement of a person and his unwillingness to live according to the laws of society is a problem that worried many authors in the sixties and seventies of the last century. One of the founders of this literary trend was Albert Camus. His books, written in the early fifties, are imbued with a sense of disharmony and a sense of despair. "Rebellious Man" is a work that the writer devoted to the study of a person's protest against the absurdity of existence.
If in his student years Camus was actively interested in the socialist idea, then in adulthood he became an opponent of left-wing radicals. In his articles, he repeatedly raised the topic of violence and authoritarianism of the Soviet regime.
Death
In 1960, the writer died tragically. His life was cut short on the road from Provence to Paris. As a result of a car accident, Camus died instantly. In 2011, a version was put forward, according to which the death of the writer is not an accident. The accident was allegedly set up by members of the Soviet secret service. However, this version was later refuted by Michel Onfret, the author of the writer's biography.
