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Saint Mary’s University
Senior High School Department
Albert Camus, (born November 7, 1913, Mondovi, Algeria—died January 4, 1960,

near Sens, France), French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such
novels as L’Étranger (1942; The Stranger), La Peste (1947; The Plague), and La
Chute (1956; The Fall) and for his work in leftist causes. He received the 1957 Nobel
Prize for Literature.
Early Years
Less than a year after Camus was born, his father, an impoverished worker, was
killed in World War I during the First Battle of the Marne. His mother, of Spanish
descent, did housework to support her family. Camus and his elder brother Lucien
moved with their mother to a working-class district of Algiers, where all three lived,
together with the maternal grandmother and a paralyzed uncle, in a two-room
apartment. Camus’s first published collection of essays, L’Envers et l’endroit (1937;
“The Wrong Side and the Right Side”), describes the physical setting of these early
years and includes portraits of his mother, grandmother, and uncle. A second collection
of essays, Noces (1938; “Nuptials”), contains intensely lyrical meditations on the
Algerian countryside and presents natural beauty as a form of wealth that even the very
poor can enjoy. Both collections contrast the fragile mortality of human beings with the
enduring nature of the physical world.
In 1918 Camus entered primary school and was fortunate enough to be taught by
an outstanding teacher, Louis Germain, who helped him to win a scholarship to the
Algiers lycée (high school) in 1923. (It was typical of Camus’s sense of loyalty that 34
years later his speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature was dedicated to
Germain.) A period of intellectual awakening followed, accompanied by great
enthusiasm for sport, especially football (soccer), swimming, and boxing. In 1930,
however, the first of several severe attacks of tuberculosis put an end to his sporting
career and interrupted his studies. Camus had to leave the unhealthy apartment that
had been his home for 15 years, and, after a short period spent with an uncle, Camus
decided to live on his own, supporting himself by a variety of jobs while registered as a
philosophy student at the University of Algiers.
At the university, Camus was particularly influenced by one of his teachers, Jean
Grenier, who helped him to develop his literary and philosophical ideas and shared his
enthusiasm for football. He obtained a diplôme d’études supérieures in 1936 for a thesis
on the relationship between Greek and Christian thought in the philosophical writings of
Plotinus and St. Augustine. His candidature for the agrégation (a qualification that would
have enabled him to take up a university career) was cut short by another attack of
tuberculosis. To regain his health he went to a resort in the French Alps—his first visit to
Europe—and eventually returned to Algiers via Florence, Pisa, and Genoa.
Personal Life
Camus married and divorced twice as a young man, stating his disapproval of
the institution of marriage throughout.
Nobel Prize and Death

Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He died on
January 4, 1960, in Burgundy, France.
Political Engagement
Camus became political during his student years, joining first the Communist Party and
then the Algerian People's Party. As a champion of individual rights, he opposed French
colonization and argued for the empowerment of Algerians in politics and labor. Camus
would later be associated with the French anarchist movement.
At the beginning of World War II, Camus joined the French Resistance in order to help
liberate Paris from the Nazi occupation; he met Jean-Paul Sartre during his period of
military service. Like Sartre, Camus wrote and published political commentary on the
conflict throughout its duration. In 1945, he was one of the few Allied journalists to
condemn the American use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. He was also an
outspoken critic of communist theory, eventually leading to a rift with Sartre.
Camus’s Literary Career
Throughout the 1930s, Camus broadened his interests. He read the French
classics as well as the writers of the day—among them André Gide, Henry de
Montherlant, André Malraux—and was a prominent figure among the young left-wing
intellectuals of Algiers. For a short period in 1934–35 he was also a member of the
Algerian Communist Party. In addition, he wrote, produced, adapted, and acted for the
Théâtre du Travail (Workers’ Theatre, later named the Théâtre de l’Équipe), which
aimed to bring outstanding plays to working-class audiences. He maintained a deep
love of the theatre until his death. Ironically, his plays are the least-admired part of his
literary output, although Le Malentendu (Cross Purpose) and Caligula, first produced in
1944 and 1945, respectively, remain landmarks in the Theatre of the Absurd. Two of his
most enduring contributions to the theatre may well be his stage adaptations of William
Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun (Requiem pour une nonne; 1956) and Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (Les Possédés; 1959).
In the two years before the outbreak of World War II, Camus served his
apprenticeship as a journalist with Alger-Républicain in many capacities, including those
of leader- (editorial-) writer, subeditor, political reporter, and book reviewer. He reviewed
some of Jean-Paul Sartre’s early literary works and wrote an important series of articles
analyzing social conditions among the Muslims of the Kabylie region. These articles,
reprinted in abridged form in Actuelles III (1958), drew attention (15 years in advance) to
many of the injustices that led to the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. Camus took
his stand on humanitarian rather than ideological grounds and continued to see a future
role for France in Algeria while not ignoring colonialist injustices.
He enjoyed the most influence as a journalist during the final years of the
occupation of France and the immediate post-Liberation period. As editor of the Parisian
daily Combat, the successor of a Resistance newssheet run largely by Camus, he held
an independent left-wing position based on the ideals of justice and truth and the belief
that all political action must have a solid moral basis. Later, the old-style expediency of
both Left and Right brought increasing disillusion, and in 1947 he severed his
connection with Combat.
By now Camus had become a leading literary figure. L’Étranger (U.S. title, The
Stranger; British title, The Outsider), a brilliant first novel begun before the war and
published in 1942, is a study of 20th-century alienation with a portrait of an “outsider”
condemned to death less for shooting an Arab than for the fact that he never says more
than he genuinely feels and refuses to conform to society’s demands. The same year
saw the publication of an influential philosophical essay, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The
Myth of Sisyphus), in which Camus, with considerable sympathy, analyzed
contemporary nihilism and a sense of the “absurd.” He was already seeking a way of
overcoming nihilism, and his second novel, La Peste (1947; The Plague), is a
symbolical account of the fight against an epidemic in Oran by characters whose
importance lies less in the (doubtful) success with which they oppose the epidemic than
in their determined assertion of human dignity and fraternity. Camus had now moved
from his first main concept of the absurd to his other major idea of moral and
metaphysical “rebellion.” He contrasted this latter ideal with politico-historical revolution
in a second long essay, L’Homme révolté (1951; The Rebel), which provoked bitter
antagonism among Marxist critics and such near-Marxist theoreticians as Jean-Paul
Sartre. His other major literary works are the technically brilliant novel La Chute (1956)
and a collection of short stories, L’Exil et le royaume (1957; Exile and the Kingdom). La
Chute reveals a preoccupation with Christian symbolism and contains an ironical and
witty exposure of the more complacent forms of secular humanist morality.
In 1957, at the early age of 44, Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
With characteristic modesty he declared that had he been a member of the awarding
committee his vote would certainly have gone to André Malraux. Less than three years
later he was killed in an automobile accident.
According to Sartre’s perceptive appraisal, Camus was less a novelist and more
a writer of philosophical tales and parables in the tradition of Voltaire. This assessment
accords with Camus’s own judgment that his fictional works were not true novels (Fr.
romans), a form he associated with the densely populated and richly detailed social
panoramas of writers like Balzac, Tolstoy, and Proust, but rather contes (“tales”) and
recits (“narratives”) combining philosophical and psychological insights.
In this respect, it is also worth noting that at no time in his career did Camus ever
describe himself as a deep thinker or lay claim to the title of philosopher. Instead, he
nearly always referred to himself simply, yet proudly, as un ecrivain—a writer. This is an
important fact to keep in mind when assessing his place in intellectual history and in
twentieth-century philosophy, for by no means does he qualify as a system-builder or
theorist or even as a disciplined thinker. He was instead (and here again Sartre’s
assessment is astute) a sort of all-purpose critic and modern-day philosophe: a
debunker of mythologies, a critic of fraud and superstition, an enemy of terror, a voice of
reason and compassion, and an outspoken defender of freedom—all in all a figure very
much in the Enlightenment tradition of Voltaire and Diderot. For this reason, in
assessing Camus’s career and work, it may be best simply to take him at his own word
and characterize him first and foremost as a writer—advisedly attaching the epithet
“philosophical” for sharper accuracy and definition.
Philosophical Literature and the Novel of Ideas
To pin down exactly why and in what distinctive sense Camus may be termed a
philosophical writer; we can begin by comparing him with other authors who have
merited the designation. Right away, we can eliminate any comparison with the efforts
of Lucretius and Dante, who undertook to unfold entire cosmologies and philosophical
systems in epic verse. Camus obviously attempted nothing of the sort. On the other
hand, we can draw at least a limited comparison between Camus and writers like
Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—that is, with writers who were first of all
philosophers or religious writers, but whose stylistic achievements and literary flair
gained them a special place in the pantheon of world literature as well. Here we may
note that Camus himself was very conscious of his debt to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
(especially in the style and structure of The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel) and that
he might very well have followed in their literary-philosophical footsteps if his
tuberculosis had not side-tracked him into fiction and journalism and prevented him from
pursuing an academic career.
Perhaps Camus himself best defined his own particular status as a philosophical
writer when he wrote (with authors like Melville, Stendhal, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka
especially in mind): “The great novelists are philosophical novelists”; that is, writers who
eschew systematic explanation and create their discourse using “images instead of
arguments” (The Myth of Sisyphus 74).
By his own definition then Camus is a philosophical writer in the sense that he
has (a) conceived his own distinctive and original world-view and (b) sought to convey
that view mainly through images, fictional characters and events, and via dramatic
presentation rather than through critical analysis and direct discourse. He is also both a
novelist of ideas and a psychological novelist, and in this respect, he certainly compares
most closely to Dostoyevsky and Sartre, two other writers who combine a unique and
distinctly philosophical outlook, acute psychological insight, and a dramatic style of
presentation. (Like Camus, Sartre was a productive playwright, and Dostoyevsky
remains perhaps the most dramatic of all novelists, as Camus clearly understood,
having adapted both The Brothers Karamazov and The Possessed for the stage.)
Legacy
As novelist and playwright, moralist and political theorist, Albert Camus after
World War II became the spokesman of his own generation and the mentor of the next,
not only in France but also in Europe and eventually the world. His writings, which
addressed themselves mainly to the isolation of man in an alien universe, the
estrangement of the individual from himself, the problem of evil, and the pressing finality
of death, accurately reflected the alienation and disillusionment of the postwar
intellectual. He is remembered, with Sartre, as a leading practitioner of the existential
novel. Though he understood the nihilism of many of his contemporaries, Camus also
argued the necessity of defending such values as truth, moderation, and justice. In his
last works he sketched the outlines of a liberal humanism that rejected the dogmatic
aspects of both Christianity and Marxism.
Works
a. Fiction: The Stranger (L’Etranger, 1942)—From its cold opening lines, “Mother died
today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure,” to its bleak concluding image of a public
execution set to take place beneath the “benign indifference of the universe,” Camus’s
first and most famous novel takes the form of a terse, flat, first-person narrative by its
main character Meursault, a very ordinary young man of unremarkable habits and
unemotional affect who, inexplicably and in an almost absent-minded way, kills an Arab
and then is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. The neutral style of the
novel—typical of what the critic Roland Barthes called “writing degree zero”—serves as
a perfect vehicle for the descriptions and commentary of its anti-hero narrator, the
ultimate “outsider” and a person who seems to observe everything, including his own
life, with almost pathological detachment.
The Plague (La Peste, 1947)—Set in the coastal town of Oran, Camus’s second
novel is the story of an outbreak of plague, traced from its subtle, insidious, unheeded
beginnings and horrible, seemingly irresistible dominion to its eventual climax and
decline, all told from the viewpoint of one of the survivors. Camus made no effort to
conceal the fact that his novel was partly based on and could be interpreted as an
allegory or parable of the rise of Nazism and the nightmare of the Occupation. However,
the plague metaphor is both more complicated and more flexible than that, extending to
signify the Absurd in general as well as any calamity or disaster that tests the mettle of
human beings, their endurance, their solidarity, their sense of responsibility, their
compassion, and their will. At the end of the novel, the plague finally retreats, and the
narrator reflects that a time of pestilence teaches “that there is more to admire in men
than to despise,” but he also knows “that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears
for good,” that “the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it
would rouse up its rats again” and send them forth yet once more to spread death and
contagion into a happy and unsuspecting city.
The Fall (La Chute, 1956)—Camus’s third novel, and the last to be published during his
lifetime, is in effect an extended dramatic monologue spoken by M. Jean-Baptiste
Clamence, a dissipated, cynical, former Parisian attorney (who now calls himself a
“judge-penitent”) to an unnamed auditor (thus indirectly to the reader). Set in a seedy
bar in the red-light district of Amsterdam, the work is a small masterpiece of
compression and style: a confessional (and semi-autobiographical) novel, an arresting
character study and psychological portrait, and at the same time a wide-ranging
philosophical discourse on guilt and innocence, expiation and punishment, good and
evil.
b. Drama: Camus began his literary career as a playwright and theatre director and was
planning new dramatic works for film, stage, and television at the time of his death. In
addition to his four original plays, he also published several successful adaptations
(including theatre pieces based on works by Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and Calderon). He
took particular pride in his work as a dramatist and man of the theatre. However, his
plays never achieved the same popularity, critical success, or level of incandescence as
his more famous novels and major essays.
Caligula (1938, first produced 1945)—“Men die and are not happy.” Such is the
complaint against the universe pronounced by the young emperor Caligula, who in
Camus’s play is less the murderous lunatic, slave to incest, narcissist, and
megalomaniac of Roman history than a theatrical martyr-hero of the Absurd: a man who
carries his philosophical quarrel with the meaninglessness of human existence to a kind
of fanatical but logical extreme. Camus described his hero as a man “obsessed with the
impossible” willing to pervert all values, and if necessary destroy himself and all those
around him in the pursuit of absolute liberty. Caligula was Camus’s first attempt at
portraying a figure in absolute defiance of the Absurd, and through three revisions of the
play over a period of several years he eventually achieved a remarkable composite by
adding to Caligula’s original portrait touches of Sade, of revolutionary nihilism, of the

