Abstracts

Johannes Abel: ‘Camus' Kierkegaardian Conception of a Good Life’

The aim of my presentation is to suggest an interpretation of Camus' conception of a good life in the Myth of Sisyphus as a Kierkegaardian figure: My thesis is that we see in Camus what happens to the Kierkegaardian idea of a good life in his main work The Sickness unto Death if its deep foundational onto-theological Christian layer breaks away.

In the first step, I will briefly discuss problems of contemporary research positions which identify Camus' position either with the 'aesthetic stage' or with the 'demonic' in Kierkegaard, to show the necessity for a more convincing interpretation. Secondly, I want to show that, methodologically, both Kierkegaard and Camus derive their respective conceptions of a good life indirectly, via the study of failure, of forms of escape from a normative 'ought'. Thirdly, my suggested thesis claims that both thinkers structurally conceptualize the good life as saying "No!" in every moment, Kierkegaard to the possibility of desperation, Camus to the possibility of the leap. Thereby, in both cases, one continually upholds a relationship to the respective metaphysical truth in every moment, to the Christian God in Kierkegaard, and to the absurd itself in Camus. In a last step, I want to show that, also in both cases, there is no abstract rule or algorithmic categorical imperative, but the idea of a good life requires a highly individual act of translation: In Kierkegaard, one has to find one's task by bringing together the infinite possibilities of the world with one's individual limits, thereby translating the ethical-religious ought for oneself. In Camus, one has to find one's rock, translating the concluding metaphorical conception of his idea of a good life for oneself.

Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray: ‘Camus as Irrationalist’

Albert Camus said he was not an existentialist like Jean-Paul Sartre, and he denied being an absurdist as well. A rebel in life and in philosophical convention, you could say. This of course is utterly frustrating for philosophers who study him because we do love subsuming ideas and thinkers under labels, then into groups or movements. I think though we can agree that he was an existential philosopher. Here, I want to expand on this by putting forward the argument that we can describe his work as irrationalist. When surveying the core works of existential philosophy and existentialism we see two distinct areas of focus and approach:  the rational and the irrational.  Philosophers like Sartre, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty fall within the rationalist side of things as they tend to focus on the primacy of knowing, on universal categories when looking at human experience, and present their ideas along lines of reasoned argument and using method. They’ve inherited from philosophy the emphasis on rationality and a history of ideas to go with it. Camus, like Fondane, Shestov and Wright, tends to focus on the irrational aspects of people, existence, and the universe. His characters and his thoughts on living in revolt are rooted in the irrational side of humanity and life, and it is from the irrational that absurdity arises in confrontation with us. An irrationalist like Camus turns philosophy inside out by revealing wisdom in things that are far from reason and logic. With our minds turned to irrationality we can imagine Sisyphus happy, or can be persuaded by his notion of living without appeal or hope.

Eric Berg: ‘From Copenhagen to Paris: Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard’

The relationship between Albert Camus (1913-1960) and Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is a narrative that weaves its way through two world wars, the existentialism craze, into the success of Camus’ work, demonstrates a relationship based on mutual recognition that something happens when a human encounters death as an abstraction, and finally a splitting off from one another when religion enters the picture.  In this paper, I will outline the transmission of Kierkegaard’s work to France and into Camus’ hands. I will outline areas of philosophical overlap, historical appreciation, and theological disagreement between Camus and Kierkegaard demonstrating that Kierkegaard was a powerful force in Camus’ work.

Peter Francev: ‘Topogeographical Symbolism in The Fall’

In this presentation, I will use a combination of PowerPoint, Google maps, and my own journeys through the streets and along the quays of Paris to offer a close text reading and visualization of Camus’s mind, thinking, and intentions as he devised the ‘suicide scene’ in his last published novel, La Chaute (The Fall). Analyzing the topography and architecture of Paris, I will offer a quasi-religious symbolic reading of the novel’s most famous scene.

George Heffernan: ‘Can the Stranger Handle the Truth? Critical Reflections on Camus’s Claim that Meursault Refuses to Lie’

