Albert Camus
- LAST REVIEWED: 30 August 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0317
- LAST REVIEWED: 30 August 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 30 August 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0317
Introduction
The identity of Albert Camus (b. 1913–d. 1960) as a philosopher is ambiguous, and his own relation to philosophy was ambivalent. He hesitated to identify as a philosopher, and following his publication of The Rebel, and his confrontation with Jean-Paul Sartre, his standing and ability as a philosopher was often dismissed. In the popular imagination, he became an existentialist, the “philosopher of the absurd,” and the “conscience of postwar France.” There seem to be two explanations for the ambiguity and ambivalence. First, Camus clearly wasn’t, and didn’t see himself as or desire to be, a discursive theoretical philosopher. He was skeptical of the efficacy of systematic philosophy and metaphysical thinking, and none of his mature writing fits this mold. He is instead what Alexander Nehamas has called a “philosopher of the art of living,” like Socrates, Nietzsche, or Foucault. Or, as Matthew Sharpe (see Sharpe 2015, cited under Intellectual Biographies of Camus) and others have claimed, Camus was a “philosophe,” an expression evoking 18th-century, mainly French, thinkers such as Rousseau, de Condorcet, and Voltaire: public intellectuals focused on worldly, political problems, rather than abstract concerns of theoretical philosophy. Second, much of Camus’s writing, both the clearly fictional and the more clearly philosophical, can be understood as a response to contingent historical circumstance, and his work might therefore be seen, from a philosophical perspective, as anachronistic and of little philosophical relevance. However, while this is partly true, it is perverse to deny the continuing relevance of a writer who addresses issues such as the challenge for an individual finding himself or herself in a meaningless life or an impossible situation, the difference between enlightened rebellion and reactionary irrationalism, the ethics of violence, and the complexity of anti- and postcolonialism. The approach taken in this bibliography is that Camus is not a theoretical philosopher, but a philosopher in Nehamas’s or Sharpe’s sense. After his death, and perhaps in the period leading up to his death, Camus lost prominence. His novels remained in print, and L’Étranger became a standard high school text around the world, but Camus the thinker and activist was relegated to a historical niche. Outside France he retained popularity among the New Left, offering a progressive alternative to Stalinism, but that movement had waned by the 1970s. Since the last decade of the 20th century, however, there has been a significant revival of interest, and the majority of the works in this bibliography have been drawn from this “revival.”
Camus’s Works
Camus wrote only three philosophical works: his dissertation, Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Rebel. In the latter works, he presented the two main philosophical themes of his intellectual framework: absurdity and rebellion. These works will be given prominence below. However, in other of his prima facie nonphilosophical works, many philosophically pertinent questions are addressed, and some of the most important of these will be recorded in this bibliography.
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Article
- A Priori Knowledge
- Abduction and Explanatory Reasoning
- Ability
- Abortion
- Abstract Objects
- Action
- Addams, Jane
- Adorno, Theodor
- Aesthetic Hedonism
- Aesthetics, Analytic Approaches to
- Aesthetics, Continental
- Aesthetics, Environmental
- Aesthetics, History of
- African Philosophy, Contemporary
- Alexander, Samuel
- Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
- Anarchism, Philosophical
- Animal Rights
- Anscombe, G. E. M.
- Anthropic Principle, The
- Anti-Natalism
- Applied Ethics
- Aquinas, Thomas
- Argument Mapping
- Art and Emotion
- Art and Knowledge
- Art and Morality
- Artifacts
- Assertion
- Astell, Mary
- Atheism
- Augustine
- Aurelius, Marcus
- Austin, J. L.
