Albert Camus short biography. Camus, Albert

Are you here: Motherhood

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algiers, in the family of an agricultural worker. He was less than a year old when his father died on First World War. After the death of his father, Albert's mother suffered a stroke and became half-mute. Camus's childhood was very difficult.

In 1923, Albert entered the Lyceum. He was a bright student and was active in sports. However, after the young man fell ill with tuberculosis, the sport had to be abandoned.

After the lyceum, the future writer entered the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Algiers. Camus had to work hard to be able to pay his tuition. In 1934, Albert Camus married Simone Iye. The wife turned out to be a morphine drug addict, and the marriage with her did not last long.

In 1936, the future writer received a master's degree in philosophy. Just after receiving his diploma, Camus had an exacerbation of tuberculosis. Because of this, he did not stay in graduate school.

To improve his health, Camus went on a trip to France. He described his impressions of the trip in his first book, The Inside Out and the Face (1937). In 1936, the writer began work on his first novel, A Happy Death. This work was only published in 1971.

Camus very quickly gained a reputation as a major writer and intellectual. He not only wrote, but was also an actor, playwright, director. In 1938, his second book, Marriage, was published. At this time, Camus was already living in France.

During the German occupation of France, the writer took an active part in the resistance movement, he also worked in the underground newspaper "Battle", which was published in Paris. In 1940, the story "The Outsider" was completed. This piercing work brought the writer world fame. This was followed by the philosophical essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942). In 1945, the play "Caligula" was released. In 1947, the novel The Plague appeared.

Philosophy of Albert Camus

Camus was one of the most prominent representatives existentialism. His books convey the idea of the absurdity of human existence, which in any case will end in death. In early works ("Caligula", "The Stranger"), the absurdity of life leads Camus to despair and immorality, reminiscent of Nietzscheism. But in The Plague and subsequent books, the writer insists that a common tragic fate should give rise to a feeling of mutual compassion and solidarity in people. The goal of the personality is “to create meaning among the universal nonsense”, “to overcome the human lot, drawing within oneself the strength that one had previously sought outside”.

In the 1940s Camus became close friends with another prominent existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre. However, due to serious ideological differences, the moderate humanist Camus broke with the communist radical Sartre. In 1951 came out a major philosophical work of Camus "The Rebellious Man", and in 1956 - the story "The Fall".

In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of the human conscience."

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 prevails 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 a 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 of 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 most terrible 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 cannot 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.

"The 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 is periodically distracted 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. 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 back in the early fifties, are imbued with a sense of disharmony and a sense of despair. "The 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.

Albert Camus- French writer, philosopher, thinker, publicist, representative of atheistic existentialism, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1957), during his lifetime he was called "the conscience of the West." He was born in the Algerian city of Mondovi on November 7, 1913. His father, a wine cellar keeper, was mortally wounded in the Battle of Marly in 1914, and after his death his family faced serious financial difficulties.

It is not known whether Albert could have received an education if, in 1923, an elementary school teacher had not persuaded the mother and grandmother of his capable student to send him to the lyceum. In 1930, Camus fell ill with tuberculosis, and he had to give up active sports, and subsequently, due to a former illness, he was not allowed to undergo postgraduate training and was not drafted into the army. During 1932-1937. Albert Camus was educated at the University of Algiers (Faculty of Philosophy), graduating with a master's degree.

The years after study were filled with vigorous activity - social, creative, theatrical. In 1935, he became a member of the French Communist Party, from which he left in 1937, because. the policy of the Comintern became alien to him. In the same year, he actively comprehends existentialism, studies the works of its representatives. In 1936, Camus was the organizer of the traveling "Theater of Labor", where he was a director and actor. During 1936-1937. made trips to Central Europe, Italy, France. In 1936, a collection of lyrical essays entitled "Inside and Face" was published, and the following year the novel "Marriage" was published.

Since 1938, Camus has been working as an editor of periodicals. Since 1940, his biography has been associated with France and Paris. The huge success of the story "The Outsider", written in 1942, makes its author known throughout the world. During the war years, Albert Camus was a member of the Resistance movement, a member of the underground organization Komba, and an employee of its press organ. It was this newspaper that published in 1943 the "Letters to a German Friend", which also received great fame, asserting eternal moral values. In 1944, Camus wrote the novel The Plague, in which fascism is the personification of violence and evil (it was published only in 1947).

50s characterized by Camus' conscious desire to remain independent, to avoid predilections dictated solely by "party affiliation". One of the consequences was a disagreement with Jean Paul Sartre, a prominent representative of French existentialism. In 1951, an anarchist magazine published Albert Camus's book The Rebellious Man, in which the author explores how a person struggles with the internal and external absurdity of his existence. The book was perceived as a rejection of socialist beliefs, condemnation of totalitarianism, dictatorship, to which Camus attributed communism. Diary entries testify to the writer's regret about the strengthening of pro-Soviet sentiments in France, the political blindness of the left, who did not want to notice the crimes of the Soviet Union in the countries of Eastern Europe.

This period is characterized by an increase in interest in the theater. In 1954, Camus staged his own works and made attempts to open an experimental theater in the capital. In 1957, he won the Nobel Prize with the wording "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience."

The life of Albert Camus on January 4, 1960 was interrupted by a car accident in which he fell with a friend's family. They buried the great writer-philosopher in the south of France, in the cemetery in Lourmarin. In the fall of 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy took the initiative to rebury the ashes of Camus in the Pantheon, but her relatives did not support her. In the summer of 2011, one of the Italian newspapers voiced the version that Camus had become a victim of the Soviet special services, who had set up an accident, but she could not stand the criticism of biographers.