Nietzschean Superman, of his own version of Sisyphus, and even of Mussolini and
Hitler.
The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu, 1944)—In this grim exploration of the

Absurd, a son returns home while concealing his true identity from his mother and
sister. The two women operate a boarding house where, in order to make ends meet,
they quietly murder and rob their patrons. Through a tangle of misunderstanding and
mistaken identity they wind up murdering their unrecognized visitor. Camus has
explained the drama as an attempt to capture the atmosphere of malaise, corruption,
demoralization, and anonymity that he experienced while living in France during the
German occupation. Despite the play’s dark themes and bleak style, he described its
philosophy as ultimately optimistic: “It amounts to saying that in an unjust or indifferent
world man can save himself, and save others, by practicing the most basic sincerity and
pronouncing the most appropriate word.”
State of Siege (L’Etat de Siege, 1948)—This odd allegorical drama combines

features of the medieval morality play with elements of Calderon and the Spanish
baroque; it also has apocalyptic themes, bits of music hall comedy, and a collection of
avant-garde theatrics thrown in for good measure. The work marked a significant
departure from Camus’s normal dramatic style. It also resulted in virtually universal
disapproval and negative reviews from Paris theatre-goers and critics, many of whom
came expecting a play based on Camus’s recent novel The Plague. The play is set in
the Spanish seaport city of Cadiz, famous for its beaches, carnivals, and street
musicians. By the end of the first act, the normally laid-back and carefree citizens fall
under the dominion of a gaudily beribboned and uniformed dictator named Plague
(based on Generalissimo Franco) and his officious, clip-board wielding Secretary (who
turns out to be a modern, bureaucratic incarnation of the medieval figure Death). One of
the prominent concerns of the play is the Orwellian theme of the degradation of
language via totalitarian politics and bureaucracy (symbolized onstage by calls for
silence, scenes in pantomime, and a gagged chorus). As one character observes, “we
are steadily nearing that perfect moment when nothing anybody says will rouse the
least echo in another’s mind.”
The Just Assassins (Les Justes, 1950)—First performed in Paris to largely

favorable reviews, this play is based on real-life characters and an actual historical
event: the 1905 assassination of the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich by Ivan
Kalyayev and fellow members of the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionary
Party. The play effectively dramatizes the issues that Camus would later explore in
detail in The Rebel, especially the question of whether acts of terrorism and political
violence can ever be morally justified (and if so, with what limitations and in what
specific circumstances). The historical Kalyayev passed up his original opportunity to

bomb the Grand Duke’s carriage because the Duke was accompanied by his wife and
two young nephews. However, this was no act of conscience on Kalyayev’s part but a
purely practical decision based on his calculation that the murder of children would
prove a setback to the revolution. After the successful completion of his bombing
mission and subsequent arrest, Kalyayev welcomed his execution on similarly practical
and purely political grounds, believing that his death would further the cause of
revolution and social justice. Camus’s Kalyayev, on the other hand, is a far more
agonized and conscientious figure, neither so cold-blooded nor so calculating as his
real-life counterpart. Upon seeing the two children in the carriage, he refuses to toss his
bomb not because doing so would be politically inexpedient but because he is
overcome emotionally, temporarily unnerved by the sad expression in their eyes.
Similarly, at the end of the play he embraces his death not so much because it will aid
the revolution, but almost as a form of karmic penance, as if it were indeed some kind of
sacred duty or metaphysical requirement that must be performed in order for true justice
to be achieved.
c. Essays, Letters, Prose Collections, Articles, and Reviews: Betwixt and Between
(L’Envers et l’endroit, 1937)—This short collection of semi-autobiographical, semi-
fictional, philosophical pieces might be dismissed as juvenilia and largely ignored if it
were not for the fact that it represents Camus’s first attempt to formulate a coherent life-
outlook and world-view. The collection, which in a way serves as a germ or starting
point for the author’s later philosophy, consists of five lyrical essays. In “Irony”
(“L’Ironie”), a reflection on youth and age, Camus asserts, in the manner of a young
disciple of Pascal, our essential solitariness in life and death. In “Between yes and no”
(“Entre Oui et Non”) he suggests that to hope is as empty and as pointless as to
despair, yet he goes beyond nihilism by positing a fundamental value to existence-in-
the-world. In “Death in the soul” (“La Mort dans l’ame”) he supplies a sort of existential
travel review, contrasting his impressions of central and Eastern Europe (which he
views as purgatorial and morgue-like) with the more spontaneous life of Italy and
Mediterranean culture. The piece thus affirms the author’s lifelong preference for the
color and vitality of the Mediterranean world, and especially North Africa, as opposed to
what he perceives as the soulless cold-heartedness of modern Europe. In “Love of life”
(“Amour de vivre”) he claims there can be no love of life without despair of life and thus
largely re-asserts the essentially tragic, ancient Greek view that the very beauty of
human existence is largely contingent upon its brevity and fragility. The concluding
essay, “Betwixt and between” (“L’Envers et l’endroit”), summarizes and re-emphasizes
the Romantic themes of the collection as a whole: our fundamental “aloneness,” the
importance of imagination and openness to experience, the imperative to “live as if….”
Nuptials (Noces, 1938)—This collection of four rhapsodic narratives

supplements and amplifies the youthful philosophy expressed in Betwixt and Between.
That joy is necessarily intertwined with despair, that the shortness of life confers a
premium on intense experience, and that the world is both beautiful and violent—these
are, once again, Camus’s principal themes. “Summer in Algiers,” which is probably the
best (and best-known) of the essays in the collection, is a lyrical, at times almost
ecstatic, celebration of sea, sun, and the North African landscape. Affirming a defiantly
atheistic creed, Camus concludes with one of the core ideas of his philosophy: “If there
is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing as in hoping for another life
and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this one.”
The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe, 1943)—If there is a single non-
fiction work that can be considered an essential or fundamental statement of Camus’s
philosophy, it is this extended essay on the ethics of suicide (eventually translated and
repackaged for American publication in 1955). It is here that Camus formally introduces
and fully articulates his most famous idea, the concept of the Absurd, and his equally
famous image of life as a Sisyphean struggle. From its provocative opening sentence—
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide”—to its stirring,
paradoxical conclusion—“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”—the book has something interesting and
challenging on nearly every page and is shot through with brilliant aphorisms and
insights. In the end, Camus rejects suicide: the Absurd must not be evaded either by
religion (“philosophical suicide”) or by annihilation (“physical suicide”); the task of living
should not merely be accepted, it must be embraced.
The Rebel (L’Homme Revolte, 1951)—Camus considered this work a

continuation of the critical and philosophical investigation of the Absurd that he began
with The Myth of Sisyphus. Only this time his primary concern is not suicide but murder.
He takes up the question of whether acts of terrorism and political violence can be
morally justified, which is basically the same question he had addressed earlier in his
play The Just Assassins. After arguing that an authentic life inevitably involves some
form of conscientious moral revolt, Camus winds up concluding that only in rare and
very narrowly defined instances is political violence justified. Camus’s critique of
revolutionary violence and terror in this work, and particularly his caustic assessment of
Marxism-Leninism (which he accused of sacrificing innocent lives on the altar of
History), touched nerves throughout Europe and led in part to his celebrated feud with
Sartre and other French leftists.
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1957)—This posthumous collection is of

interest to students of Camus mainly because it brings together an unusual assortment
of his non-fiction writings on a wide range of topics, from art and politics to the
advantages of pessimism and the virtues (from a non-believer’s standpoint) of

Christianity. Of special interest are two pieces that helped secure Camus’s worldwide
reputation as a voice of liberty: “Letters to a German Friend,” a set of four letters
originally written during the Nazi Occupation, and “Reflections on the Guillotine,” a
denunciation of the death penalty cited for special mention by the Nobel committee and
eventually revised and re-published as a companion essay to go with fellow death-
penalty opponent Arthur Koestler’s “Reflections on Hanging.”
Philosophy
To re-emphasize a point made earlier, Camus considered him first and foremost
a writer (un ecrivain). Indeed, Camus’s dissertation advisor penciled onto his
dissertation the assessment “More a writer than a philosopher.” And at various times in
his career he also accepted the labels journalist, humanist, novelist, and even moralist.
However, he apparently never felt comfortable identifying himself as a philosopher—a
term he seems to have associated with rigorous academic training, systematic thinking,
logical consistency, and a coherent, carefully defined doctrine or body of ideas.
This is not to suggest that Camus lacked ideas or to say that his thought cannot
be considered a personal philosophy. It is simply to point out that he was not a
systematic, or even a notably disciplined thinker and that, unlike Heidegger and Sartre,
for example, he showed very little interest in metaphysics and ontology, which seems to
be one of the reasons he consistently denied that he was an existentialist. In short, he
was not much given to speculative philosophy or any kind of abstract theorizing. His
thought is instead nearly always related to current events (e.g., the Spanish War, revolt
in Algeria) and is consistently grounded in down-to-earth moral and political reality.
A. Background and Influences
Though he was baptized, raised, and educated as a Catholic and invariably

respectful towards the Church, Camus seems to have been a natural-born pagan
who showed almost no instinct whatsoever for belief in the supernatural. Even as
a youth, he was more of a sun-worshipper and nature lover than a boy notable for his
piety or religious faith. On the other hand, there is no denying that Christian literature
and philosophy served as an important influence on his early thought and intellectual
development. As a young high school student, Camus studied the Bible, read and
savored the Spanish mystics St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, and was
introduced to the thought of St. Augustine St. Augustine would later serve as the subject
of his baccalaureate dissertation and become—as a fellow North African writer, quasi-
existentialist, and conscientious observer-critic of his own life—an important lifelong
influence.
In college Camus absorbed Kierkegaard, who, after Augustine, was probably the
single greatest Christian influence on his thought. He also studied Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche—undoubtedly the two writers who did the most to set him on his own path of
defiant pessimism and atheism. Other notable influences include not only the major
modern philosophers from the academic curriculum—from Descartes and Spinoza to
Bergson—but also, and just as importantly, philosophical writers like Stendhal, Melville,
Dostoyevsky, and Kafka.
B. Development
The two earliest expressions of Camus’s personal philosophy are his works
Betwixt and Between (1937) and Nuptials (1938). Here he unfolds what is essentially a
hedonistic, indeed almost primitivistic, celebration of nature and the life of the senses. In
the Romantic poetic tradition of writers like Rilke and Wallace Stevens, he offers a
forceful rejection of all hereafters and an emphatic embrace of the here and now. There
is no salvation, he argues, no transcendence; there is only the enjoyment of
consciousness and natural being. One life, this life, is enough. Sky and sea, mountain
and desert, have their own beauty and magnificence and constitute a sufficient heaven.
The critic John Cruikshank termed this stage in Camus’s thinking “naïve atheism”
and attributed it to his ecstatic and somewhat immature “Mediterraneanism.” Naïve
seems an apt characterization for a philosophy that is romantically bold and
uncomplicated yet somewhat lacking in sophistication and logical clarity. On the other
hand, if we keep in mind Camus’s theatrical background and preference for dramatic
presentation, there may actually be more depth and complexity to his thought here than
meets the eye. That is to say, just as it would be simplistic and reductive to equate
Camus’s philosophy of revolt with that of his character Caligula (who is at best a kind of
extreme or mad spokesperson for the author), so in the same way it is possible that the
pensées and opinions presented in Nuptials and Betwixt and Between are not so much
the views of Camus as they are poetically heightened observations of an artfully crafted
narrator—an exuberant alter ego who is far more spontaneous and free-spirited than his
more naturally reserved and sober-minded author.
In any case, regardless of this assessment of the ideas expressed in Betwixt and
Between and Nuptials, it is clear that these early writings represent an important, if
comparatively raw and simple, beginning stage in Camus’s development as a thinker
where his views differ markedly from his more mature philosophy in several noteworthy
respects. In the first place, the Camus of Nuptials is still a young man of twenty-five,
aflame with youthful joie de vivre. He favors a life of impulse and daring as it was
honored and practiced in both Romantic literature and in the streets of Belcourt.
Recently married and divorced, raised in poverty and in close quarters, beset with
health problems, this young man develops an understandable passion for clear air,
open space, colorful dreams, panoramic vistas, and the breath-taking prospects and
challenges of the larger world. Consequently, the Camus of the period 1937-38 is a
decidedly different writer from the Camus who will ascend the dais at Stockholm nearly
twenty years later.
The young Camus is more of a sensualist and pleasure-seeker, more of a

