Jul 23, · Emmanuel Levinas’ (–) intellectual project was to develop a first philosophy. Whereas traditionally first philosophy denoted either metaphysics or theology, only to be reconceived by Heidegger as fundamental ontology, Levinas argued that it is ethics that should be so conceived A philosophical meditation on suicide originally published as Le Mythe de Sisyphe by Librairie Gallimard in The Rebel. Trans. Anthony Bower. New York: Vintage-Random House, A philosophical essay on the ethics of rebellion and political violence originally published as L’Homme Revolte by Librairie Gallimard in Exile and the His dissertation on the theme of "Freedom" Odera Oruka was the founder-president of the Philosophical Association of Kenya Consists of works of founding-fathers and statesmen in Africa, whose social-political theories were based on traditional African socialism and family values
Camus, Albert | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Albert Camus was a French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, philosophical essayist, and Nobel laureate, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political. Though he was neither by advanced training nor profession a philosopher, he nevertheless made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral discussion dissertation historical philosophical political in his novels, reviews, articles, essays, and speeches—from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death penalty.
He is often described as an existentialist writer, though he himself disavowed the label. He began his literary career as a political journalist and as an actor, director, and playwright in his native Algeria. Later, while living in occupied France during WWII, he became active in the Resistance and from served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper Combat, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political.
By mid-century, based on the strength of his three novels The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall and two book-length philosophical essays The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebelhe had achieved an international reputation and readership. It was in these works that he introduced and developed the twin philosophical ideas—the concept of the Absurd and the notion of Revolt—that made him famous.
These are the ideas that people immediately think of when they hear the name Albert Camus spoken today. The Absurd can be defined as a metaphysical tension or opposition that results from the presence of human consciousness—with its ever-pressing demand for order and meaning in life—in an essentially meaningless and indifferent universe. Camus considered the Absurd to be a fundamental and even defining characteristic of the modern human condition.
The notion of Revolt refers to both a path of resolved action and a state of mind, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political. It can take extreme forms such as terrorism or a reckless and unrestrained egoism both of which are rejected by Camusbut basically, and in simple terms, it consists of an attitude of heroic defiance or resistance to whatever oppresses human beings.
He was at the height of his career—at work on an autobiographical novel, planning new projects for theatre, film, and television, and still seeking a solution to the lacerating political turmoil in his homeland—when he died tragically in an automobile accident in January Albert Camus was born on November 7,in Mondovi, a small village near the seaport city of Bonê present-day Annaba in the northeast region of French Algeria.
He was the second child of Lucien Discussion dissertation historical philosophical political Camus, a military veteran and wine-shipping clerk, and of Catherine Helene Sintes Camus, a house-keeper and part-time factory worker. Shortly after the outbreak of WWI, when Camus was less than a year old, his father was recalled to military service and, on October 11,died of shrapnel wounds suffered at the first battle of the Marne.
As a child, about the only thing Camus ever learned about his father was that he had once become violently ill after witnessing a public execution. In his posthumously published autobiographical novel The First ManCamus recalls this period of his life with a mixture of pain and affection as he describes conditions of harsh poverty the three-room apartment had no bathroom, no electricity, and no discussion dissertation historical philosophical political water relieved by hunting trips, family outings, childhood games, and scenic flashes of sun, seashore, mountain, and desert.
These father figures introduced him to a new world of history and imagination and to literary landscapes far beyond the dusty streets of Belcourt and working-class poverty. It was in secondary school that Camus became an avid reader absorbing Gide, Proust, Verlaine, and Bergson, among otherslearned Latin and English, and developed a lifelong interest in literature, art, theatre, and film.
that a ball never discussion dissertation historical philosophical political from the direction you expected it. That helped me in later life, especially in mainland France, where nobody plays straight. By the time he finished his Baccalauréat degree in JuneCamus was already contributing articles to Suda literary monthly, and looking forward to a career in journalism, the arts, or higher education, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political.
The next four years were an especially busy period in his life during which he attended college, worked at odd jobs, married his first wife Simone Hiédivorced, briefly joined the Communist party, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, and effectively began his professional theatrical and writing career.
Among his various employments during the time were stints of routine office work where one job consisted of a Bartleby-like recording and sifting of meteorological data and another involved paper shuffling in an auto license bureau.