Biography from Wikipedia

Albert Camus(French Albert Camus; November 7, 1913, Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria - January 4, 1960, Villeblevin, France) - French prose writer, philosopher, essayist, publicist, close to existentialism. Received a common name during his lifetime "Conscience of the West." Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Life in Algiers

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 into a French-Algerian family in Algeria, on the Saint-Pol farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by origin, was a wine cellar superintendent in a wine company, served in the light infantry during the First World War, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and died in the infirmary. Mother Coutrine Sante, a Spanish national, semi-deaf and illiterate, moved with Albert and his older brother Lucien to the Bellecour region (Russian) fr. cities of Algiers, lived in poverty under the guidance of a willful grandmother. Kutrin, in order to support her family, worked first as a factory worker, then as a cleaner.

In 1918, Albert began attending elementary school, graduating with honors in 1923. Usually peers of his circle dropped out of school and went to work to help their families, but elementary school teacher Louis Germain was able to convince relatives of the need for Albert to continue his education, prepared the gifted boy for admission to the lyceum and secured a scholarship. Subsequently, Camus gratefully dedicated the Nobel speech to the teacher. At the Lyceum, Albert became deeply acquainted with French culture and read a lot. He began to play football seriously, played for the youth team of the Racing Universitaire d "Alger" club, later claimed that sport and playing in the team influenced the formation of his attitude towards morality and duty. In 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was forced interrupt education and permanently stop playing sports (although he retained his love for football for life), spent several months in a sanatorium.Despite his recovery, he suffered for many years from the consequences of an illness. reason he was not drafted into the army.

In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. While studying at the university, he also read a lot, began to keep diaries, wrote essays. At this time, he was influenced by A. Gide, F. M. Dostoevsky, F. Nietzsche. His friend was the teacher Jean Grenier, a writer and philosopher who had a significant influence on the young Albert Camus. Along the way, Camus was forced to work and changed several professions: a private teacher, a salesman of spare parts, an assistant at a meteorological institute. In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict. In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy with the work "Neoplatonism and Christian thought" on the influence of the ideas of Plotinus on the theology of Aurelius Augustine. Started work on the story "Happy Death". At the same time, Camus was involved in the problems of existentialism: in 1935 he studied the works of S. Kierkegaard, L. Shestov, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers; in 1936-1937 he got acquainted with the ideas of the absurdity of human existence A. Malraux.

In his senior years at the university, he became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935, he joined the French Communist Party, in solidarity with the 1934 uprising in Asturias. He was in the local cell of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for ties with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of "Trotskyism."

In 1936, he created the amateur Theater of Labor (Fr. Théâtre du Travail), renamed in 1937 into the Team Theater (Fr. Théâtre de l "Equipe). He organized, in particular, the production of The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, played Ivan Karamazov Traveled in France, Italy and the countries of Central Europe in 1936-1937. In 1937, the first collection of essays "Inside Out and Face" was published.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algiers House of Culture for some time, in 1938 he was the editor of the Coast magazine, then the left-wing opposition newspapers Alzhe Republiken and Soir Republicen. On the pages of these publications, Camus at that time advocated a socially oriented policy and the improvement of the situation of the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censors after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote mainly essays and journalistic materials. In 1938, the book "Marriage" was published. In January 1939, the first version of the play "Caligula" was written.

After the Soir Republique was banned in January 1940, Camus and his future wife, Francine Faure, a mathematician by training, moved to Oran, where they gave private lessons. Two months later we moved from Algeria to Paris.

War period

In Paris, Albert Camus is the technical editor of the Paris-Soir newspaper. In May 1940, the story "The Outsider" was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Camus soon joined the Resistance Movement and became a member of the underground Combat organization, again in Paris.

In 1942, The Outsider was published, in 1943 - The Myth of Sisyphus. Since 1943, he began to publish in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943, he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with him until the end of his life). During the war he published under the pseudonym Letters to a German Friend (later published as a separate edition). In 1943, he met Sartre, participated in the productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

Postwar years

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Komba, the publishing house published his previously written works, which soon brought the writer popularity. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement and personally with Sartre begins. He leaves Comb, becomes an independent journalist - writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called Topical Notes). At this time, he created the plays "State of Siege" and "Righteous".

Collaborates with anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists and publishes in their magazines and newspapers Liberter, Mond Liberter, Proletarian Revolution, Solidariad Obrera (published by the Spanish National Confederation of Labor) and others. Participates in the creation of the "International Relations Group".

In 1951, the anarchist magazine Liberter published "The Rebellious Man", where Camus explores the anatomy of a person's rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Critics on the left, including Sartre, saw this as a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Even greater criticism of the left radicals was caused by Camus' support for the French community of Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely follow the political life of Europe, in his diaries he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiments in France and the readiness of the French left to turn a blind eye to, as he believed, the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their unwillingness to see expansion in the Soviet-sponsored "Arab revival" not socialism and justice, but violence and authoritarianism.

He was increasingly fascinated by the theater, since 1954 he began to stage plays based on his own dramatizations, and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story "The Fall", the next year a collection of short stories "Exile and Kingdom" was published.

In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of the human conscience." In a speech on the occasion of the award, characterizing his position in life, he said that “too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that there were too many overseers on it, and that, above all, the wrong course was taken”.

Death and funeral

On the afternoon of January 4, 1960, the car in which Albert Camus, together with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, the nephew of the publisher Gaston Gallimard, was returning from Provence to Paris, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villeuvin, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later, his wife and daughter survived. Among the personal belongings of the writer, a manuscript of the unfinished novel "The First Man" and an unused railway ticket were found. Albert Camus was buried in the cemetery at Lourmarin in the Luberon region in southern France.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera publicized the version according to which the car accident was set up by the Soviet secret services as revenge on the writer for condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary and supporting Boris Pasternak. Among the persons aware of the planned assassination, the newspaper named the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Shepilov. Michel Onfret, who prepared the publication of Camus's biography, rejected this version in the Izvestia newspaper as an insinuation.

In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered to transfer the ashes of the writer to the Pantheon, but did not receive the consent of Albert Camus's relatives.

Philosophical views

Camus himself did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. Nevertheless, the work of representatives of this philosophical trend had a great influence on the work of Camus. At the same time, his commitment to existentialist issues is also due to a serious illness (and, therefore, a constant feeling of the proximity of death), with which he lived from childhood.