dandy and aesthete, than the more hardened and austere figure who will endure
the Occupation while serving in the French underground. He is a writer passionate
in his conviction that life ought to be lived vividly and intensely—indeed rebelliously (to
use the term that will take on increasing importance in his thought). He is also a writer
attracted to causes, though he is not yet the author who will become world-famous for
his moral seriousness and passionate commitment to justice and freedom. All of which
is understandable. After all, the Camus of the middle 1930s had not yet witnessed and
absorbed the shattering spectacle and disillusioning effects of the Spanish Civil War,
the rise of Fascism, Hitlerism, and Stalinism, the coming into being of total war and
weapons of mass destruction, and the terrible reign of genocide and terror that would
characterize the period 1938-1945. It was under the pressure and in direct response to
the events of this period that Camus’s mature philosophy—with its core set of
humanistic themes and ideas—emerged and gradually took shape. That mature
philosophy is no longer a “naïve atheism” but a very reflective and critical brand of
unbelief. It is proudly and inconsolably pessimistic, but not in a polemical or overbearing
way. It is unbending, hardheaded, determinedly skeptical. It is tolerant and respectful of
world religious creeds, but at the same time wholly unsympathetic to them. In the end it
is an affirmative philosophy that accepts and approves, and in its own way blesses, our
dreadful mortality and our fundamental isolation in the world.
c. Themes and Ideas
Regardless of whether he is producing drama, fiction, or non-fiction, Camus in

his mature writings nearly always takes up and re-explores the same basic
philosophical issues. These recurrent topoi constitute the key components of his
thought. They include themes like the Absurd, alienation, suicide, and rebellion that
almost automatically come to mind whenever his name is mentioned. Hence any
summary of his place in modern philosophy would be incomplete without at least a brief
discussion of these ideas and how they fit together to form a distinctive and original
world-view.
I. The Absurd
Even readers not closely acquainted with Camus’s works are aware of his
reputation as the philosophical expositor, anatomist, and poet-apostle of the Absurd.
Indeed, as even sitcom writers and stand-up comics apparently understand (odd fact:
the comic-bleak final episode of Seinfeld has been compared to The Stranger, and
Camus’s thought has been used to explain episodes of The Simpsons), it is largely
through the thought and writings of the French-Algerian author that the concept of
absurdity has become a part not only of world literature and twentieth-century
philosophy but also of modern popular culture.
What then is meant by the notion of the Absurd? Contrary to the view conveyed
by popular culture, the Absurd, (at least in Camus’s terms) does not simply refer to
some vague perception that modern life is fraught with paradoxes, incongruities, and
intellectual confusion. (Although that perception is certainly consistent with his formula.)
Instead, as he emphasizes and tries to make clear, the Absurd expresses a
fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. In effect, he argues
that the Absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire
for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the
universe”: “The absurd is not in man nor in the world,” Camus explains, “but in their
presence together…it is the only bond uniting them.”
So here we are: poor creatures desperately seeking hope and meaning in a

hopeless, meaningless world. Sartre, in his essay-review of The Stranger provides an
additional gloss on the idea: “The absurd, to be sure, resides neither in man nor in the
world, if you consider each separately. But since man’s dominant characteristic is ‘being
in the world,’ the absurd is, in the end, an inseparable part of the human condition.” The
Absurd, then, presents itself in the form of an existential opposition. It arises from the
human demand for clarity and transcendence on the one hand and a cosmos that offers
nothing of the kind on the other. Such is our fate: we inhabit a world that is indifferent to
our sufferings and deaf to our protests.
In Camus’s view there are three possible philosophical responses to this

predicament. Two of these he condemns as evasions, and the other he puts forward as
a proper solution.
The first choice is blunt and simple: physical suicide. If we decide that a life
without some essential purpose or meaning is not worth living, we can simply choose to
kill ourselves. Camus rejects this choice as cowardly. In his terms it is a repudiation or
renunciation of life, not a true revolt.
The second choice is the religious solution of positing a transcendent world of

solace and meaning beyond the Absurd. Camus calls this solution “philosophical
suicide” and rejects it as transparently evasive and fraudulent. To adopt a supernatural
solution to the problem of the Absurd (for example, through some type of mysticism or
leap of faith) is to annihilate reason, which in Camus’s view is as fatal and self-
destructive as physical suicide. In effect, instead of removing himself from the absurd
confrontation of self and world like the physical suicide, the religious believer simply
removes the offending world and replaces it, via a kind of metaphysical abracadabra,
with a more agreeable alternative.
The third choice—in Camus’s view the only authentic and valid solution—is
simply to accept absurdity, or better yet to embrace it, and to continue living. Since the
Absurd in his view is an unavoidable, indeed defining, characteristic of the human
condition, the only proper response to it is full, unflinching, courageous acceptance.
Life, he says, can “be lived all the better if it has no meaning.”
The example par excellence of this option of spiritual courage and metaphysical
revolt is the mythical Sisyphus of Camus’s philosophical essay. Doomed to eternal labor
at his rock, fully conscious of the essential hopelessness of his plight, Sisyphus
nevertheless pushes on. In doing so he becomes for Camus a superb icon of the spirit
of revolt and of the human condition. To rise each day to fight a battle you know you
cannot win, and to do this with wit, grace, compassion for others, and even a sense of
mission, is to face the Absurd in a spirit of true heroism.
Over the course of his career, Camus examines the Absurd from multiple
perspectives and through the eyes of many different characters—from the mad
Caligula, who is obsessed with the problem, to the strangely aloof and yet
simultaneously self-absorbed Meursault, who seems indifferent to it even as he
exemplifies and is finally victimized by it. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus traces it in
specific characters of legend and literature (Don Juan, Ivan Karamazov) and also in
certain character types (the Actor, the Conqueror), all of who may be understood as in
some way a version or manifestation of Sisyphus, the archetypal absurd hero.
[Note: A rather different, yet possibly related, notion of the Absurd is proposed
and analyzed in the work of Kierkegaard, especially in Fear and Trembling and
Repetition. For Kierkegaard, however, the Absurd describes not an essential and
universal human condition, but the special condition and nature of religious faith—a
paradoxical state in which matters of will and perception that are objectively impossible
can nevertheless be ultimately true. Though it is hard to say whether Camus had
Kierkegaard particularly in mind when he developed his own concept of the absurd,
there can be little doubt that Kierkegaard’s knight of faith is in certain ways an important
predecessor of Camus’s Sisyphus: both figures are involved in impossible and
endlessly agonizing tasks, which they nevertheless confidently and even cheerfully
pursue. In the knight’s quixotic defiance and solipsism, Camus found a model for his
own ideal of heroic affirmation and philosophical revolt.]
II. Revolt
The companion theme to the Absurd in Camus’s oeuvre (and the only other
philosophical topic to which he devoted an entire book) is the idea of Revolt. What is
revolt? Simply defined, it is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance in the face of the Absurd.
More technically and less metaphorically, it is a spirit of opposition against any
perceived unfairness, oppression, or indignity in the human condition.
Rebellion in Camus’s sense begins with a recognition of boundaries, of limits that

define one’s essential selfhood and core sense of being and thus must not be
infringed—as when a slave stands up to his master and says in effect “thus far, and no
further, shall I be commanded.” This defining of the self as at some point inviolable
appears to be an act of pure egoism and individualism, but it is not. In fact Camus
argues at considerable length to show that an act of conscientious revolt is ultimately far
more than just an individual gesture or an act of solitary protest. The rebel, he writes,
holds that there is a “common good more important than his own destiny” and that there
are “rights more important than himself.” He acts “in the name of certain values which
are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men” (The
Rebel 15-16).
Camus then goes on to assert that an “analysis of rebellion leads at least to the
suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature
does exist, as the Greeks believed.” After all, “Why rebel,” he asks, “if there is nothing
permanent in the self worth preserving?” The slave who stands up and asserts himself
actually does so for “the sake of everyone in the world.” He declares in effect that “all
men—even the man who insults and oppresses him—have a natural community.” Here
we may note that the idea that there may indeed be an essential human nature is
actually more than a “suspicion” as far as Camus himself was concerned. Indeed for
him it was more like a fundamental article of his humanist faith. In any case it represents
one of the core principles of his ethics and is one of the tenets that sets his philosophy
apart from existentialism.
True revolt, then, is performed not just for the self but also in solidarity with and
out of compassion for others. And for this reason, Camus is led to conclude that revolt
too has its limits. If it begins with and necessarily involves a recognition of human
community and a common human dignity, it cannot, without betraying its own true
character, treat others as if they were lacking in that dignity or not a part of that
community. In the end it is remarkable, and indeed surprising, how closely Camus’s
philosophy of revolt, despite the author’s fervent atheism and individualism, echoes
Kantian ethics with its prohibition against treating human beings as means and its ideal
of the human community as a kingdom of ends.
III. The Outsider
A recurrent theme in Camus’s literary works, which also shows up in his moral
and political writings, is the character or perspective of the “stranger” or outsider.
Meursault, the laconic narrator of The Stranger, is the most obvious example. He seems
to observe everything, even his own behavior, from an outside perspective. Like an
anthropologist, he records his observations with clinical detachment at the same time
that he is warily observed by the community around him.
Camus came by this perspective naturally. As a European in Africa, an African in

Europe, an infidel among Muslims, a lapsed Catholic, a Communist Party drop-out, an
underground resister (who at times had to use code names and false identities), a “child
of the state” raised by a widowed mother (who was illiterate and virtually deaf and
dumb), Camus lived most of his life in various groups and communities without really
being integrated within them. This outside view, the perspective of the exile, became his
characteristic stance as a writer. It explains both the cool, objective (“zero-degree”)
precision of much of his work and also the high value he assigned to longed-for ideals
of friendship, community, solidarity, and brotherhood.
IV. Guilt and Innocence
Throughout his writing career, Camus showed a deep interest in questions of