One can well imagine that it was as a result of this experience that his famous conception of Sisyphean struggle, heroic defiance in the face discussion dissertation historical philosophical political the Absurd, first began to take shape within his imagination. Inhe became a co-founder, along with a group of young fellow intellectuals, of the Théâtre du Travail, a professional acting company specializing in drama with left-wing political themes.
That same year Camus also earned his degree and completed his dissertation, a study of the influence of Plotinus and neo-Platonism on the thought and writings of St.
Over the next three years Camus further established himself as an emerging author, journalist, and theatre professional. The name change signaled a new emphasis on classic drama and avant-garde aesthetics and discussion dissertation historical philosophical political shift away from labor politics and agitprop. In he joined the staff of a new daily newspaper, the Alger Républicainwhere his assignments as a reporter and reviewer covered everything from contemporary European literature to local political trials.
It was during this period that he also published his first two literary works— Betwixt and Betweena collection of five short semi-autobiographical and philosophical pieces and Nuptialsa series of lyrical celebrations interspersed with political and philosophical reflections on North Africa and the Mediterranean. He started the decade as a locally acclaimed author and playwright, but he was a figure virtually unknown outside the city of Algiers; however, he ended the decade as an internationally recognized novelist, dramatist, journalist, philosophical essayist, and champion of freedom.
This period of his life began inauspiciously—war in Europe, the occupation of France, official censorship, and a widening crackdown on left-wing journals. Camus was still without stable employment or steady income when, after marrying his second wife, Francine Faure, in December ofhe departed Lyons, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, where he had been working as a journalist, and returned to Algeria.
To help make ends meet, he taught part-time French history and geography at a private school in Oran. All the while he was putting finishing touches to his first novel The Strangerwhich was finally published in to favorable critical response, including a lengthy and penetrating review by Jean-Paul Sartre, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political. The novel propelled him into immediate literary renown. Camus returned to France in and a year later began working for the clandestine newspaper Combatthe journalistic arm and voice of the French Resistance movement.
During this period, while contending with recurrent bouts of tuberculosis, he also published The Myth of Sisyphushis philosophical anatomy of suicide and the absurd, and joined Gallimard Publishing as an editor, a discussion dissertation historical philosophical political he held until his death.
After the Liberation, Camus continued as editor of Combat, oversaw the production and publication of two plays, The Misunderstanding and Caligulaand assumed a leading role in Parisian intellectual society in the company of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir among others.
In the late 40s his growing reputation as a writer and thinker was enlarged by the publication of The Plaguean allegorical novel and fictional parable of the Nazi Occupation and the duty of revolt, and by the lecture tours to the United States discussion dissertation historical philosophical political South America. In he published The Rebela reflection on the nature of freedom and rebellion and a philosophical critique of revolutionary violence.
This powerful and controversial work, with its explicit condemnation of Marxism-Leninism and its emphatic denunciation of unrestrained violence as a discussion dissertation historical philosophical political of human liberation, led to an eventual falling out with Sartre and, along with his opposition to the Algerian National Liberation Front, to his being branded a reactionary in the view of many European Communists. Yet his position also established him as an outspoken champion of individual freedom and as an impassioned critic of tyranny and terrorism, whether practiced by the Left or by discussion dissertation historical philosophical political Right.
InCamus published the short, confessional novel The Fallwhich unfortunately would be the last of his completed major works and which in the discussion dissertation historical philosophical political of some critics is the most elegant, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, and most under-rated of all his books.
During this period he was still afflicted by tuberculosis and was perhaps even more sorely beset by the deteriorating political situation in his native Algeria—which had by now escalated from demonstrations and occasional terrorist and guerilla attacks into open violence and insurrection. Camus still hoped to champion some kind of rapprochement that would allow the native Muslim population and the French pied noir minority to live together peaceably in a new de-colonized and largely integrated, if not fully independent, nation.
Alas, by this point, as he painfully realized, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, the odds of such an outcome were becoming increasingly unlikely. In the fall offollowing publication of Exile and the Kingdom, a collection of short fiction, Camus was shocked by news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
He absorbed the announcement with mixed feelings of gratitude, humility, and amazement. On the one hand, the award was obviously a tremendous honor. On the other, not only did he feel that his friend and esteemed fellow novelist Andre Malraux was more deserving, he was also aware that the Nobel itself was widely regarded as the kind of accolade usually given to artists at the end of a long career.