Unlike the "rebel" Sartre and the religious existentialists (Jaspers), Camus believed that the only means of combating absurdity was the recognition of its givenness. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes that in order to understand the reasons forcing a person to do meaningless work, one must imagine Sisyphus descending from the mountain, finding satisfaction in a clear awareness of the futility and futility of his own efforts; According to Camus, in practice, this attitude to life is realized in a permanent rebellion. Many Camus heroes come to a similar state of mind under the influence of circumstances (threat to life, death of loved ones, conflict with their own conscience, etc.), their further destinies are different.

The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcibly improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist and anti-authoritarian socialist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice "with their own methods" could only give rise to even greater violence and injustice , but, rejecting the understanding of rebellion, which does not recognize its positive aspects, in the essay "Rebellious Man" considers rebellion as a way of solidarity with other people and a philosophy of measure that determines both agreement and disagreement with existing realities; paraphrasing the Cartesian maxim as "I rebel, therefore we exist." Camus distinguishes two forms of manifestation of rebellion: the first is expressed in revolutionary activity, the second, which he prefers, in creativity. At the same time, he remained in the pessimistic belief that despite the positive role of rebellion in history, it is impossible to finally defeat evil.

Non-religious beliefs

Albert Camus is referred to as representatives of atheistic existentialism, his views are usually characterized as irreligious and atheistic. Critic of religion; during the preparation of The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus expresses one of the key ideas of his philosophy: “If there is a sin against life, then it is apparently not that they do not have hopes, but that they rely on life in another world and shy away from the pitiless majesty of this life.” At the same time, the attribution of supporters of atheistic (non-religious) existentialism to atheism is partly arbitrary, and Camus, along with disbelief in God, the recognition that God is dead, affirms the absurdity of life without God. Camus himself did not consider himself an atheist.

Compositions

Prose

Novels

Plague (fr. La Peste) (1947)
The First Man (French: Le premier homme) (unfinished, published posthumously in 1994)

Tale

Outsider (fr. L'Étranger) (1942)
Fall (fr. La Chute) (1956)
Happy Death (fr. La Mort heureuse) (1938, published posthumously in 1971)

stories

Exile and kingdom (fr. L "Exil et le royaume) (1957)
- A cheating wife(French La Femme adultère)
- Renegade, or Confused Spirit(French Le Renegat ou un esprit confus)
- Silence(French Les Muets)
- Hospitality(French L "Hôte)
- Jonah, or The Artist at Work(French Jonas ou l'artiste au travail)
- growing stone(fr. La pierre qui pousse)

Dramaturgy

Misunderstanding(fr. Le Malentendu) (1944)
Caligula (fr. Caligula) (1945)
state of siege(French L'État de siège) (1948)
righteous(fr. Les Justes) (1949)
Requiem for a Nun(fr. Requiem pour une nonne) (1956)
Demons(French Les Possedes) (1959)

Essay

Revolt in Asturias (fr. Révolte dans les Asturies) (1936)
Backside and face(French L'Envers et l'Endroit) (1937)
Wind in Jemil(French Le vent a Djémila) (1938)
marriage feast(fr. Noces) (1939)
The myth of Sisyphus(fr. Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1942)
Rebellious man(French L'Homme revolté) (1951)
Summer(French L "Été) (1954)
Return to Tipasa(French Retour à Tipaza) (1954)
Reflections on the death penalty(fr. Réflexions sur la peine capitale) (1957), together with Arthur Koestler, Reflections on the guillotine(French: Reflexions sur la Guillotine)
Swedish speeches(French Discours de Suède) (1958)

Other

Autobiographies and diaries

Topical notes 1944-1948(fr. Actuelles I, Chroniques 1944-1948) (1950)
Topical notes 1948-1953(fr. Actuelles II, Chroniques 1948-1953) (1953)
Topical Notes 1939-1958(French Chroniques algériennes, Actuelles III, 1939-1958) (1958)
Diaries, May 1935 - February 1942(French Carnets I, mai 1935 - février 1942) (published posthumously in 1962)
Diaries, January 1942 - March 1951(fr. Carnets II, janvier 1942 - mars 1951) (published posthumously in 1964)
Diaries, March 1951 - December 1959(fr. Carnets III, mars 1951 - décembre 1959) (published posthumously in 1989)
Travel diary(fr. Journaux de voyage) (1946, 1949, published posthumously in 1978)

Correspondence

Correspondence between Albert Camus and Jean Grenier(French Correspondance Albert Camus, Jean Grenier, 1932-1960) (published posthumously in 1981)
Correspondence between Albert Camus and René Char(French Correspondance Albert Camus, René Char, 1949-1959) (published posthumously in 2007)
Albert Camus, Maria Casares. Correspondance inédite (1944-1959). Avant-propos de Catherine Camus. Gallimard, 2017.

Editions in Russian

Camus A. Selected: Collection / Comp. and foreword. S. Velikovsky. - M.: Raduga, 1988. - 464 p. (Masters of modern prose)
Camus A. Creativity and freedom. Articles, essays, notebooks / Per. from French - M.: Raduga, 1990. - 608 p.
Camus A. A rebellious man. Philosophy. Politics. Art / Per. from French - M.: Politizdat, 1990. - 416 p., 200,000 copies.
Camus A. Actuelles / Translated from French. S. S. Avanesova // Intentionality and textuality: Philosophical thought of France of the XX century. - Tomsk, 1998. - S. 194-202.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Hosted at http://www.allbest.ru/

[Enter text]

INTRODUCTION

Albert Camus - one of the key figures of literary life in post-war France, the ruler of the thoughts of a whole generation, prose writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, member of the underground Resistance, Nobel Prize winner in literature (he received the prize at forty-four years old, in 1957) - in his tragic example, he proved what he tirelessly emphasized - the role of chance and absurdity in human life: Camus was the victim of an accident, on January 4, 1960 he died in a car accident.