guilt and innocence. Once again Meursault in The Stranger provides a striking example.
Is he legally innocent of the murder he is charged with? Or is he technically guilty? On
the one hand, there seems to have been no conscious intention behind his action.
Indeed the killing takes place almost as if by accident, with Meursault in a kind of
absent-minded daze, distracted by the sun. From this point of view, his crime seems
surreal and his trial and subsequent conviction a travesty. On the other hand, it is hard
for the reader not to share the view of other characters in the novel, especially
Meursault’s accusers, witnesses, and jury, in whose eyes he seems to be a seriously
defective human being—at best, a kind of hollow man and at worst, a monster of self-
centeredness and insularity. That the character has evoked such a wide range of
responses from critics and readers—from sympathy to horror—is a tribute to the
psychological complexity and subtlety of Camus’s portrait.
Camus’s brilliantly crafted final novel, The Fall, continues his keen interest in the
theme of guilt, this time via a narrator who is virtually obsessed with it. The significantly
named Jean-Baptiste Clamence (a voice in the wilderness calling for clemency and
forgiveness) is tortured by guilt in the wake of a seemingly casual incident. While
strolling home one drizzly November evening, he shows little concern and almost no
emotional reaction at all to the suicidal plunge of a young woman into the Seine. But
afterwards the incident begins to gnaw at him, and eventually he comes to view his
inaction as typical of a long pattern of personal vanity and as a colossal failure of human
sympathy on his part. Wracked by remorse and self-loathing, he gradually descends
into a figurative hell. Formerly an attorney, he is now a self-described “judge-penitent” (a
combination sinner, tempter, prosecutor, and father-confessor) who shows up each
night at his local haunt, a sailor’s bar near Amsterdam’s red light district, where,
somewhat in the manner of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, he recounts his story to
whoever will hear it. In the final sections of the novel, amid distinctly Christian imagery
and symbolism, he declares his crucial insight that, despite our pretensions to
righteousness, we are all guilty. Hence no human being has the right to pass final moral
judgment on another.
In a final twist, Clamence asserts that his acid self-portrait is also a mirror for his
contemporaries. Hence his confession is also an accusation—not only of his nameless
companion (who serves as the mute auditor for his monologue) but ultimately of the
hypocrite lecteur as well.
V. Christianity vs. “Paganism”
The theme of guilt and innocence in Camus’s writings relates closely to another
recurrent tension in his thought: the opposition of Christian and pagan ideas and
influences. At heart a nature-worshipper, and by instinct a skeptic and non-believer,
Camus nevertheless retained a lifelong interest and respect for Christian philosophy
and literature. In particular, he seems to have recognized St. Augustine and
Kierkegaard as intellectual kinsmen and writers with whom he shared a common
passion for controversy, literary flourish, self-scrutiny, and self-dramatization. Christian
images, symbols, and allusions abound in all his work (probably more so than in the
writing of any other avowed atheist in modern literature), and Christian themes—
judgment, forgiveness, despair, sacrifice, passion, and so forth—permeate the novels.
(Meursault and Clamence, it is worth noting, are presented not just as sinners, devils,
and outcasts, but in several instances explicitly, and not entirely ironically, as Christ
figures.)
Meanwhile alongside and against this leitmotif of Christian images and themes,
Camus sets the main components of his essentially pagan worldview. Like Nietzsche,
he maintains a special admiration for Greek heroic values and pessimism and for
classical virtues like courage and honor. What might be termed Romantic values also
merit particular esteem within his philosophy: passion, absorption in pure being, an
appreciation for and indeed a willingness to revel in raw sensory experience, the glory
of the moment, the beauty of the world.
As a result of this duality of influence, Camus’s basic philosophical problem

becomes how to reconcile his Augustinian sense of original sin (universal guilt) and
rampant moral evil with his personal ideal of pagan primitivism (universal innocence)
and with his conviction that the natural world and our life in it have intrinsic beauty and
value. Can an absurd world have intrinsic value? Is authentic pessimism compatible
with the view that there is an essential dignity to human life? Such questions raise the
possibility that there may be deep logical inconsistencies within Camus’s philosophy,
and some critics (notably Sartre) have suggested that these inconsistencies cannot be
surmounted except through some sort of Kierkegaardian leap of faith on Camus’s part—
in this case a leap leading to a belief not in God but in man.
Such a leap is certainly implied in an oft-quoted remark from Camus’s “Letter to a

German Friend,” where he wrote: “I continue to believe that this world has no
supernatural meaning…But I know that something in the world has meaning—man.”
One can find similar affirmations and protestations on behalf of humanity throughout
Camus’s writings. They are almost a hallmark of his philosophical style. Oracular and
high-flown, they clearly have more rhetorical force than logical potency. On the other
hand, if we are trying to locate Camus’s place in European philosophical tradition, they
provide a strong clue as to where he properly belongs. Surprisingly, the sentiment here,
a commonplace of the Enlightenment and of traditional liberalism, is much closer in
spirit to the exuberant secular humanism of the Italian Renaissance than to the agnostic
skepticism of contemporary post-modernism.
VI. Individual vs. History and Mass Culture
A primary theme of early twentieth-century European literature and critical

thought is the rise of modern mass civilization and its suffocating effects of alienation
and dehumanization. This became a pervasive theme by the time Camus was
establishing his literary reputation. Anxiety over the fate of Western culture, already
intense, escalated to apocalyptic levels with the sudden emergence of fascism,
totalitarianism, and new technologies of coercion and death. Here then was a subject
ready-made for a writer of Camus’s political and humanistic views. He responded to the
occasion with typical force and eloquence.
In one way or another, the themes of alienation and dehumanization as by-

products of an increasingly technical and automated world enter into nearly all of
Camus’s works. Even his concept of the Absurd becomes multiplied by a social and
economic world in which meaningless routines and mind-numbing repetitions
predominate. The drudgery of Sisyphus is mirrored and amplified in the assembly line,
the business office, the government bureau, and especially in the penal colony and
concentration camp.
In line with this theme, the ever-ambiguous Meursault in The Stranger can be
understood as both a depressing manifestation of the newly emerging mass personality
(that is, as a figure devoid of basic human feelings and passions) and, conversely, as a
lone hold-out, a last remaining specimen of the old Romanticism—and hence a figure
who is viewed as both dangerous and alien by the robotic majority. Similarly, The
Plague can be interpreted, on at least one level, as an allegory in which humanity must
be preserved from the fatal pestilence of mass culture, which converts formerly free,
autonomous, independent-minded human beings into a soulless new species.
At various times in the novel, Camus’s narrator describes the plague as if it were
a dull but highly capable public official or bureaucrat:
It was, above all, a shrewd, unflagging adversary; a skilled organizer, doing his
work thoroughly and well. (180) “But it seemed the plague had settled in for good at its
most virulent, and it took its daily toll of deaths with the punctual zeal of a good civil
servant.” (235)
This identification of the plague with oppressive civil bureaucracy and the
routinization of charisma looks forward to the author’s play The State of Siege, where
plague is used once again as a symbol for totalitarianism—only this time it is personified
in an almost cartoonish way as a kind of overbearing government functionary or office
manager from hell. Clad in a gaudy military uniform bedecked with ribbons and
decorations, the character Plague (a satirical portrait of Generalissimo Francisco
Franco—or El Caudillo as he liked to style himself) is closely attended by his personal
Secretary and loyal assistant Death, depicted as a prim, officious female bureaucrat
who also favors military garb and who carries an ever-present clipboard and notebook.
So Plague is a fascist dictator, and Death a solicitous commissar. Together these

figures represent a system of pervasive control and micro-management that threatens
the future of mass society.
In his reflections on this theme of post-industrial dehumanization, Camus differs

from most other European writers (and especially from those on the Left) in viewing
mass reform and revolutionary movements, including Marxism, as representing at least
as great a threat to individual freedom as late-stage capitalism. Throughout his career
he continued to cherish and defend old-fashioned virtues like personal courage and
honor that other Left-wing intellectuals tended to view as reactionary or bourgeois.
VII. Suicide
Suicide is the central subject of The Myth of Sisyphus and serves as a

background theme in Caligula and The Fall. In Caligula the mad title character, in a fit of
horror and revulsion at the meaninglessness of life, would rather die—and bring the
world down with him—than accept a cosmos that is indifferent to human fate or that will
not submit to his individual will. In The Fall, a stranger’s act of suicide serves as the
starting point for a bitter ritual of self-scrutiny and remorse on the part of the narrator.
Like Wittgenstein (who had a family history of suicide and suffered from bouts of
depression), Camus considered suicide the fundamental issue for moral philosophy.
However, unlike other philosophers who have written on the subject (from Cicero and
Seneca to Montaigne and Schopenhauer), Camus seems uninterested in assessing the
traditional motives and justifications for suicide (for instance, to avoid a long, painful,
and debilitating illness or as a response to personal tragedy or scandal). Indeed, he
seems interested in the problem only to the extent that it represents one possible
response to the Absurd. His verdict on the matter is unqualified and clear: The only
courageous and morally valid response to the Absurd is to continue living—“Suicide is
not an option.”
VIII. The Death Penalty
From the time he first heard the story of his father’s literal nausea and revulsion
after witnessing a public execution, Camus began a vocal and lifelong opposition to the
death penalty. Executions by guillotine were a common public spectacle in Algeria
during his lifetime, but he refused to attend them and recoiled bitterly at their very
mention.
Condemnation of capital punishment is both explicit and implicit in his writings.

For example, in The Stranger Meursault’s long confinement during his trial and his
eventual execution are presented as part of an elaborate, ceremonial ritual involving
both public and religious authorities. The grim rationality of this process of legalized
murder contrasts markedly with the sudden, irrational, almost accidental nature of his
actual crime. Similarly, in The Myth of Sisyphus, the would-be suicide is contrasted with
his fatal opposite, the man condemned to death, and we are continually reminded that a
sentence of death is our common fate in an absurd universe.
Camus’s opposition to the death penalty is not specifically philosophical. That is,
it is not based on a particular moral theory or principle (such as Cesare Beccaria’s
utilitarian objection that capital punishment is wrong because it has not been proven to
have a deterrent effect greater than life imprisonment). Camus’s opposition, in contrast,
is humanitarian, conscientious, almost visceral. Like Victor Hugo, his great predecessor
on this issue, he views the death penalty as an egregious barbarism—an act of blood
riot and vengeance covered over with a thin veneer of law and civility to make it
acceptable to modern sensibilities. That it is also an act of vengeance aimed primarily at
the poor and oppressed, and that it is given religious sanction, makes it even more
hideous and indefensible in his view.
Camus’s essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” supplies a detailed examination of

the issue. An eloquent personal statement with compelling psychological and
philosophical insights, it includes the author’s direct rebuttal to traditional retributionist
arguments in favor of capital punishment (such as Kant’s claim that death is the legally
appropriate, indeed morally required, penalty for murder). To all who argue that murder
must be punished in kind, Camus replies:
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s

deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death
penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which
he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had
confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in
private life.
Camus concludes his essay by arguing that, at the very least, France should
abolish the savage spectacle of the guillotine and replace it with a more humane
procedure (such as lethal injection). But he still retains a scant hope that capital
punishment will be completely abolished at some point in the time to come: “In the
unified Europe of the future the solemn abolition of the death penalty ought to be the
first article of the European Code we all hope for.” Camus himself did not live to see the
day, but he would no doubt be gratified to know that abolition of capital punishment is
now an essential prerequisite for membership in the European Union.
Existentialism
Camus is often classified as an existentialist writer, and it is easy to see why.

Affinities with Kierkegaard and Sartre are patent. He shares with these philosophers
(and with the other major writers in the existentialist tradition, from Augustine and
Pascal to Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche) an habitual and intense interest in the active
human psyche, in the life of conscience or spirit as it is actually experienced and lived.
Like these writers, he aims at nothing less than a thorough, candid exegesis of the
human condition, and like them he exhibits not just a philosophical attraction but also a
personal commitment to such values as individualism, free choice, inner strength,
authenticity, personal responsibility, and self-determination.
However, one troublesome fact remains: throughout his career Camus

repeatedly denied that he was an existentialist. Was this an accurate and honest self-
assessment? On the one hand, some critics have questioned this “denial” (using the
term almost in its modern clinical sense), attributing it to the celebrated Sartre-Camus
political “feud” or to a certain stubbornness or even contrariness on Camus’s part. In
their view, Camus qualifies as, at minimum, a closet existentialist, and in certain
respects (e.g., in his unconditional and passionate concern for the individual) as an
even truer specimen of the type than Sartre.
On the other hand, besides his personal rejection of the label, there appear to be
solid reasons for challenging the claim that Camus is an existentialist. For one thing, it is
noteworthy that he never showed much interest in (indeed he largely avoided)
metaphysical and ontological questions (the philosophical raison d’etre of Heidegger
and Sartre). Of course there is no rule that says an existentialist must be a
metaphysician. However, Camus’s seeming aversion to technical philosophical
discussion does suggest one way in which he distanced himself from contemporary
existentialist thought.
Another point of divergence is that Camus seems to have regarded existentialism

as a complete and systematic world-view, that is, a fully articulated doctrine. In his view,
to be a true existentialist one had to commit to the entire doctrine (and not merely to bits
and pieces of it), and this was apparently something he was unwilling to do.
A further point of separation, and possibly a decisive one, is that Camus actively
challenged and set himself apart from the existentialist motto that being precedes
essence. Ultimately, against Sartre in particular and existentialists in general, he clings
to his instinctive belief in a common human nature. In his view human existence
necessarily includes an essential core element of dignity and value, and in this respect
he seems surprisingly closer to the humanist tradition from Aristotle to Kant than to the
modern tradition of skepticism and relativism from Nietzsche to Derrida (the latter his
fellow-countryman and, at least in his commitment to human rights and opposition to the
death penalty, his spiritual successor and descendant).
Significance and Legacy
Obviously, Camus’s writings remain the primary reason for his continuing
importance and the chief source of his cultural legacy, but his fame is also due to his
exemplary life. He truly lived his philosophy; thus it is in his personal political stands and
public statements as well as in his books that his views are clearly articulated. In short,
he bequeathed not just his words but also his actions. Taken together, those words and
actions embody a core set of liberal democratic values—including tolerance, justice,
liberty, open-mindedness, respect for personhood, condemnation of violence, and
resistance to tyranny—that can be fully approved and acted upon by the modern
intellectual engagé.
On a purely literary level, one of Camus’s most original contributions to modern