In a Preface to The Stranger, Albert Camus summarizes his novel: “In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral risks being condemned to death.” Explaining what he means, Camus says that the protagonist, Meursault, is a “foreigner” to society who is condemned “because he does not play the game”. Camus adds that one will have “a more accurate idea of [his] character”, “more conforming to [his] intentions”, if one asks in what respect Meursault “does not play the game”. Camus answers that Meursault refuses to lie: “To lie is not only to say what is not. It is also, it is above all, to say more than what is, and […] to say more than one feels.” Unlike everyone else, that is, Meursault “says what he is, he refuses to enhance his feelings, and immediately society feels threatened”. For Camus, then, Meursault is not a “wreck”, but “a poor and naked man enamored of a sun that leaves no shadows”, who, far from lacking all sensibility, is animated by a “deep” and “silent” passion, the “passion for the absolute and for the truth”. For Camus, The Stranger is also the story of “a man who […] agrees to die for the truth”, of “the only Christ that we deserve”. Camus justifies his understanding of Meursault by appealing to the affection that an artist has for the characters of his creation. In this paper, I argue that one can understand Meursault differently from how Camus did, demonstrate that Meursault lies and that therefore one should not misunderstand The Stranger as the story of a martyr for the truth, and question the interpretation of Meursault as Christ. Throughout, I challenge authorial sovereignty by applying the hermeneutical principle that readers can understand authors better than they do themselves.

Daniel Henke: ‘The (Anti)-Archetypal Sun: An Analysis of the Sun in Albert Camus’s The Stranger’

In Sourcebook on Rhetoric, James Jasinski argues that the term archetype is used to describe narrative patterns (sometimes labeled as myths), characters types, and verbal images that possess a universal (or nearly universal) significance” (23). Additionally, Michael Osborn speaks to the importance of archetypal metaphor in rhetorical criticism in his article “Archetypal Metaphor in Rhetoric: The Light‐Dark Family.” Sight, and its object light, more specifically the sun, appear to be universal archetypes to describe vision and illumination that lie beyond the human range of reason. Osborn contends that the popularity of archetypal metaphors is because they tend to be stable and resistant to change; however, Absurdist novels such as Albert Camus’ The Stranger tend to complicate this notion as the sun in the novel often acts inhumane and oppressive to the novel’s protagonist Meursault. I argue that the sun in The Stranger can be seen as an anti-archetype as it goes against traditional norms of how a sun should function as a reoccurring metaphor in literature and that the sun in The Stranger serves as an ironic undercutting of an archetype which suggests the undeterminable nature of the human condition being essentially absurd.

Maciej Kaluzka: "Reading The Fall Backward: Jean Baptiste Clamence and the Camp Experience"

The most intriguing element of "The Fall" is that the book is more of a maze, which can be accessed through different access points, offering various interpretative grounds. A common feature of many scholarly articles, concerning the novel, is to highlight the experiences of Clamance, focused around the bridge episode and the alleged suicide of an unknown woman. My presentation will start with a different "access point", arguing for possible motivations for Camus to add and later significantly develop the story of J.B. Clamance's imprisonment during the war. After relating to some commentaries concerning the chronology of events in the novel, I will argue, that this camp experience, as narrated by Clamance, can offer a very intriguing interpretative ground for considering Camus's character in relation to contemporary psychological knowledge regarding PTSD and KZ-Syndrome.

Stephen Sullivan:  ‘Camus and the Problem of Evil’

Albert Camus makes always interesting and sometimes important contributions to discussion of the problem of evil:  how can there be a perfect God given the evils in the world?   He does so mainly in his philosophical essays The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel and his novel The Plague, though this presentation will touch on works and on letters of Camus in which there are traces of his views on evil.  It is in The Plague that he most powerfully articulates the problem, especially in connection with the suffering of innocent children (the classic “Dostevskyan Paradigm” of evil) and their premature death.  In The Myth of Sisyphus there are many references to the evil of human death, including premature death in one striking passage, and The Rebel is suffused with indignation at the injustice of the suffering and death of innocent people.  In The Plague Camus offers a powerful rebuttal of the venerable punishment theodicy, according to which God subjects humans to evil because they deserve it, and he expresses thoughtful doubts about the soul-making or character-building theodicy and also about the vague theodicy to the effect that God causes or permits evil because it makes possible some greater good that we are not in a positon to grasp.  Nowhere, however, does Camus ever come adequately to grips with the famous Free Will Defense concerning moral evil (that is, evil caused by the free choices of human beings).  Instead, in both The Myth of Sisyphus and The Plague he asserts without argument that divine omnipotence and human free will are incompatible.  In the end, then, a mixed verdict is in order with respect to Camus’ contributions to our understanding of the problem of evil. 

Walter Veit: ‘Existential Nihilism: The Only Really Serious Philosophical Problem’

Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often seen as a derogative term for a ‘life-denying’, destructive and perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a long line of philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning, significance and purpose. Inspired by Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty, two modern existentialist masterpieces, this paper explores the various alternatives that have been offered in how to respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only “really serious philosophical problem” and concludes that the problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and transcending existentialism.