A singer of the absurd by necessity, by the impossibility of finding another connection between the world and man, Camus was not a motionless, unshakable statue. His philosophical and aesthetic development, ideological trajectory, partly reminiscent of the trajectory of Dostoevsky's theomachic heroes, is distinguished by the fact that Camus was able to admit and analyze his mistakes. But at first he couldn't help doing them.

Albert Camus is one of the greatest representatives of Western philosophy of the 20th century. Camus has repeatedly said that he is not a philosopher. Indeed, he was not a professional philosopher, although he received a philosophical education and could well have become a professor at some university. It is unlikely that not only millions of readers of his novels would benefit from this, but also the philosophers themselves - the latter have repeatedly pointed out the lack of precise definitions, conceptual analysis in the works of Camus, the frequent inaccuracies in the reconstruction of the views of thinkers of the past. But any academic philosopher understands the originality of Camus's thinking, not the logical, but the intuitive accuracy of his reasoning.

Among the variety of philosophical issues raised in the work of A. Camus, the problem of absurdity was chosen for this essay.

Considering the concepts of absurdity and rebellion, Camus analyzed the ideas of his contemporary philosophical schools, and argued with them with some of his thoughts and conclusions. Camus put forward his own point of view on these problems, and his work is all the more interesting for the modern reader.

The inconsistency of the world and being, the meaning of life, the attitude to freedom, the ambiguous assessment of the place and role of man in the world and in society - these questions have always been open and have attracted thinkers at all times. But they became especially relevant in the 20th century, which will go down in history as an era of rapid development of technology and the emergence of a man-made habitat, an era of dramatic political transformations and global wars, an era of the formation and collapse of hitherto unseen totalitarian regimes. The theme of the absurdity of social life, the meaninglessness of history, disbelief in Progress, meaning, truth arises simultaneously in the face of the impending catastrophe in the face of the Second World War. Thus, he was the spokesman for the fears and hopes not only of individual nations, but of the entire European civilization as a whole.

The problems of his works are relevant even today, in the 21st century. Camus writes about real people, situations, problems. Every time we read his works, we will understand something new. They evoke too strong emotions, they drag on so that then for several days in a row it is impossible to think about anything but his heroes, their destinies, lives. Camus is always a whirlpool of new and unexpected emotions, it is shock, awe, sometimes horror, but never tears. Camus describes life as it is and the people in his books are REAL. He doesn't embellish anything. It is a rarity. And it's amazing.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF A. CAMUUS

Albemre Camum (fr. Albert Camus, 1913-1960) - French writer and philosopher, representative of existentialism, received a common name during his lifetime "Conscience of the West". Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algiers, on the Saint-Pol farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, agricultural worker Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by birth, died in the Battle of the Marne, at the beginning of the First World War. His mother, a Spaniard by nationality, Kutrine Sante, moved with her children to the city of Algeria.

In 1932-1937. studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. During his studies, he read a lot, began to keep diaries, wrote essays. In 1936-1937. traveled in France, Italy and the countries of Central Europe. Material need, as Camus recalled, is much easier to endure where it is replenished by the beauty of nature, the fullness of bodily life. The most beautiful pages of Camus's prose are devoted to the Mediterranean nature. This land, which retained elements of antiquity, was constantly present in the minds of Camus as a sunny Apollonian world, which inherited clarity of thought and feeling from the Hellenes. In his senior years at the university, he became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935, he joined the French Communist Party, in solidarity with the uprising in Asturias. He was in the local cell of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for ties with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of "Trotskyism." In 1936 he created the amateur "People's Theatre", organized, in particular, the production of "The Brothers Karamazov" after Dostoevsky, played Ivan Karamazov.

Back in 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and, despite his recovery, for many years he suffered from the consequences of the disease. For health reasons, he was denied postgraduate studies, for the same reason he was later not drafted into the army.

“I was halfway between poverty and the sun,” Camus tried many years later to find the origins of his thought. “Poverty prevented me from believing that everything is safe in history and under the sun, the sun taught me that history is not everything.” The young intellectual in the first generation, who in Russia was once called "cook's children", was very disturbed by the troubles of the current history, prompted him to present a severe account to all who were responsible for this. “Every time I hear a political speech or read a statement by those who govern us,” he wrote in his diary, “I am horrified, and for more than a year now, because I do not catch the slightest hint of humanity. Always the same words, the same lies. Camus thinks that the mercenary fuss of rogue politicians should be stopped by politicians of a different kind, "carriers of action and at the same time of ideals." He himself would like to be one of the champions of honor in a field where there are too many liars and resourceful businessmen. "It's about living your dreams and turning them into action."

However, Camus's drive to match the dream was waning as the world slid down another military abyss. The fire of the Reichstag in Berlin, the death of the Spanish Republic in 1937, the Munich Agreement, the collapse of the Popular Front in France, the "strange war" - all this weathered the hopes for the success of efforts to master the course of history. Camus does not say goodbye to the rebellious mood of the mind, however, even then he gives his rebellion a metaphysical aspiration: “The revolutionary spirit is completely reduced to the indignation of man with his destiny. The revolution has always, since the time of Prometheus, risen against the gods, while tyrants and bourgeois dolls are just a pretext here. But as soon as the eternal fate stands behind the backs of the successive rulers, fate is the “gods”, and they cannot be dealt with forever and ever, then despair nestles in Camus’s very disobedience. Convinced that “the ivory towers have long been destroyed”, that with injustice “either cooperate or fight”, there is no third way, he advocates intervention in the civil battles of his era, however, in advance, imbued - and undermined - by the knowledge of the ultimate doom on defeat.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algiers House of Culture for some time, in 1938 he was the editor of the Coast magazine, then the left-wing opposition newspapers Alzhe Republuken and Soir Republuken. On the pages of these publications, Camus at that time advocated the implementation of a socially oriented state policy and the improvement of the situation of the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censors after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote a lot, mostly essays and journalistic materials. In January 1939, the first version of the play "Caligula" was written.