discourse is his distinctive prose style. Terse and hard-boiled, yet at the same time
lyrical, and indeed capable of great, soaring flights of emotion and feeling, Camus’s
style represents a deliberate attempt on his part to wed the famous clarity, elegance,
and dry precision of the French philosophical tradition with the more sonorous and
opulent manner of 19th century Romantic fiction. The result is something like a cross
between Hemingway (a Camus favorite) and Melville (another favorite) or between
Diderot and Hugo. For the most part when we read Camus we encounter the plain
syntax, simple vocabulary, and biting aphorism typical of modern theatre or noir
detective fiction. However, this base style frequently becomes a counterpoint or
springboard for extended musings and lavish descriptions almost in the manner of
Proust. Here we may note that this attempted reconciliation or union of opposing styles
is not just an aesthetic gesture on the author’s part: It is also a moral and political
statement. It says, in effect, that the life of reason and the life of feeling need not be
opposed; that intellect and passion can, and should, operate together.
Perhaps the greatest inspiration and example that Camus provides for
contemporary readers is the lesson that it is still possible for a serious thinker to face
the modern world (with a full understanding of its contradictions, injustices, brutal flaws,
and absurdities) with hardly a grain of hope, yet utterly without cynicism. To read
Camus is to find words like justice, freedom, humanity, and dignity used plainly and
openly, without apology or embarrassment, and without the pained or derisive facial
expressions or invisible quotation marks that almost automatically accompany those
terms in public discourse today.
At Stockholm Camus concluded his Nobel acceptance speech with a stirring

reminder and challenge to modern writers: “The nobility of our craft,” he declared, “will
always be rooted in two commitments, both difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about
what one knows and the resistance to oppression.” He left behind a body of work faithful
to his own credo that the arts of language must always be used in the service of truth
and the service of liberty.
The Word ‘Metaphysics’ and the Concept of Metaphysics
The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define. Twentieth-century coinages

like ‘meta-language’ and ‘metaphilosophy’ encourage the impression that metaphysics
is a study that somehow “goes beyond” physics, a study devoted to matters that
transcend the mundane concerns of Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg. This
impression is mistaken. The word ‘metaphysics’ is derived from a collective title of the
fourteen books by Aristotle that we currently think of as making up Aristotle's
Metaphysics. Aristotle himself did not know the word. (He had four names for the
branch of philosophy that is the subject-matter of Metaphysics: ‘first philosophy’, ‘first
science’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘theology’.) At least one hundred years after Aristotle's death, an
editor of his works (in all probability, Andronicus of Rhodes) titled those fourteen books
“Ta meta ta phusika”—“the after the physicals” or “the ones after the physical ones”—
the “physical ones” being the books contained in what we now call Aristotle's Physics.
The title was probably meant to warn students of Aristotle's philosophy that they should
attempt Metaphysics only after they had mastered “the physical ones”, the books about
nature or the natural world—that is to say, about change, for change is the defining
feature of the natural world.
This is the probable meaning of the title because Metaphysics is about things
that do not change. In one place, Aristotle identifies the subject-matter of first
philosophy as “being as such”, and, in another as “first causes”. It is a nice—and
vexed—question what the connection between these two definitions is. Perhaps this is
the answer: The unchanging first causes have nothing but being in common with the
mutable things they cause. Like us and the objects of our experience—they are, and
there the resemblance ceases. (For a detailed and informative recent guide to Aristotle's
Metaphysics, see Politis 2004.)
Should we assume that ‘metaphysics’ is a name for that “science” which is the
subject-matter of Aristotle's Metaphysics? If we assume this, we should be committed to
something in the neighborhood of the following theses:
 The subject-matter of metaphysics is “being as such”

 The subject-matter of metaphysics is the first causes of things
 The subject-matter of metaphysics is that which does not change
Any of these three theses might have been regarded as a defensible statement
of the subject-matter of what was called ‘metaphysics’ until the seventeenth century. But
then, rather suddenly, many topics and problems that Aristotle and the Medievals would
have classified as belonging to physics (the relation of mind and body, for example, or
the freedom of the will, or personal identity across time) began to be reassigned to
metaphysics. One might almost say that in the seventeenth century metaphysics began
to be a catch-all category, a repository of philosophical problems that could not be

otherwise classified as epistemology, logic, ethics or other branches of philosophy. (It
was at about that time that the word ‘ontology’ was invented—to be a name for the
science of being as such, an office that the word ‘metaphysics’ could no longer fill.) The
academic rationalists of the post-Leibnizian school were aware that the word
‘metaphysics’ had come to be used in a more inclusive sense than it had once been.
Christian Wolff attempted to justify this more inclusive sense of the word by this device:
while the subject-matter of metaphysics is being, being can be investigated either in
general or in relation to objects in particular categories. He distinguished between
‘general metaphysics’ (or ontology), the study of being as such, and the various
branches of ‘special metaphysics’, which study the being of objects of various special
sorts, such as souls and material bodies. (He does not assign first causes to general
metaphysics, however: the study of first causes belongs to natural theology, a branch of
special metaphysics.) It is doubtful whether this maneuver is anything more than a
verbal ploy. In what sense, for example, is the practitioner of rational psychology (the
branch of special metaphysics devoted to the soul) engaged in a study of being? Do
souls have a different sort of being from that of other objects?—so that in studying the
soul one learns not only about its nature (that is, its properties: rationality, immateriality,
immortality, its capacity or lack thereof to affect the body …), but also about its “mode of
being”, and hence learns something about being? It is certainly not true that all, or even
very many, rational psychologists said anything, qua rational psychologists, that could
plausibly be construed as a contribution to our understanding of being.
Perhaps the wider application of the word ‘metaphysics’ was due to the fact that
the word ‘physics’ was coming to be a name for a new, quantitative science, the science
that bears that name today, and was becoming increasingly inapplicable to the
investigation of many traditional philosophical problems about changing things (and of
some newly discovered problems about changing things).
Whatever the reason for the change may have been, it would be flying in the face
of current usage (and indeed of the usage of the last three or four hundred years) to
stipulate that the subject-matter of metaphysics was to be the subject-matter of
Aristotle's Metaphysics. It would, moreover, fly in the face of the fact that there are and
have been paradigmatic metaphysicians who deny that there are first causes—this
denial is certainly a metaphysical thesis in the current sense—others who insist that
everything changes (Heraclitus and any more recent philosopher who is both a
materialist and a nominalist), and others still (Parmenides and Zeno) who deny that
there is a special class of objects that do not change. In trying to characterize
metaphysics as a field, the best starting point is to consider the myriad topics
traditionally assigned to it.
The Problems of Metaphysics
I. Being As Such, First Causes, Unchanging Things
If metaphysics now considers a wider range of problems than those studied in

Aristotle's Metaphysics, those original problems continue to belong to its subject-matter.
For instance, the topic of “being as such” (and “existence as such”, if existence is
something other than being) is one of the matters that belong to metaphysics on any
conception of metaphysics. The following theses are all paradigmatically metaphysical:
 “Being is; not-being is not” [Parmenides];

 “Essence precedes existence” [Avicenna, paraphrased];
 “Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding
alone” [St Anselm, paraphrased];
 “Existence is a perfection” [Descartes, paraphrased];
 “Being is a logical, not a real predicate” [Kant, paraphrased];
 “Being is the most barren and abstract of all categories” [Hegel,
paraphrased];
 “Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number
zero” [Frege];
 “Universals do not exist but rather subsist or have being” [Russell,
paraphrased];
 “To be is to be the value of a bound variable” [Quine].
It seems reasonable, moreover, to say that investigations into non-being

belong to the topic “being as such” and thus belong to metaphysics. (This did not
seem reasonable to Meinong, who wished to confine the subject-matter of metaphysics
to “the actual” and who therefore did not regard his Theory of Objects as a metaphysical
theory. According to the conception of metaphysics adopted in this article, however, his
thesis [paraphrased] “Predication is independent of being” is paradigmatically
metaphysical.)
The topics “the first causes of things” and “unchanging things”—have

continued to interest metaphysicians, though they are not now seen as having any
important connection with the topic “being as such”. The first three of Aquinas's Five
Ways are metaphysical arguments on any conception of metaphysics. Additionally the
thesis that there are no first causes and the thesis that there are no things that do not
change count as metaphysical theses, for in the current conception of metaphysics, the
denial of a metaphysical thesis is a metaphysical thesis. No post-Medieval philosopher
would say anything like this:
I study the first causes of things, and am therefore a metaphysician. My

colleague Dr McZed denies that there are any first causes and is therefore not a
metaphysician; she is rather, an anti-metaphysician. In her view, metaphysics is a
science with a non-existent subject-matter, like astrology.
This feature of the contemporary conception of metaphysics is nicely illustrated

by a statement of Sartre's:
I do not think myself any less a metaphysician in denying the existence of God
than Leibniz was in affirming it. (1949: 139)
An anti-metaphysician in the contemporary sense is not a philosopher who

denies that there are objects of the sorts that an earlier philosopher might have said
formed the subject-matter of metaphysics (first causes, things that do not change,
universals, substances, …), but rather a philosopher who denies the legitimacy of the
question whether there are objects of those sorts.
The three original topics—the nature of being; the first causes of things; things
that do not change—remained topics of investigation by metaphysicians after Aristotle.
Another topic occupies an intermediate position between Aristotle and his successors.
We may call this topic
II. Categories of Being and Universals
We human beings sort things into various classes. And we often suppose that
the classes into which we sort things enjoy a kind of internal unity. In this respect they
differ from sets in the strict sense of the word. (And no doubt in others. It would seem,
for example, that we think of the classes we sort things into—biological species, say—
as comprising different members at different times.) The classes into which we sort
things are in most cases “natural” classes, classes whose membership is in some
important sense uniform—“kinds”. We shall not attempt an account or definition of
‘natural class’ here. Examples must suffice. There are certainly sets whose members do
not make up natural classes: a set that contains all dogs but one, and a set that
contains all dogs and exactly one cat do not correspond to natural classes in anyone's
view. And it is tempting to suppose that there is a sense of “natural” in which dogs make
up a natural class, to suppose that in dividing the world into dogs and non-dogs, we “cut
nature at the joints”. It is, however, a respectable philosophical thesis that the idea of a
natural class cannot survive philosophical scrutiny. If that respectable thesis is true, the
topic “the categories of being” is a pseudo-topic. Let us simply assume that the
respectable thesis is false and that things fall into various natural classes—hereinafter,
simply classes.
Some of the classes into which we sort things are more comprehensive than
others: all dogs are animals, but not all animals are dogs; all animals are living
organisms, but not all living organisms are animals …. Now the very expression “sort
things into classes” suggests that there is a most comprehensive class: the class of
things, the class of things that can be sorted into classes. But is this so?—and if it is so,
are there classes that are “just less comprehensive” than this universal class? If there
are, can we identify them?—and are there a vast (perhaps even an infinite) number of
them, or some largish, messy number like forty-nine, or some small, neat number like
seven or four? Let us call any such less comprehensive classes the ‘categories of
being’ or the ‘ontological categories’. (The former term, if not the latter, presupposes a
particular position on one question about the nature of being: that everything is, that the
universal class is the class of beings, the class of things that are. It thus presupposes
that Meinong was wrong to say that “there are things of which it is true that there are no
such things”.)
The topic “the categories of being” is intermediate between the topic “the nature
of being” and the topics that fall under the post-Medieval conception of metaphysics for
a reason that can be illustrated by considering the problem of universals. Universals, if
they indeed exist, are, in the first instance, properties or qualities or attributes (i.e.,
“ductility” or “whiteness”) that are supposedly universally “present in” the members of
classes of things and relations (i.e., “being to the north of”) that are supposedly
universally present in the members of classes of sequences of things. “In the first
instance”: it may be that things other than qualities and relations are universals,
although qualities and relations are the items most commonly put forward as examples
of universals. It may be that the novel War and Peace is a universal, a thing that is in
some mode present in each of the many tangible copies of the novel. It may be that the
word “horse” is a universal, a thing that is present in each of the many audible
utterances of the word. And it may be that natural classes or kinds are themselves
universals—it may be that there is such a thing as “the horse” or the species Equus
caballus, distinct from its defining attribute “being a horse” or “equinity”, and in some
sense “present in” each horse. (Perhaps some difference between the attribute “being a
horse” and the attribute “being either a horse or a kitten” explains why the former is the
defining attribute of a kind and the latter is not. Perhaps the former attribute exists and
the latter does not; perhaps the former has the second-order attribute “naturalness” and
the latter does not; perhaps the former is more easily apprehended by the intellect than
the latter.)
The thesis that universals exist—or at any rate “subsist” or “have being”—is
variously called ‘realism’ or ‘Platonic realism’ or ‘platonism’. All three terms are
objectionable. Aristotle believed in the reality of universals, but it would be at best an
oxymoron to call him a platonist or a Platonic realist. And ‘realism’ tout court has served
as a name for a variety of philosophical theses. The thesis that universals do not exist—
do not so much as subsist; have no being of any sort—is generally called ‘nominalism’.
This term, too is objectionable. At one time, those who denied the existence of
universals were fond of saying things like:
There is no such thing as “being a horse”: there is only the name [nomen, gen.
nominis] “horse”, a mere flatus vocis [puff of sound].
Present-day nominalists, however, are aware, if earlier nominalists were not, that
if the phrase ‘the name “horse” ’ designated an object, the object it designated would
itself be a universal or something very like one. It would not be a mere puff of sound but
would rather be what was common to the many puffs of sound that were its tokens.
The old debate between the nominalists and the realists continues to the present
day. Most realists suppose that universals constitute one of the categories of being.
This supposition could certainly be disputed without absurdity. Perhaps there is a
natural class of things to which all universals belong but which contains other things as
well (and is not the class of all things). Perhaps, for example, numbers and propositions
are not universals, and perhaps numbers and propositions and universals are all
members of a class of “abstract objects”, a class that some things do not belong to. Or
perhaps there is such a thing as “the whiteness of the Taj Mahal” and perhaps this
object and the universal “whiteness”—but not the Taj Mahal itself—both belong to the
class of “properties”. Let us call such a class—a proper subclass of an ontological
category, a natural class that is neither the class of all things nor one of the ontological
categories—an ‘ontological sub-category’. It may indeed be that universals make up a
sub-category of being and are members of the category of being “abstract object”. But
few if any philosophers would suppose that universals were members of forty-nine sub-
categories—much less of a vast number or an infinity of sub-categories. Most
philosophers who believe in the reality of universals would want to say that universals, if
they do not constitute an ontological category, at least constitute one of the “higher”
sub-categories. If dogs form a natural class, this class is—by the terms of our
definition—an ontological sub-category. And this class will no doubt be a subclass of
many sub-categories: the genus canis, the class (in the biological sense) mammalia, …,
and so through a chain of sub-categories that eventually reaches some very general
sub-category like “substance” or “material object”. Thus, although dogs may compose
an ontological sub-category, this sub-category—unlike the category “universal”—is one
of the “lower” ones. These reflections suggest that the topic “the categories of being”
should be understood to comprehend both the categories of being sensu stricto and
their immediate sub-categories.
Does the topic “the categories of being” belong to metaphysics in the “old”
sense? A case can be made for saying that it does, based on the fact that Plato's theory
of forms (universals, attributes) is a recurrent theme in Aristotle's Metaphysics. In