- Autonomy
- Bacon, Francis
- Bayesianism
- Beauty
- Belief
- Bergson, Henri
- Berkeley, George
- Biology, Philosophy of
- Bolzano, Bernard
- Boredom, Philosophy of
- British Idealism
- Buber, Martin
- Buddhist Philosophy
- Burge, Tyler
- Business Ethics
- Camus, Albert
- Canterbury, Anselm of
- Carnap, Rudolf
- Causation
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Certainty
- Chemistry, Philosophy of
- Childhood, Philosophy of
- Chinese Philosophy
- Cognitive Ability
- Cognitive Phenomenology
- Cognitive Science, Philosophy of
- Coherentism
- Color
- Communitarianism
- Computational Science
- Computer Science, Philosophy of
- Computer Simulations
- Comte, Auguste
- Concepts
- Conceptual Role Semantics
- Conditionals
- Confirmation
- Confucius
- Connectionism
- Consciousness
- Constructive Empiricism
- Contemporary Hylomorphism
- Contextualism
- Contrastivism
- Cook Wilson, John
- Cosmology, Philosophy of
- Critical Theory
- Culture and Cognition
- Daoism and Philosophy
- Davidson, Donald
- de Beauvoir, Simone
- de Montaigne, Michel
- Death
- Decision Theory
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Democracy
- Depiction
- Derrida, Jacques
- Descartes, René
- Descartes, René: Sensory Representations
- Descriptions
- Dewey, John
- Dialetheism
- Disability
- Disagreement, Epistemology of
- Disjunctivism
- Dispositions
- Divine Command Theory
- Doing and Allowing
- du Châtelet, Emilie
- Dummett, Michael
- Dutch Book Arguments
- Early Modern Philosophy, 1600-1750
- Eastern Orthodox Philosophical Thought
- Education, Philosophy of
- Emotion
- Engineering, Philosophy and Ethics of
- Environmental Philosophy
- Epicurus
- Epistemic Basing Relation
- Epistemic Defeat
- Epistemic Injustice
- Epistemic Justification
- Epistemic Philosophy of Logic
- Epistemology
- Epistemology and Active Externalism
- Epistemology, Bayesian
- Epistemology, Feminist
- Epistemology, Internalism and Externalism in
- Epistemology, Moral
- Epistemology of Education
- Ethical Consequentialism
- Ethical Deontology
- Ethical Intuitionism
- Eugenics and Philosophy
- Events, The Philosophy of
- Evidence
- Evidence-Based Medicine, Philosophy of
- Evidential Support Relation In Epistemology, The
- Evil
- Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Ethics
- Evolutionary Epistemology
- Experimental Philosophy
- Explanations of Religion
- Extended Mind Thesis, The
- Externalism and Internalism in the Philosophy of Mind
- Faith, Conceptions of
- Fatalism
- Feminist Aesthetics and Feminist Philosophy of Art
- Feminist Philosophy
- Feyerabend, Paul
- Fichte, Johann Gottlieb
- Fiction
- Fictionalism
- Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Film, Philosophy of
- Foot, Philippa
- Foreknowledge
- Forgiveness
- Formal Epistemology
- Foucault, Michel
- Free Will
- Frege, Gottlob
- Gadamer, Hans-Georg
- Generics
- Geometry, Epistemology of
- God and Possible Worlds
- God, Arguments for the Existence of
- God, The Existence and Attributes of
- Grice, Paul
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Hart, H. L. A.
- Heaven and Hell
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Aesthetics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Metaphysics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of History
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of Politics
- Heidegger, Martin: Early Works
- Hermeneutics
- Higher Education, Philosophy of
- History, Philosophy of
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Horkheimer, Max
- Human Rights
- Hume, David: Aesthetics
- Hume, David: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Husserl, Edmund
- Idealizations in Science
- Identity in Physics
- Images
- Imagination
- Imagination and Belief
- Immanuel Kant: Political and Legal Philosophy
- Impossible Worlds
- Incommensurability in Science
- Indian Philosophy
- Indispensability of Mathematics
- Inductive Reasoning
- Infinitism
- Instruments in Science
- Intellectual Humility
- Intentionality, Collective
- Intuitions
- James, William
- Japanese Philosophy
- Kant and the Laws of Nature
- Kant, Immanuel: Aesthetics and Teleology
- Kant, Immanuel: Ethics
- Kant, Immanuel: Theoretical Philosophy
- Kierkegaard, Søren
- Knowledge
- Knowledge-first Epistemology
- Knowledge-How
- Kristeva, Julia
- Kuhn, Thomas S.
- Lacan, Jacques
- Lakatos, Imre
- Langer, Susanne
- Language of Thought
- Language, Philosophy of
- Latin American Philosophy
- Laws of Nature
- Legal Epistemology
- Legal Philosophy
- Legal Positivism
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Levinas, Emmanuel
- Lewis, C. I.
- Liberty
- Literature, Philosophy of
- Locke, John
- Locke, John: Identity, Persons, and Personal Identity
- Logic
- Lottery and Preface Paradoxes, The
- Lucretius
- Machiavelli, Niccolò
- Martin Heidegger: Later Works
- Martin Heidegger: Middle Works
- Marx, Karl
- Material Constitution
- Mathematical Explanation
- Mathematical Pluralism
- Mathematical Structuralism
- Mathematics, Ontology of
- Mathematics, Philosophy of
- Mathematics, Visual Thinking in
- McDowell, John
- McTaggart, John
- Meaning of Life, The
- Mechanisms in Science
- Medically Assisted Dying
- Medicine, Contemporary Philosophy of
- Medieval Logic
- Medieval Philosophy
- Memory
- Mental Causation
- Mereology
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
- Meta-epistemological Skepticism
- Metaepistemology
- Metaethics
- Metametaphysics
- Metaphilosophy
- Metaphor
- Metaphysical Grounding
- Metaphysics, Contemporary
- Metaphysics, Feminist
- Midgley, Mary
- Mill, John Stuart
- Mind, Metaphysics of
- Modal Epistemology
- Modality
- Models and Theories in Science
- Modularity
- Montesquieu
- Moore, G. E.