After the Soir Republuquin was banned in January 1940, Camus and his future wife, Francine Faure, moved to Oran, where they lived, giving private lessons. Two months later they leave Algiers and move to Paris.

In Paris, Albert Camus got a job as a technical editor for the Paris-Soir newspaper. In May 1940, the novel "The Outsider" was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Soon Camus joins the Resistance Movement, becomes a member of the underground organization Komba, and returns to Paris. In 1942, The Outsider was published, in 1943 - The Myth of Sisyphus. Since 1943, he began to publish in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943, he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with him until the end of his life). During the war he published under the pseudonym "Letters to a German Friend" (later published as a separate edition). In 1943, he met Sartre, participated in the productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage). In 1944, the novel The Plague was written (published only in 1947).

After the end of the war, Camus continues to work at Komba, his previously written works are published, which brought the writer popularity. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement begins, he leaves Combe, becomes an independent journalist - writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called Topical Notes). At this time, he created the plays "State of Siege" and "Righteous".

In 1951, "The Rebellious Man" was released, where Camus explores the anatomy of a person's rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Critics on the left, including Sartre, saw this as a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Even greater criticism of the left radicals was caused by Camus' support for the French community of Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely follow the political life of Europe, in his diaries he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiments in France and the readiness of the French left to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their unwillingness to see the expansion of non-socialism and justice in the USSR-sponsored "Arab revival", but violence and authoritarianism.

In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In a speech on the occasion of the award, describing his position in life, he said that he was “too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that there were too many overseers on it and that, in addition to everything , wrong course taken. In a response speech, Camus said that his work is based on the desire to "avoid outright lies and resist oppression." When Camus received the Nobel Prize, he was only 44 years old and, in his own words, had reached artistic maturity; the writer had extensive creative plans, as evidenced by notes in notebooks and memoirs of friends. But in the last years of his life, Camus wrote practically nothing.

On January 4, 1960, the Facel-Vega car, in which Albert Camus, along with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, was returning from Provence to Paris, flew off the road. Camus and Gallimard died in a car accident. Among the personal belongings of the writer, a manuscript of the unfinished novel "The First Man" and an unused railway ticket were found.

CREATIVE ACTIVITY

Bibliography:

The inside and the face (L "Envers et l" Endroit, 1937).

The Marriage Feast (Noces, 1938).

Summer (L "Yty, 1938).

Outsider (L "Ytranger, 1942).

The myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1942).

Caligula (Caligula, 1944).

Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu, 1944).

Plague (La Peste, 1947).

State of siege (L "Ytat de siige, 1948).

Letters to a German doug (Lettres a un ami allemand, 1948).

The Righteous (Les Justes, 1950).

A rebellious man (L "Homme ryvolt, 1951).

Fall (La Chute, 1956).

Exile and kingdom (L "Exil et le royaume, 1957).

Topical notes (Actuelles).

First Man (Le Premier homme, unfinished, 1994).

Camus began to write before reaching the age of 20, his first books - The inside and the face (L "envers et l" endroit, 1937) and The Marriage Feast (Noces, 1938) - were published in Algeria. He wrote the novels Outsider (L "tranger, 1942), The Plague (La Peste, 1947) and The Fall (La Chute, 1956); stories; plays by Caligula (Caligula, 1944), Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu, 1944), State of siege ( L "tat de sige, 1948) and the Righteous (Les Justes, 1950); lyric essays; philosophical treatises The Myth of Sisyphe (Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1942) and The Rebellious Man (L "Homme rvolt, 1951); posthumously published collection of journalism Topical Notes (Actuelles, 1961), as well as prefaces, articles and speeches. Unfinished autobiographical novel The First Man (Le Premier homme), a draft of which was found at the site of the death of Camus, published in 1994.

The Outsider and the Myth of Sisyphus contain major clues to Camus' philosophy. The consciousness of Meursault, the hero of the Outsider, awakens only towards the very end of the story, when he faces the death penalty for the accidental, wanton murder of an unfamiliar Arab. The prototype of the modern anti-hero, he infuriates the judges by rejecting their hypocrisy and refusing to admit his own guilt. In the Myth of Sisyphus, the mythological hero Sisyphus begins where Meursault left off. The gods sentenced him forever to roll a huge stone up the mountain, which, having reached the top, falls down again, but Sisyphus stubbornly starts over every time, realizing the futility of his work. In this consciousness of the senselessness of his actions lies his victory.

In The Plague, an epidemic of bubonic plague strikes an Algerian port city. The author's attention is focused on a group of people who, like Sisyphus, are aware of the futility of their efforts and yet continue to work tirelessly in order to alleviate the suffering of their fellow citizens.

"The Plague" is one of the brightest works of Western literature of the post-war period, it has the features of an "optimistic tragedy". This statement is not a paradox, despite its paradoxical appearance. There is no paradox, because through all the suffering and horrors of the epidemic, the author of the chronicle brought the good news to the reader, and it triumphs over the tragedy, paving the way for faith in the spiritual powers of man.

In Camus' latest novel, The Fall, a respectable lawyer leads a mindless existence until a moment of epiphany condemns him to self-doubt and self-justification for the rest of his life.

Of the five plays by Camus, Caligula was the most successful. With his life and death, Caligula brings the idea of absurdity and rebellion to the conclusion that his choice is completely untenable.

In "Caligula" we are talking about the logic of the absurd. Protesting against the fact that people are mortal and unhappy, gentle and sensitive Caligula moves from absurdity to nihilism, the realm of which becomes the realm of cruelty and mockery of man. But destruction ultimately leads to self-destruction. Caligula admits to a perfect mistake: "I chose the wrong path, it did not lead me to anything. My freedom is not that freedom."