Metaphysics, two of Plato's central theses about the forms come in for vigorous
criticism: (i) that things that would, if they existed, be “inactive” (the forms) could be the
primary beings, the “most real” things, and (ii) that the attributes of things exist
“separately” from the things whose attributes they are. We shall be concerned only with
(ii). In the terminology of the Schools, that criticism can be put this way: Plato wrongly
believed that universals existed ante res (prior to objects); the correct view is that
universals exist in rebus (in objects). It is because this aspect of the problem of
universals—whether universals exist ante res or in rebus—is discussed at length in
Metaphysics, that a strong case can be made for saying that the problem of universals
falls under the old conception of metaphysics. (And the question whether universals,
given that they exist at all, exist ante res or in rebus is as controversial in the twenty-first
century as it was in the thirteenth century and the fourth century B.C.E.) If we do decide
that the problem of universals belongs to metaphysics on the old conception, then,
since we have liberalized the old conception by applying to it the contemporary rule that
the denial of a metaphysical position is to be regarded as a metaphysical position, we
shall have to say that the question whether universals exist at all is a metaphysical
question under the old conception—and that nominalism is therefore a metaphysical
thesis.
There is, however, also a case to made against classifying the problem of
universals as a problem of metaphysics in the (liberalized) old sense. For there is more
to the problem of universals than the question whether universals exist and the question
whether, if they do exist, their existence is ante res or in rebus. For example, the
problem of universals also includes questions about the relation between universals (if
such there be) and the things that are not universals, the things usually called
particulars. Aristotle did not consider these questions in the Metaphysics. One might
therefore plausibly contend that only one part of the problem of universals (the part that
pertains to the existence and nature of universals) belongs to metaphysics in the old
sense. At one time, a philosopher might have said,
The universal “doghood” is a thing that does not change. Therefore, questions
about its nature belong to metaphysics, the science of things that do not change. But
dogs are things that change. Therefore, questions concerning the relation of dogs to
doghood do not belong to metaphysics.
But no contemporary philosopher would divide the topics that way—not even if
he or she believed that doghood existed and was a thing that did not change. A
contemporary philosopher—if that philosopher concedes that there is any problem that
can properly be called “the problem of universals”—will see the problem of universals as
a problem properly so called, as a problem having the kind of internal unity that leads
philosophers to speak of a philosophical problem. And the same point applies to the
topic “the categories of being”: every philosopher who is willing to say that “What are the
categories of being?” is a meaningful question will assign every aspect of that question
to metaphysics
Let us consider some aspects of the problem of universals that concern changing
things. (That is, that concern particulars—for even if there are particulars that do not
change, most of the particulars that figure in discussions of the problem of universals as
examples are things that change.) Consider two white particulars—the Taj Mahal, say,
and the Washington Monument. And suppose that both these particulars are white in
virtue of (i.e., their being white consists in) their bearing some one, identifiable relation
to the universal “whiteness”. Suppose further that we are able to single out this relation
by some sort of act of intellectual attention or abstraction, and that (having done so) we
have given it the name “falling under”. All white things and only white things fall under
whiteness, and falling under whiteness is what it is to be white. (We pass over many
questions that would have to be addressed if we were discussing the problem of
universals for its own sake. For example, both blueness and redness are spectral color-
properties, and whiteness is not. Does this fact imply that “being a spectral color-
property” is, as one might say, a second-order universal? If so, does blueness “fall
under” this universal in the same sense as the sense in which a copy of Philosophical
Studies falls under blueness?)
Now what can we say about this relation, this “falling under”? What is it about the
two objects whiteness and the Taj Mahal that is responsible for the fact that the latter
falls under the former? Is the Taj perhaps a “bundle” of universalia ante res, and does it
fall under whiteness in virtue of the fact that whiteness is one of the universals that is a
constituent of the bundle that it is? Or might it be that a particular like the Taj, although it
indeed has universals as constituents, is something more than its universal
constituents? Might it be that the Taj has a constituent that is not a universal, a
“substrate”, a particular that is in some sense property-less and that holds the universal
constituents of the Taj together—that “bundles” them? (If we take that position, then we
may want to say, with Armstrong (1989: 94–96), that the Taj is a ‘thick particular’ and its
substrate a ‘thin particular’: a thick particular being a thin particular taken together with
the properties it bundles.) Or might the Taj have constituents that are neither universals
nor substrates? Might we have been too hasty when we defined ‘particulars’ as things
that are not universals? Could there perhaps be two kinds of non-universals, concrete
non-universals or concrete individuals (those would be the particulars, thick or thin), and
abstract non-universals or abstract individuals (‘accidents’ or ‘tropes’ or ‘property
instances’), things that are properties or qualities (and relations as well), things like “the
(individual) whiteness of the Taj Mahal”? Is the Taj perhaps a bundle not of universals
but of accidents? Or is it composed of a substrate and a bundle of accidents? And we
cannot neglect the possibility that Aristotle was right and that universals exist only in
rebus. If that is so, we must ask what the relation is between the matter that composes
a particular and the universals that inhere in it—that inhere simultaneously in “this”
matter and in “that” matter.
The series of questions that was set out in the preceding paragraph was
introduced by observing that the problem of universals includes both questions about
the existence and nature of universals and questions about how universals are related
to the particulars that fall under them. Many of the theories that were alluded to in that
series of questions could be described as theories of the “ontological structure” of non-
universals. We can contrast ontological structure with mereological structure. A
philosophical question concerns the mereological structure of an object if it is a question
about the relation between that object and those of its constituents that belong to the
same ontological category as the object. For example, the philosopher who asks
whether the Taj Mahal has a certain block of marble among its constituents essentially
or only accidentally is asking a question about the mereological structure of the Taj,
since the block and the building belong to the same ontological category. But the
philosopher who asks whether the Taj has “whiteness” as a constituent and the
philosopher who supposes that the Taj does have this property-constituent and asks,
“What is the nature of this relation ‘constituent of’ that ‘whiteness’ bears to the Taj?” are
asking questions about its ontological structure.
Many philosophers have supposed that particulars fall under universals by

somehow incorporating them into their ontological structure. And other philosophers
have supposed that the ontological structure of a particular incorporates individual
properties or accidents—and that an accident is an accident of a certain particular just
in virtue of being a constituent of that particular.
Advocates of the existence of ante res universals, and particularly those who
deny that these universals are constituents of particulars, tend to suppose that
universals abound—that there is not only such a universal as whiteness but such a
universal as “being both white and round and either shiny or not made of silver”.
Advocates of other theories of universals are almost always less liberal in the range of
universals whose existence they will allow. The advocate of in rebus universals is
unlikely to grant the existence of “being both white and round and either shiny or not
made of silver”, even in the case in which there is an object that is both white and round
and either shiny or not made of silver (such as a non-shiny white plastic ball).
The two topics “the categories of being” and “the ontological structure of objects”
are intimately related to each other and to the problem of universals. It is not possible to
propose a solution to the problem of universals that does not have implications for the
topic “the categories of being”. (Even nominalism implies that at least one popular
candidate for the office “ontological category” is non-existent or empty.) It is certainly

possible to maintain that there are ontological categories that are not directly related to
the problem of universals (“proposition”, “state of affairs”, “event”, “mere possibile”), but
any philosopher who maintains this will nevertheless maintain that if there are
universals they make up at least one of the higher ontological sub-categories. And it
seems that it is possible to speak of ontological structure only if one supposes that there
are objects of different ontological categories. So whatever metaphysics comprehends,
it must comprehend every aspect of the problem of universals and every aspect of the
topics “the categories of being” and “the ontological structure of objects”. For a recent
investigation of the problems that have been discussed in this section, see Lowe (2006).
We turn now to a topic that strictly speaking belongs to “the categories of being”,
but which is important enough to be treated separately.
III. Substance
Some things (if they exist at all) are present only “in” other things: a smile, a
haircut (product, not process), a hole …. Such things may be opposed to things that
exist “in their own right”. Metaphysicians call the things that exist in their own right
‘substances’. Aristotle called them ‘protai ousiai’ or “primary beings”. They make up the
most important of his ontological categories. Several features define protai ousiai: they
are subjects of predication that cannot themselves be predicated of things (they are not
universals); things exist “in” them, but they do not exist “in” things (they are not
accidents like Socrates' wisdom or his ironic smile); they have determinate identities
(essences). This last feature could be put this way in contemporary terms: if the prote
ousia x exists at a certain time and the prote ousia y exists at some other time, it makes
sense to ask whether x and y are the same, are numerically identical (and the question
must have a determinate answer); and the question whether a given prote ousia would
exist in some set of counterfactual circumstances must likewise have an answer (at
least if the circumstances are sufficiently determinate—if, for example, they constitute a
possible world. More on this in the next section). It is difficult to suppose that smiles or
holes have this sort of determinate identity. To ask whether the smile Socrates smiled
today is the smile he smiled yesterday (or is the smile he would have smiled if Crito had
asked one of his charmingly naïve questions) can only be a question about descriptive
identity.
Aristotle uses ‘(prote) ousia’ not only as a count-noun but as a mass term. (He
generally writes ‘ousia’ without qualification when he believes that the context will make
it clear that he means ‘prote ousia’.) For example, he not only asks questions like “Is
Socrates a (prote) ousia?” and “What is a (prote) ousia”?, but questions like “What is the
(prote) ousia of Socrates?” and “What is (prote) ousia?” (Which question he is asking
sometimes has to be inferred from the context, since there is no indefinite article in
Greek.) In the count-noun sense of the term, Aristotle identifies at least some (protai)
ousiai with ta hupokeimena or “underlying things”. Socrates, for example, is a
hupokeimenon in that he “lies under” the in rebus universals under which he falls and
the accidents that inhere in him. ‘To hupokeimenon’ has an approximate Latin
equivalent in ‘substantia’, “that which stands under”. (Apparently, “to stand under” and
“to lie under” are equally good metaphorical descriptions of the relations a thing bears to
its qualities and accidents.) Owing both to the close association of (protai) ousiai and
hupokeimena in Aristotle's philosophy and to the absence a suitable Latin equivalent of
‘ousia’ ‘substantia’ became the customary Latin translation of the count-noun ‘(prote)
ousia’.
The question whether there in fact are substances continues to be one of the
central questions of metaphysics. Several closely related questions are: How, precisely,
should the concept of substance be understood?; Which of the items (if any of them)
among those we encounter in everyday life are substances?; If there are substances at
all, how many of them are there?—is there only one as Spinoza contended, or are there
many as most of the rationalists supposed?; What kinds of substances are there?—are
there immaterial substances, eternal substances, necessarily existent substances?
It must be emphasized that there is no universally accepted and precise