Yet, as he indicated in his acceptance speech at Stockholm, he considered his own career as still in mid-flight, with much yet to accomplish and even greater writing challenges ahead:.
Every person, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, and assuredly every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I. A man almost young, rich only in his doubts, and with his work still in progress…how could such a man not feel a kind of panic at hearing a decree that transports him all of a discussion dissertation historical philosophical political the center of a glaring spotlight?
And with what feelings could he accept this honor at a time when other writers in Europe, among them the very greatest, are condemned to silence, and even at a time when the country of his birth is going through unending misery? Of course Camus could not have known as he spoke these words that most of his writing career was in fact behind him.
He also formulated new concepts for film and television, assumed a leadership role in a new experimental national theater, and continued to campaign for peace and a political solution in Algeria. Unfortunately, none of these latter projects would be brought to fulfillment.
On January 4,Camus died tragically in a car accident while he was a passenger in a vehicle driven by his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard, who also suffered fatal injuries. The author was buried in the local cemetery at Lourmarin, a village in Provencal where he and his wife and daughters had lived for nearly a decade. In this respect, it is also worth noting that at no time in his career did Camus ever describe himself as a deep thinker or lay claim to the title of philosopher.
Instead, he nearly always referred to himself simply, yet proudly, as un ecrivain —a writer. This is an important fact to keep in mind when assessing his place in intellectual history and in twentieth-century philosophy, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, for by no means does he qualify as a system-builder or theorist or even as a disciplined thinker.
To pin down exactly why and in what distinctive sense Camus may be termed a philosophical writer, we can begin by comparing him with other authors who have merited the designation. Right away, we can eliminate any comparison with the efforts of Lucretius and Dante, who undertook to unfold entire cosmologies and philosophical systems in epic verse.
Camus obviously attempted nothing of the sort. On the other hand, we can draw at least a limited comparison between Camus and writers discussion dissertation historical philosophical political Pascal, Kierkegaard, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, and Nietzsche—that is, with writers who were first of all philosophers or religious writers, but whose stylistic achievements and literary flair gained them a special place in the pantheon of world literature as well.
Here we may note that Camus himself was very conscious of his debt to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche especially in the style and structure of The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel and that he might very well have followed in their literary-philosophical footsteps if his tuberculosis had not side-tracked him into fiction and journalism and prevented him from pursuing an academic career.
By his own definition then Camus is a philosophical writer in the sense that he has a conceived his own distinctive and original world-view and b sought to convey that view mainly through images, fictional characters and events, and via dramatic presentation rather than through critical analysis and direct discourse. He is also both a novelist of ideas and a psychological novelist, and in this respect, he certainly compares most closely to Dostoyevsky and Sartre, two other writers who combine a unique and distinctly philosophical outlook, acute psychological insight, and a dramatic style of presentation.
Like Camus, Sartre was a productive playwright, and Dostoyevsky remains perhaps the most dramatic of all novelists, as Camus clearly understood, having adapted both The Brothers Karamazov and The Possessed for the stage.
However, his body of work also includes a collection of short fiction, Exile and the Kingdom ; an autobiographical novel, The First Man ; a number of dramatic works, most notably Caligula, The MisunderstandingThe State of Siegeand The Just Assassins ; several translations and adaptations, including new versions of works by Calderon, Lope de Vega, Dostoyevsky, and Faulkner; discussion dissertation historical philosophical political a lengthy assortment of essays, prose pieces, critical reviews, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, transcribed speeches and interviews, articles, and works of journalism, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political.
Camus made no effort to conceal the fact that his novel was partly based on and could be interpreted as an allegory or parable of the rise of Nazism and the nightmare of the Occupation. However, the plague metaphor is both more complicated and more flexible than that, extending to signify the Absurd in general as well as any discussion dissertation historical philosophical political or disaster that tests the mettle of human beings, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, their endurance, their solidarity, their sense of responsibility, their compassion, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political their will.