Looking back at the work of Camus, who quite adequately reflected the nature of the spiritual quest and disappointment of a certain part of his contemporary Western intelligentsia, one can see that Camus's thought described a bizarre parabola. Starting with a radical apology for the absurd, the abstract essence of which became clear to him only over the years, Camus then glorified the "centripetal" forces of man, being not only a witness to their growth in the minds of his contemporaries, but also having experienced them on his own experience. However, in the future, his discoveries did not contribute to an optimistic vision of the world: he was skeptical about the disinterestedness of altruistic aspirations of man and was forced, if not to retreat back to absurdity, then at least to retreat from those bright hopes that he placed on man in "The Plague" . This does not mean that Camus ultimately became disillusioned with the spiritual powers of man and "The Fall" was the final verdict. Camus cherished the concept of human dignity and instinctively guarded it both in his most "absurd" period and in the years preceding his death. But if Camus knew what to oppose to the forces of nihilism, encroaching on human dignity, then he could not find an antidote, as Tolstoy said, "the madness of egoism." Having exposed the destructive tendencies of individualism, leading a person to a "fall", Camus could not or did not have time (drafts of his unfinished novel "The First Man", which tells about the life of the first French colonists in Algeria, remained in Camus's archive) to offer alternatives.

In parallel with the changes in the philosophical and political views of Camus, his understanding of art was also changing. In his youth, comprehending his first artistic experiments, Camus considered art to be a beautiful illusion, which, at least for a short time, gives oblivion to pain and suffering. He even talked about music in the manner of Schopenhauer, although she never occupied a large place in the spiritual life of Camus (in addition to literature and theater, which he was engaged in professionally, sculpture and painting were close to him). But very soon Camus comes to the conclusion that an aesthetic escape from reality is impossible, “fruitless twilight dreaminess” should be replaced by art as “evidence” - the bright light of a work of art highlights life, which you need to accept, say “yes” to it, without knowing any malice at peace, no contentment.

Camus refuses the absurd "self-overcoming" through artistic creation. Any "art for art's sake" is unequivocally condemned by him: aestheticism, dandyism in art inevitably go hand in hand with hypocrisy. In the ivory tower, the artist loses touch with reality. "The mistake of modern art," he considered the focus on technology, form - the means are put ahead of the goal. But sterility threatens the artist even when he becomes an "engineer of souls", an ideological "fighter". Art dies in apologetics.

Both in art and in politics, Camus urges not to leave a person at the mercy of the abstractions of progress, utopia, history. There is something in human nature that is permanent, if not eternal. Nature in general is stronger than history: by turning to one's own nature, to the unchanging in the stream of changes, a person is saved from nihilism.

Although Camus' work has been the subject of intense controversy since his death, many critics regard him as one of the most significant figures of his time. Camus showed the alienation and disappointment of the post-war generation, but stubbornly sought a way out of the absurdity of modern existence. The writer was sharply criticized for rejecting Marxism and Christianity, but nevertheless his influence on modern literature is beyond doubt. In an obituary published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della sera, the Italian poet Eugenio Montale wrote that "Camus' nihilism does not exclude hope, does not free a person from solving a difficult problem: how to live and die with dignity."

According to the American researcher Susan Sontag, "Camus' prose is devoted not so much to his heroes as to the problems of guilt and innocence, responsibility and nihilistic indifference." Believing that Camus' work is "not distinguished by either high art or depth of thought," Sontag states that "his works are distinguished by a beauty of a completely different kind, moral beauty."

The English critic A. Alvarez is of the same opinion, calling K. "a moralist who managed to raise ethical problems to philosophical ones."

Absurd creativity

Exploring the manifestations of absurdity in creativity, Camus notices that a creative work, be it a painting, a musical composition, a novel, a sculpture, always assumes that less is expressed in it than expected. Since, as Camus noted earlier, the world is unreasonable and unknowable by the mind, the absurd work testifies to the refusal of thought from its advantages and consent to be only an intellectual force that sets in motion the appearance of things and transforms into images that which makes no sense.

The absurd creator pursues two goals at once: on the one hand, he rejects, and on the other, glorifies. As Camus says, the creator "must color the void." At the same time, the ability to live is no less important for the creator than the ability to create. If the final meaning of all the works of the creator is given by his death, then the brightest light is shed on them by his life. To create is to give shape to your destiny.

"In the rarefied air of absurdity, the lives of such heroes can last only thanks to a few deep thoughts, the strength of which allows them to breathe. In this case, we will talk about a special sense of loyalty." You can add: the author's sense of loyalty to his heroes, "loyalty to the rules of battle." Children's searches for oblivion and pleasure are now abandoned. Creativity, in the sense in which it is able to replace them, is "predominantly absurd joy."

Art is a sign of death and at the same time an increase in experience. To create means to live doubly. Therefore, we conclude the analysis of the topics of this essay by referring to the creator’s universe full of splendor and at the same time childishness. It is a mistake to regard it as symbolic, to believe that a work of art can be regarded as a refuge from the absurd. A work of art takes our mind outside of it for the first time and brings us face to face with the other. Creativity reflects the moment when reasoning stops and absurd passions burst to the surface. In absurd reasoning, creativity follows impartiality and reveals it.

If it is understood in a narrow sense, then it is simply false. The only acceptable argument here is to establish a contradiction between the philosopher, enclosed in the core of his system, and the artist, standing in front of his work. But, like the thinker, the artist becomes involved in his work and becomes himself in it. This mutual influence of the creator and the work forms the most important problem of aesthetics. There are no boundaries between disciplines that are created by man for understanding and love.

I would like to finish with one more quote from the essay: "The old opposition of art and philosophy is rather arbitrary."

PHILOSOPHY OF CAMUUS

Is life worth living? Camus modified the "eternal" question about the meaning of life. Thus, he seemed to bring closer the possibility of a final answer, removing from the question a touch of impregnable scholarship that provokes irony, making it almost ordinary. Such a modification of "eternal" questions is typical both for the work of Camus, and for the entire philosophical current of existentialism, whose representative is called Camus.

Existentialism, more precisely, atheistic existentialism, like any other philosophy, is explained in a nutshell by the choice of what is primary. For Camus, existence is primary, existence. That is, nothing is more important than existence, in the name of what one can stop someone's existence, this is not justified by anything more important.