- Moral Contractualism
- Moral Naturalism and Nonnaturalism
- Moral Responsibility
- Multiculturalism
- Murdoch, Iris
- Music, Analytic Philosophy of
- Nationalism
- Natural Kinds
- Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Naïve Realism
- Neo-Confucianism
- Neuroscience, Philosophy of
- Nietzsche, Friedrich
- Nonexistent Objects
- Normative Ethics
- Normative Foundations, Philosophy of Law:
- Normativity and Social Explanation
- Objectivity
- Occasionalism
- Olfaction
- Ontological Dependence
- Ontology of Art
- Ordinary Objects
- Other Minds
- Pacifism
- Pain
- Panpsychism
- Paradoxes
- Particularism in Ethics
- Pascal, Blaise
- Paternalism
- Patriotism
- Peirce, Charles Sanders
- Perception, Cognition, Action
- Perception, The Problem of
- Perfectionism
- Persistence
- Personal Identity
- Phenomenal Concepts
- Phenomenal Conservatism
- Phenomenology
- Philosophy for Children
- Photography, Analytic Philosophy of
- Physicalism
- Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism
- Physics, Experiments in
- Plato
- Plotinus
- Political Epistemology
- Political Obligation
- Political Philosophy
- Popper, Karl
- Pornography and Objectification, Analytic Approaches to
- Practical Knowledge
- Practical Moral Skepticism
- Practical Reason
- Pragmatics
- Pragmatism
- Probabilistic Representations of Belief
- Probability, Interpretations of
- Problem of Divine Hiddenness, The
- Problem of Evil, The
- Propositions
- Psychology, Philosophy of
- Punishment
- Pyrrhonism
- Qualia
- Quietism
- Quine, W. V. O.
- Race
- Racist Jokes
- Rationalism
- Rationality
- Rawls, John: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Realism and Anti-Realism
- Realization
- Reasons in Epistemology
- Reductionism in Biology
- Reference, Theory of
- Reid, Thomas
- Relativism
- Reliabilism
- Religion, Philosophy of
- Religious Belief, Epistemology of
- Religious Experience
- Religious Pluralism
- Ricoeur, Paul
- Rights
- Risk, Philosophy of
- Rorty, Richard
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Rule-Following
- Russell, Bertrand
- Ryle, Gilbert
- Sartre, Jean-Paul
- Schopenhauer, Arthur
- Science and Religion
- Science, Theoretical Virtues in
- Scientific Explanation
- Scientific Progress
- Scientific Realism
- Scientific Representation
- Scientific Revolutions
- Scotus, Duns
- Self-Knowledge
- Sellars, Wilfrid
- Semantic Externalism
- Semantic Minimalism
- Semiotics
- Seneca
- Senses, The
- Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology
- Shepherd, Mary
- Singular Thought
- Situated Cognition
- Situationism and Virtue Theory
- Skepticism, Contemporary
- Skepticism, History of
- Slurs, Pejoratives, and Hate Speech
- Smith, Adam: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
- Social Epistemology
- Social Identity
- Sounds and Auditory Perception
- Space and Time
- Speech Acts
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stebbing, Susan
- Strawson, P. F.
- Structural Realism
- Suicide
- Supererogation
- Supervenience
- Tarski, Alfred
- Technology, Philosophy of
- Testimony, Epistemology of
- Theoretical Terms in Science
- Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy of Religion
- Thought Experiments
- Time and Tense
- Time Travel
- Toleration
- Torture
- Transcendental Arguments
- Tropes
- Trust
- Truth
- Truth and the Aim of Belief
- Truthmaking
- Turing Test
- Two-Dimensional Semantics
- Understanding
- Uniqueness and Permissiveness in Epistemology
- Utilitarianism
- Vagueness
- Value of Knowledge
- Vienna Circle
- Virtue Epistemology
- Virtue Ethics
- Virtues, Epistemic
- Virtues, Intellectual
- Voluntarism, Doxastic
- War
- Weakness of Will
- Weil, Simone
- Well-Being
- William of Ockham
- Williams, Bernard
- Wisdom
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Early Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Later Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Middle Works
- Wollstonecraft, Mary