Set in a seedy bar in the red-light district of Amsterdam, the work is a small masterpiece of compression and style: a confessional and semi-autobiographical novel, an arresting character study and psychological portrait, and at the same time a wide-ranging philosophical discourse on guilt and innocence, expiation and punishment, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, good and evil.
Camus began his literary career as a playwright and theatre director and was planning new dramatic works for film, stage, and television at the time of his death. In addition to his four original plays, he also published several successful adaptations including theatre pieces based on works by Faulkner, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political, Dostoyevsky, and Calderon. He took particular pride in his work as a dramatist and man of the theatre.
However, his plays never achieved the same popularity, critical success, or level of incandescence as his more famous novels and major essays. The Misunderstanding Le Malentendu—In this grim exploration of the Absurd, a son returns home while concealing his true identity from his mother and sister. The two women operate a boarding house where, in order to make ends meet, they quietly murder and rob their patrons.
Through a tangle of misunderstanding and mistaken identity they wind up murdering their unrecognized visitor. Camus has explained the drama as an attempt to capture the atmosphere of malaise, corruption, demoralization, and anonymity that he experienced while living in France during the German occupation. The play is set in the Spanish seaport city of Cadiz, famous for its beaches, carnivals, and street musicians.
By the end of the first act, the normally laid-back and carefree citizens fall under the dominion of a gaudily beribboned and uniformed dictator named Plague based on Generalissimo Franco and his officious, clip-board wielding Secretary who turns out to be a modern, bureaucratic incarnation of the medieval figure Death. One of the prominent concerns of the play is the Orwellian theme of the degradation of language via totalitarian politics and bureaucracy symbolized onstage by calls for silence, scenes in pantomime, and a gagged chorus.
The Just Assassins Les Justes—First performed in Paris to largely favorable reviews, this play is based on real-life characters and an actual historical event: the assassination of the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich by Ivan Kalyayev and fellow members of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
The play effectively dramatizes the issues that Camus would later explore in detail in The Rebelespecially the question of whether acts of terrorism and political violence can ever be morally justified and if so, with what limitations and in what specific circumstances. After the successful completion of his bombing mission and subsequent arrest, Kalyayev welcomed his execution on similarly practical and purely political grounds, believing that his death would further the cause of revolution and social justice.
Upon seeing the two children in the carriage, he refuses to toss his bomb not because doing so would be politically inexpedient but because he is overcome emotionally, temporarily unnerved by the sad expression in their eyes, discussion dissertation historical philosophical political. Similarly, at the end of the play he embraces his death not so much because it will aid the revolution, but almost as a discussion dissertation historical philosophical political of karmic penance, as if it were indeed some kind of sacred duty or metaphysical requirement that must be performed in order for true justice to be achieved.
Nuptials Noces—This collection of four rhapsodic narratives supplements and amplifies the youthful philosophy expressed in Betwixt and Between.
It is here that Camus formally introduces and fully articulates his most famous idea, the concept of the Absurd, and his equally famous image of life as a Sisyphean struggle. Only this time his primary concern is not suicide but murder. He takes up the question of whether acts of terrorism and political violence can be morally justified, which is basically the same question he had addressed earlier in his play The Just Assassins.
After arguing that an authentic life inevitably involves some form of conscientious moral revolt, Camus winds up concluding that only in rare and very narrowly defined instances is political violence justified.
James Baldwin vs William F Buckley: A legendary debate from 1965
, time: 58:43Emmanuel Levinas (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Jul 23, · Emmanuel Levinas’ (–) intellectual project was to develop a first philosophy. Whereas traditionally first philosophy denoted either metaphysics or theology, only to be reconceived by Heidegger as fundamental ontology, Levinas argued that it is ethics that should be so conceived Political and Social Writings [PSW 2]. Volume 2: – From the Workers' Struggle Against Bureaucracy to Revolution in the Age of Modern Capitalism (ed./trans. David Ames Curtis). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis pp. ISBN Political and Social Writings [PSW 3]. Volume 3: – Severing political discussion from decision and action, however, focuses the locus of Habermasian politics strictly on discussion and what he calls a discourse theory of democracy. Whereas theories of strong democracy posit individuals organizing, deliberating, making decisions, and actively transforming the institutions of their social life
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