The predominant object of philosophical reflection in existentialism is the existence of individuality, meaning, knowledge, values that form the "life world" of the individual. The life world is not a fragment of an objective material world, but a world of spirituality, subjectivity. One of the main installations of existentialism is the opposition of social and individual being, the radical separation of these two spheres of human existence. Man is not determined by any essence: neither by nature, nor by society, nor by man's own essence. Only its existence matters. The main setting of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, i.e. a person first exists, appears in the world, acts in it, and only then is defined as a person.

In general, existentialism, which in literature is usually derived from the work of F.M. Dostoevsky and F. Nietzsche, today, at the beginning of the 21st century, is more an image than a working concept of philosophy. This is the image of a rational, doubting, but unceasing mind. It is in doubt and constant dissatisfaction that the energy of existential thinking is contained, putting a question mark at the end of axioms, destroying the stereotypes of public consciousness, leading to self-denial. “No, I am not an existentialist,” wrote Camus, “and the only book of ideas that I published, The Myth of Sisyphus, was directed against the philosophers called existentialists.” Living thinking opposes fixation, didacticism and any formal generalization.

Camus himself did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. Nevertheless, the work of representatives of this philosophical trend had a great influence on Camus's work.

Camus believed that the starting point of his philosophy remained the same - this is an absurdity that calls into question all values.

Camus believed that the only means of combating absurdity was the recognition of its givenness. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes that in order to understand what makes a person do meaningless work, one must imagine Sisyphus descending from the mountain happy. Many Camus heroes come to a similar state of mind under the influence of circumstances (threat to life, death of loved ones, conflict with their own conscience, etc.), their further destinies are different.

The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcibly improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice "by their own methods" could only give rise to even greater violence and injustice.

Absurdity, in his opinion, forbids not only suicide, but also murder, since the destruction of one's own kind means an attack on the unique source of meaning, which is the meaning of each person. However, the absurd setting of the "Myth of Sisyphus" does not result in a rebellion that asserts the self-worth of the other. The rebellion there gave the price of individual life - it is "the struggle of the intellect with a reality that surpasses it", "a spectacle of human pride", "refusal of reconciliation". The fight against the "plague" then is no more justified than the Don Juanism or the bloody willfulness of Caligula.

A serious problem for Camus was the disengagement from the existentialists - Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre. Camus objected to being considered a philosopher and existentialist writer. True, he could not deny that he had much in common with the existential thought of Germany, France, and Russia. In fact, the concepts of "existence", "existence", "boundary situation" "work" in the writings of Camus. The novel "The Plague", which was already discussed in the first part of the section, essentially vividly illustrates the existentialist categories of a borderline situation, fear, guilt, and responsibility. In many respects, the exemplary existentialist work was Camus' The Outsider.

Like all existentialist philosophers, Camus believes that a person discovers the most important truths about himself and the world not through scientific knowledge or philosophical speculation, but through a feeling, as if highlighting his existence, “being-in-the-world”. Camus refers to Heidegger's "anxiety" and Sartre's "nausea", he writes about boredom that suddenly takes possession of a person. The fact that spleen or “Russian melancholy” can gradually take possession of someone is known to everyone without philosophy. Moods and feelings are not subjective, they come and go not by our will, they reveal the fundamental features of our existence. Camus has such a feeling that characterizes the existence of a person, it turns out to be a feeling of absurdity - it is unexpectedly born out of boredom, crosses out the significance of all other experiences. The individual falls out of the routine of everyday life (“wake up, breakfast, four hours in a factory or office...”, etc.). The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus is a search for such a "positive form" of being in the world in which religious hope has died.

THE CONCEPT OF THE ABSURD, ITS PHILOSOPHICAL COMPREHENSION,IMPACT ON HUMAN BEING

camus absurd philosophy creativity

At the very beginning of his essay on the absurd, A. Camus emphasizes that, perhaps, the main philosophical question is the question of the meaning of life. This, in general, determines the main problems considered by the author in his work: the absurdity of being, the feeling of absurdity and its influence on the attitude towards life and the issue of suicide, hope and freedom.

Absurdism is a system of philosophical views that developed from existentialism, within which the absence of the meaning of human existence is affirmed (the absurdity of human existence).

Although the notion of the absurd permeates all of Camus' writings, The Myth of Sisyphus is his main work on the subject. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus views the absurd as a confrontation, opposition, conflict, or "divorce" between two ideals. Namely, he defines human existence as an absurdity, as a confrontation between the human desire for significance, meaning, clarity, and a silent, cold universe (or for the theists: God). He goes on to say that there are specific human experiences that evoke notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd puts a person before a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or acceptance.

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem - the problem of suicide. To decide whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy.

Turning directly to the concept of the absurd by A. Camus, it should be noted that it has neither ontological nor epistemological status. Absurdity does not know anything, does not strive for anything, does not have its own scale of values, nor self-worth. Attention should be paid to a very important point of this concept: the absurdity of the world corresponds to an absurd person who is clearly aware of the absurdity. Thus, the absurd is concentrated in the human mind. Moreover, absurdity is the only link between the vocation of man and the irrational silence of the world. "The absurdity equally depends on the person and on the world. So far, it is the only connection between them" (A. Camus. "The Myth of Sisyphus" / / A. Camus. Rebellious Man M., 1990. P. 48).

Absurdity as a clear, devoid of any metaphysical hope, vision of the world. Proceeding from this postulate, A. Camus presents an absurd work free from the desire to assert super-sense. An absurd consciousness that does not despise reason, but knows its limits, is embodied in a work that does not explain, but only reproduces the world. The world is irrational, incomprehensible, and an absurd work imitates the nonsense of the world. For an absurd consciousness, any explanation of the world is in vain: the world, by virtue of its inhuman originality, eludes us, rejects - becoming itself - the images and patterns of human thinking imposed on it. "If I were a tree or an animal, life would have found meaning for me. Or rather, the problem of meaning would have disappeared altogether, since I would have become part of this world"

The absurd has a meaning and a power that is hard to overestimate in our lives when it is disagreed with.