definition of ‘substance’. Depending on how one understood the word (or the concept)
one might say either that Hume denied that there were any substances or that he held
that the only substances (or the only substances of which we have any knowledge)
were impressions and ideas. It would seem, however, that most philosophers who are
willing to use the word ‘substance’ at all would deny that any of the following (if they
exist) are substances:
Universals and other abstract objects. (It should be noted that Aristotle
criticized Plato for supposing that the protai ousiai were ante res universals.)
Events, processes, or changes. (But some metaphysicians contend that

substance/event is a false dichotomy.)
Stuffs, such as flesh or iron or butter. (Unfortunately for beginning students of

metaphysics, the usual meaning of ‘substance’ outside philosophy is stuff. Aristotle
criticized “the natural philosophers” for supposing that the prote ousia could be a stuff—
water or air or fire or matter.)
The nature of being, the problem of universals, and the nature of substance have
been recognized as topics that belong to “metaphysics” by almost everyone who has
used the word. We now turn to topics that belong to metaphysics only in the post-
Medieval sense.
Is Metaphysics Possible?
It may also be that there is no internal unity to metaphysics. More strongly,

perhaps there is no such thing as metaphysics—or at least nothing that deserves to be
called a science or a study or a discipline. Perhaps, as some philosophers have
proposed, no metaphysical statement or theory is either true or false. Or perhaps, as
others have proposed, metaphysical theories have truth-values, but it is impossible
to find out what they are. At least since the time of Hume, there have been
philosophers who have proposed that metaphysics is “impossible”—either because its
questions are meaningless or because they are impossible to answer. The remainder of
this entry will be a discussion of some recent arguments for the impossibility of
metaphysics.
Let us suppose that we are confident that we are able to identify every statement
as either “a metaphysical statement” or “not a metaphysical statement”. (We need not
suppose that this ability is grounded in some non-trivial definition or account of
metaphysics.) Let us call the thesis that all metaphysical statements are meaningless
“the strong form” of the thesis that metaphysics is impossible. (At one time, an enemy of
metaphysics might have been content to say that all metaphysical statements were
false. But this is obviously not a possible thesis if the denial of a metaphysical statement
must itself be a metaphysical statement) And let us call the following statement the
“weak form” of the thesis that metaphysics is impossible: metaphysical statements are
meaningful, but human beings can never discover whether any metaphysical statement
is true or false (or probable or improbable or warranted or unwarranted).
Let us briefly examine an example of the strong form of the thesis that
metaphysics is impossible. The logical positivists maintained that the meaning of a
(non-analytic) statement consisted entirely in the predictions it made about possible
experience. They maintained, further, that metaphysical statements (which were
obviously not put forward as analytic truths) made no predictions about experience.
Therefore, they concluded, metaphysical statements are meaningless—or, better, the
“statements” we classify as metaphysical are not really statements at all: they are things
that look like statements but aren't, rather as mannequins are things that look like
human beings but aren't.
But (many philosophers asked) how does the logical positivist's central thesis
The meaning of a statement consists entirely in the predictions it makes about

possible experience fare by its own standards? Does this thesis make any predictions
about possible experiences? Could some observation show that it was true? Could
some experiment show that it was false? It would seem not. It would seem that
everything in the world would look the same—like this—whether this thesis was true or
false. (Will the positivist reply that the offset sentence is analytic? This reply is
problematic in that it implies that the multitude of native speakers of English who reject
the logical positivists' account of meaning somehow cannot see that that sentence is
true in virtue of the meaning of the word “meaning”—which is no technical term but a
word of ordinary English.) And, therefore, if the statement is true it is meaningless; or,
what is the same thing, if it is meaningful, it is false. Logical positivism would therefore
seem to say of itself that it is false or meaningless; it would be seem to be, to use a
currently fashionable phrase, “self-referentially incoherent”.
Current advocates of ‘metaphysical anti-realism’ also advocate a strong form of

the thesis that metaphysics is impossible. Insofar as it is possible to find a coherent line
of argument in the writings of any anti-realist, it is hard to see why they, like the logical
positivists, are not open to a charge of self-referential incoherency. Indeed, there is
much to be said for the conclusion that all forms of the strong thesis fall prey to self-
referential incoherency. Put very abstractly, the case against proponents of the strong
thesis may be put like this. Dr. McZed, a “strong anti-metaphysician”, contends that any
piece of text that does not pass some test she specifies is meaningless (if she is typical
of strong anti-metaphysicians, she will say that any text that fails the test represents an
attempt to use language in a way in which language cannot be used). And she contends
further that any piece of text that can plausibly be identified as “metaphysical” must fail
this test. But it invariably turns out that various sentences that are essential components
of McZed's case against metaphysics themselves fail to pass her test. A test-case for
this very schematic and abstract refutation of all refutations of metaphysics is the very
sophisticated and subtle critique of metaphysics (it purports to apply only to the kind of
metaphysics exemplified by the seventeenth-century rationalists and current analytical
metaphysics) presented in van Fraassen 2002. It is a defensible position that van
Fraassen's case against metaphysics depends essentially on certain theses that,
although they are not themselves metaphysical theses, are nevertheless open to many
of the criticisms he brings against metaphysical theses.
The weak form of the thesis that metaphysics is impossible is this: there is
something about the human mind (perhaps even the minds of all rational agents or all
finite rational agents) that unfits it for reaching metaphysical conclusions in any reliable
way. This idea is at least as old as Kant, but a version of it that is much more modest
than Kant's (and much easier to understand) has been carefully presented in McGinn
1993. McGinn's argument for the conclusion that the human mind is (as a matter of
evolutionary contingency, and not simply because it is “a mind”) incapable of a
satisfactory treatment of a large range of philosophical questions (a range that includes
all metaphysical questions), however, depends on speculative factual theses about
human cognitive capacities that are in principle subject to empirical refutation
and which are at present without significant empirical support.
The Word ‘Metaphysics’ and the Concept of Albert Camus to Metaphysics
Metaphysical Rebellion
Sade, the romantics, Ivan Karamazov, and Nietzsche provide examples of a

historical progression within metaphysical rebellion which will inevitably result in
revolution. Camus believes at the core of metaphysical principles is a need for unity.
This displaced unity, however, culminates in a form of absolutism. Sade is the instigator
of absolute negation born out of rebellion. The intensity of Sade’s intelligence versus a
lucidity of nature results in a “logic of his feelings.” Based on this logic, and Sade’s
miserable demeanor, he denies God’s existence as part of an antitheistic humanism, for
God is “wicked, indifferent, or cruel” which is irreconcilable for Sade. God is, therefore, a
murderous criminal for Sade. Losing faith in the divine leads Sade to lose faith in
humanity. He asks the question if God is not good why then should man be virtuous: “if
God kills and repudiates mankind, there is nothing to stop one from killing and
repudiating one’s fellow men.”
Camus associates Romanticism with Sadism in so far as its rejection of God and
emphasis on the emotions of the individual is “Lucifer-like.” The rebel flees so far away
from this “miser of a divinity” that he takes solace in the other extreme of evil and
inwardness. Man, nonetheless, longs for a semblance of something to unify his
existence as was presented in a divine Being but had to be rejected. In his sensitive,
melancholic nature, the romantic “plays” at life because he cannot accept living it, and
so finds unity in an image of what he sees as aesthetic harmony to sustain him self: “he
plays at it until he dies, except for the moments when he is alone and without a mirror. .
. to be alone is to not exist.”The romantic rebel, therefore, engages in the fight against
slavery, but only in his imagination, for out fear in his “philosophy of feelings” and in
living isolated he surrenders to the servitude rather than engaging in combat alone.
In both Sade and the romantic’s response to existence God has yet to be killed,
but merely the relationship between man and the divine is severed and God is
dethroned. Ivan Karamazov’s response, ultimately, brings man nearer to absolute
nothingness and deicide, but before he rejects God like Sade and the romantics he
begins by searching for a sense of justice for the injustice of the suffering innocent.
In Ivan’s understanding, if God is just and compassionate then he would not

allow the suffering of the innocent. In experience, however, the innocent’s suffering
continues and the inflictor is forgiven by God alongside the victim. Thus, Ivan must
reject God. Camus in Ivan’s rejection presents the idea of an even if clause of instilling
one’s own conditions, that is, “under these conditions, even if eternal life existed, Ivan
would refuse it.” If one were to have true compassion as compassion is associated with
God, then it seems like the quest would be to annihilate suffering rather than learn to
“accept it,” according to Ivan. Under these terms God seems to be lacking compassion,
and so Ivan rejects God because he cannot reconcile that “if he had faith, he could, in
fact, be saved, but others would be damned and suffering would continue,” thus, “there
is no possible salvation for the man who feels real compassion. Ivan will continue to put
God in the wrong by doubly rejecting faith as he would reject injustice and privilege.
One step more and from All or Nothing we arrive at Everyone or No One.”
Although, based on his conclusion, if Ivan seeks to reject God he is rejecting

immortality and with it eternal reward or punishment. In this kind of rejection everything
becomes permitted and justifiable, even murder. Camus, like Ivan, must reject God and
Christianity on the basis of an inexplicable and a permanent state of suffering, but Ivan
will cease to be a rebel at the point when he becomes an absolutist by destroying any
standard of permissibility. In order to be objective in his actions in line with his
conclusion Ivan distinguishes himself from the romantics in so far as he moves closer to
acts of nihilism: “the romantics allowed themselves moments of complacence, while
Ivan compelled himself to do evil so as to be coherent. He would not allow himself to be
good. Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all, the desire to despair and
to negate.”
In metaphysical rebellion man plays God, but in becoming God he takes

mastery upon himself, for there can only be one God. This metaphysical action,
therefore, begs the question whether it is right to speak rebellion nominally of this
action, for “one can live in a state of rebellion only by pursuing it to the bitter end.
What is the bitter end of metaphysical rebellion? Metaphysical revolution. The
master of the world, after his legitimacy has been contested, must be overthrown. Man
must occupy his place. Ivan’s action, however, has not reached the pinnacle of
revolutionary absolute negation, for his action is out of a strange love for mankind, a
love which is destined to starve:
The unity of the world, which was not achieved with God, will henceforth be
attempted in defiance of God. But we have not yet reached that point. For the
moment, Ivan offers us only the tortured face of the rebel plunged in the abyss,
incapable of action, torn between the idea of his own innocence and the desire to kill.
He hates the death penalty because it is the image of the human condition, and, at the
same time, he is drawn to crime. Because he has taken the side of mankind, solitude is
his lot. With him the rebellion of reason culminates in madness.47
Terrorism will always exist for the rebel, but metaphysical rebellion tries to
dispense with the struggle rather than expect it and finds him self accepting
solitude as the price.
Nietzsche in philosophy and historically is the climatic point at which

metaphysical rebellion terminates the tension in revolutionary movement of absolute
negation of everything, for Nietzsche places God into a new schema of moral judgment
in a confrontation with absurdity: “morality is the ultimate aspect of God, which must be
destroyed before reconstruction can begin. Then God no longer exists and is no longer
responsible for our existence, man must resolve to act, in order to exist.”48 Nietzsche’s
slogan surmounts to “the advantages of our times: nothing is true, everything is
permitted.”
The only value for Nietzsche is morality, but a morality that is not rooted in God
or the world, but in individual lucidity.Thus, man is alone for Nietzsche. Freedom and
unity does not exist among many, but only for the individual and only for the certain
individual, the superman. Thus, freedom and unity exist in the mind and in intentional
solitude for Nietzsche: “freedom of the mind is not a comfort, but an achievement to
which one aspires and at long last obtains after an exhausting struggle.”
In this struggle Nietzsche replaces God in order to say yes to the world and
finally become its re-creator, an artist. This, however, kills rebellion,for the struggle ends
in this divinization of man; the evil is exalted along with the good, and man can be both
the slave and the master as long as he lives in the solitude and freedom of his mind.54
Nietzsche, therefore, in killing God turns to absolute negation where there is no
objective value in the world, all is nothingness. In this kind of living all must be achieved
in the world through a Caesarian dictatorial power which is realized in the power of the
will to free one’s mind from all constraints.
In this final blow to rebellion through Nietzsche’s nihilism we must reject