Where does it come from? First, absurdity is generated by comparison or opposition. Absurdity is a split, because it does not exist in any of the compared elements, it is born in their collision. And this split is an essential link between man and the world.

"The first, and in fact, the only condition of my research is the preservation of what destroys me, the consistent observance of what I consider to be the essence of the absurd." A person who has realized the absurdity is attached to it forever.

Thus, existentialism, deifying that which crushes a person, offers him an eternal flight from himself. So Jaspers, saying that everything has an explanation in being, in "an incomprehensible unity of the particular and the general," finds in this a means for reviving the entire fullness of being - extreme self-destruction, hence concluding that the greatness of God is in his inconsistency. Shestov said: "The only way out is where there is no way out for the human mind. Otherwise, what is God to us for?" It is necessary to rush into God and by this jump get rid of illusions. When an absurdity is integrated by a person, in this integration its essence is lost - a split.

Thus we arrive at the idea that the absurd presupposes equilibrium.

The absurd is a clear mind, aware of its limits.

Nevertheless, Camus the absurdist is troubled by the idea that traditional moral values are under attack. Their cancellation, according to Camus, is inevitable, but this is not stated with joy, but with a bitter feeling. Absurdity "does not recommend crime, which would be naive, but it reveals the futility of remorse. Moreover, if all paths are indifferent, then the path of duty is as legitimate as any other. One can be virtuous by caprice."

The absurd manifests itself in human existence by the fact that it calls consciousness and reason to action and provides a person with inner freedom.

In addition, Camus asks the question: what effect does absurdity have on the moral aspects of human behavior, how do absurdity and morality relate. According to Camus, a man of the absurd could accept only one morality - that which is inseparable from God, that which is dictated from above. But the man of the absurd lives without God. All other types of morality are for a person of absurdity only ways of self-justification, and he has nothing to justify himself.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that absurdity allows you to do any action. As Camus says, absurdity only makes the consequences of actions equivalent.

Doom, misfortune, hopelessness, the absurdity of existence - this is the leitmotif of Camus's works. Unhappy, misunderstood people live with "unhappy" consciousness in an absurd world. "Absurd" is one of the fundamental categories of Camus' philosophy. "I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt my exclamation, and I must at least believe in my protest."

The absurdity of Camus is directed both against reason and against faith. In God, people believe or resort to him in the hope of being saved from the despair and absurdity of the world. But for believers, “absurdity” itself has become a god. Illusions of salvation in God are senseless, just as the horrors of the "Last Judgment" are senseless. After all, everything present for people is an everyday terrible judgment.

It is also impossible to believe in the mind, both divine and human, since the mind presupposes the logic of thoughts and actions, and in life everything proceeds meaninglessly and irrationally. Everything real is alien to consciousness, random, and therefore absurd. The absurd is reality.

The world itself is not absurd, it is simply unreasonable, since it is a completely extrahuman reality that has nothing to do with our desires and our mind.

This does not mean that the world is unknowable, irrational. For Camus, such representations are also anthropomorphic, giving us an illusory idea of the comprehensibility of the fundamental principle of the world - albeit with the help of some kind of irrational intuition. Camus places high enough empirical knowledge, the methods of science. The world is fully cognizable, we are moving from one scientific theory to another, more perfect one. There is no final, final meaning in the world, the world is not transparent to our mind, it does not give an answer to our most urgent questions.

So, having considered and analyzed the concept of absurdity, Camus defines three main consequences of absurdity: a clear consciousness, with the help of which a person opposes the world, inner freedom and the diversity of the experience of being.

With the help of the work of the mind and consciousness, the man of the absurd turns into the rule of life that which was an invitation to death, thereby gaining the meaning of being and rejecting suicide.

The feeling of absurdity that arises as a result of the work of consciousness allows a person to overestimate his fate.

CONCLUSION

In this essay, we met the outstanding writer and philosopher Albert Camus, examined the problem and the concept of absurdity - one of the main ones in the work of A. Camus.

Summing up the study of this concept, we can conclude that Camus gave it a positive, creative, life-affirming meaning. Indeed, the feeling of absurdity awakens the consciousness of a person, and he rises above his fate, acquires, to a certain extent, the meaning of being. Considered in the works of Camus issues remain relevant to this day. In the modern contradictory world with its cataclysms, on the threshold of the third millennium, these questions are one of the central subjects of the study of philosophical thought.

His works, devoted mainly to the loneliness of a person in a world where absurdity and alienation reign, the problems of evil, the oppressive inevitability of death, in essence, reflected the loss and disappointment of the intelligentsia of the post-war years. Understanding and partly sharing the nihilism of his contemporaries, Camus defended the great universal values - truth, tolerance, justice.

In the list of Nobel Prize winners in literature, opposite the name of Albert Camus, it is written: "For his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." This is the best way to characterize his work.

In the end, he himself began to doubt whether he had chosen the right path? Personality is born out of contradictions. And it is so surprising that at the end of his life he almost came to the humanism of the Renaissance ... Apparently, there was something stronger than "absurdity".

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1. Zotov A.F., Melville Yu.K. Western philosophy of the twentieth century. - M.: Prospekt, 1998.

2. Camus A. Favorites. - M.: Pravda, 1990.

3. Camus A. Favorites. Series "Outstanding Thinkers". - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1998.

4. Camus A. The myth of Sisyphus; Rebel / Per. from fr. O.I. Skuratovich. - M .: Potpourri LLC, 1998.

5. Brief philosophical encyclopedia. - M.: Progress, 1994.

6. http://books.atheism.ru/gallery/kamu

7. Free encyclopedia http://ru.wikipedia.org

8. Materials of the encyclopedia "Krugosvet" http://www.krugosvet.ru/

9. Electronic library on philosophy http://filosof.historic.ru/

Hosted on Allbest.ru