metaphysical rebellion, for it masquerades as the “face of the human protest” claiming
objectivity in its affirmation of “the solitude of man and the nonexistence of any kind of
morality.” Realistically, however, these men either self-divinize by reconstructing the
world to fit their desires and gain themselves power even at the cost of murder or others
go mad and flee reality. Life is reduced to a world of death and destruction. Sade, the
romantics, Karamazov, and Nietzsche sought to respond to this culture of death, and at
the heart of their tasks was a genuine appeal to order.58 Although in their metaphysical
rebellions they departed from the universe of limitations unwilling to carry the tension of
the rebellious burden leading to the destruction of freedom and returning man to his
prior slavery.
At its height metaphysical rebellion ceases to be worthy of the name rebellious

movement and loses itself to revolutionary action. In trying to reconcile reality with
absurdity, the absolute man imposes his principles upon nature. This reduces all of his
acts to destroying death and instilling a kind of false unity in its place out of the fear of
nonexistence, so that “the rejection of death, the desire for immortality and for
clarity, are the mainsprings of all these extravagances.” In distinction with the
revolutionist, the rebel’s action remains noble in so far as he “does not ask for life, but
for reasons, for living.” In other words, the rebel is not concerned with the pangs of
death, rather, he accepts them and turns his focus to finding meaning within living even
if death still must be endured he will have lived well. In its intense devotion to action in
desiring meaningful unity in living—in its accepting a life of tension—Camus
characterizes rebellion as a kind of asceticism. Metaphysical rebellion’s incapacity to
self-discipline in refusing to accept the absurdity reduces all to revolutionary action in
which life is destroyed:
Each time that it deifies the total rejection, the absolute negation, of what exists,
it destroys. Each time that it blindly accepts what exists and gives voice to absolute
assent it destroys again. Hatred of the creator can turn to hatred of creation or to
exclusive and defiant love of what exists. But in both cases it ends in murder and loses
the right to be called rebellion.
This destruction is the reign of nihilism in the world in place of Camus’ rebellion.
At the height of metaphysical rebellion is the recognition of Ivan’s “even if,” and in its
nihilist attitude metaphysical rebellion destroys any hope of authentic rebellion taking
root. Camus argues that this culture of death began when the ancient world
ended in which man decides to “exclude himself from grace and live by his own
means.” Thus, the remains of the fallen must be reunited, according to Camus in a new
kingdom of justice in which freedom is granted allowance to “embrace all mankind.”This
new kingdom seeks to combat revolutionary destruction of nihilism in which the “will to
power” is the life sustaining force. Hence metaphysical rebellion must be forgotten
because in man’s genuine search for order he forgets his origins . . . he drove God from
His heaven, but now that the spirit of metaphysical rebellion openly joins forces with
revolutionary movements, the irrational claim for freedom paradoxically adopts reason
as a weapon, and as the only means of conquest which appears entirely human. With
the death of God, mankind remains . . . Nihilism, which, in the very midst of rebellion,
smothers the force of creation, only adds that one is justified in using every means at
one’s disposal.
This antitheistic humanism, therefore, consists in autonomous action in which

creation is smothered, God is dead, and so man exists alone. Man lives in solitude in
this selfish humanism, rather than in freedom and solidarity as Camus is suggesting by
means of rebellion: “to the “I rebel, therefore, we exist,” he adds, with prodigious plans
in mind which even include the death of rebellion: “And we are alone.”In this destructive
humanism, Nietzsche’ “will to power” is the leading force which compels men to believe
they are untied in the strength of freedom in rising to power by means of their own
abilities. Under the influence of this lifestyle, however, it becomes apparent that there
can only be one free man, for all fall into servitude under the power of the strongest will.
This servitude and solitude is that from which rebellion seeks to remove men.
There are two aspects that taunt man in this metaphysical rebellion, namely, a
need for freedom and unity. Camus states at the heart of revolution was at first the
protest of the rebel who desires his freedom from servitude and looks for meaning, a
unity; in its culmination of nihilism, revolution “obedient to the dictates of nihilism, has in
fact turned against its rebel origins. Man, who hated death and the god of death, who
despaired of personal survival, wanted to free himself in the immortality of the species”
to the point of necessitating the justification of homicidal actions towards those who
stand in the way of that immortality.
Hence, to conclude everything: Camus in his final rejection of metaphysical and

historical rebellion marks the end of his argument in The Rebel. At this point we as the
readers are called to return to the silently absurd universe— “the point of departure”— a
stage upon which the hero, a man of action, emerges, the rebel. The rebel is a warrior
and an artist. As a warrior, he struggles for the sake of man’s freedom in preserving the
dignity of human life and the law of moderation within the limits of his capacity as a
man. He must accept these limits in order to properly continue to struggle against
absurdity. In this fight
Freedom to kill, is not compatible with the sense of rebellion . . . The rebel wants
it to be recognized that freedom has its limits everywhere that a human being is to be
found—the limit being precisely the human beings’ power to rebel . . . the freedom he
claims, he claims for all; the freedom he refuses, he forbids everyone to enjoy. He is not
only the slave against the master, but also man against the world of master and slave.
Freedom, therefore, is not absolute, but is focused due to the inherently limited
nature of man. To annihilate and live in excess would be to give in to revolution and
contrary to his responsibility as the rebel to preserve life.
As an artist, his desire for unity and meaning seeks to bring the beauty of human
dignity to life in creating a canvas of action that paints the reality of the rebel’s
acceptance of and desire for his struggle.Camus calls this action a new humanism in
which the new man, the rebel, is born and decides to sacrifice himself in his rebellion,
for it is the only action that allows for meaning in life in which he may find hope and love
amidst his suffering:
He rebelled in the name of the identity of man with man and he sacrifices this
identity by consecrating the difference in blood. His only existence, in the midst of
suffering and oppression, was contained in this identity. The same movement, which
intended to aim, thus brings an end to his existence. He can claim that some, or even
almost all, are with him. But if one single human being is missing in the irreplaceable
world of fraternity, then the world is immediately depopulated. If we are not, then I am
not.
The rebel’s love is that of Ivan’s strange love for humanity and his hope is in the
solidarity of sharing the burden of life communally in which Camus must reject the
compassionate-less God. This strange love presents the rebel with an identity of self,
a new, positive individualism, in which man’s identity in light of solidarity is understood
as “I have need of others who have need of me and of each other.” The rebel’s life
differs from the rest of modernity living in antitheistic and secular humanisms in so far
as his struggle remains forever in the present; he does not look to the future but fights
always in the immediate. The revolutionary always believes the present must conform to
the “better” future to come, where all is justified in light of its being ordered towards
something greater than itself.
Thus, the rebel, keeping in mind the secularity of his character, takes on an
analogous martyrdom in acceptance of all suffering for the sake of the common good of
man, to bear the load together, but his suffering to the degree that it is his task eternally
in the immanent rather than his salvation from a transcendent concept makes his
suffering all the more horrific. He does not flee death nor does he try to destroy it like
the revolutionist. The rebel accepts death as an unavoidable tension (“rebellion proves
in this way that it is the very movement of life”93) and leaves it to the future, again,
focusing on his love and hope within the moment of the present to illustrate the beauty
of the dignity of mankind:
The procedure of beauty, which is to contest reality while endowing it with unity,
is also the procedure of rebellion . . . In upholding beauty we prepare the way for the
day of regeneration when civilization will give first place—far ahead of the formal
principles and degraded values of history—to this living virtue on which is found the
common dignity of man and the world he lives in, and which we now must define in the
face of a world that insults it.
The end of the rebel is not to accept meaninglessness in the absurdity, but to find
meaning while still acknowledging that because there is no transcendent cause that
draws one into the future it is necessary to accept life as it is and to live presently. The
task of the rebel is to find a reason to live even if he still must accept death. Camus is
not just building a society in language; however, he is calling all men, you and I, to
rebel, for “we are at the extremity now. At the end of this tunnel of darkness, however,
there is inevitably a light . . . we only have to fight to ensure its coming. All of us, among
the ruins, are preparing a renaissance beyond the limits of nihilism. But few know of
it.”95 In departing from our ideological ways Camus is calling us to heroically bend to
the eternal tension of the absurd and courageously give of ourselves in rebellion, like
the strength of Odysseus’ bow, to be in love as new men identifying ourselves with a
longing for this new humanism that was thriving within us all along, and, most
importantly, to not give up in our struggling to achieve hope within the present:
At this moment, when each of us must fit an arrow to his bow and enter the lists
anew, to reconquer, within history and in spite of it, that which he owns already, the thin
yield of his fields, the brief love of this earth, at this moment when at last a man is born,
it is time to forsake our age and its adolescent furies. The bow bends; the wood
complains. At the moment of supreme tension, there will leap into flight an unswerving
arrow, a shaft that is inflexible.
Suffering has come to an end for Camus, for he is no longer alone. He has
become the inflexible shaft of hope taking on the apparent meaninglessness of the
universe in establishing man as meaningful. The absurd will never cease to exist for
Camus, but man will learn to bend and accept the tension of its essence through the
support of solidarity with other men. This new man, therefore, the rebel, has found his
freedom in the face of a silent universe through strength from within and without. In this
moment, there is hope for everyman, for Camus in his work The Rebel has instituted a
new humanism as a response to a meaningless world through solidarity, freedom, and
hope in the face of absurdity.
The Word ‘Epistemology’ and the Concept of Epistemology
Epistemology is the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and

justified belief. It analyzes the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions
such as truth, belief and justification. It also deals with the means of production of
knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. It is essentially
about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular
areas of inquiry.
Epistemology asks questions like: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge

acquired?", "What do people know?", "What are the necessary and sufficient conditions
of knowledge?", "What is its structure, and what are its limits?", "What makes justified
beliefs justified?", "How we are to understand the concept of justification?", "Is
justification internal or external to one's own mind?"
The kind of knowledge usually discussed in Epistemology is propositional

knowledge, "knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-how" (for example, the
knowledge that "2 + 2 = 4", as opposed to the knowledge of how to go about adding two
numbers).
What Is Knowledge?
Knowledge is the awareness and understanding of particular aspects of reality. It

is the clear, lucid information gained through the process of reason applied to reality.
The traditional approach is that knowledge requires three necessary and sufficient
conditions, so that knowledge can then be defined as "justified true belief":
Truth: since false propositions cannot be known - for something to count as

knowledge, it must actually be true. As Aristotle famously (but rather confusingly)
expressed it: "To say of something which is that it is not, or to say of something which is
not that it is, is false. However, to say of something which is that it is, or of something
which is not that it is not, is true."
Belief: because one cannot know something that one doesn't even believe in,
the statement "I know x, but I don't believe that x is true" is contradictory.
Justification: as opposed to believing in something purely as a matter of luck.
The most contentious part of all this is the definition of justification, and there are
several schools of thought on the subject:
According to Evidentialism, what makes a belief justified in this sense is the

possession of evidence - a belief is justified to the extent that it fits a person's evidence.
Different varieties of Reliabilism suggest that either: 1) justification is not

necessary for knowledge provided it is a reliably-produced true belief; or 2) justification
is required but any reliable cognitive process (e.g. vision) is sufficient justification.
Yet another school, Infallibilism, holds that a belief must not only be true and
justified, but that the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth, so that the
justification for the belief must be infallible.
Another debate focuses on whether justification is external or internal:
Externalism holds that factors deemed "external" (meaning outside of the

psychological states of those who are gaining the knowledge) can be conditions of
knowledge, so that if the relevant facts justifying a proposition are external then they are
acceptable.
Internalism, on the other hand, claims that all knowledge-yielding conditions are
within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge.
As recently as 1963, the American philosopher Edmund Gettier called this

traditional theory of knowledge into question by claiming that there are certain
circumstances in which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above
conditions are met (his Gettier-cases). For example: Suppose that the clock on campus
(which keeps accurate time and is well maintained) stopped working at 11:56pm last
night, and has yet to be repaired. On my way to my noon class, exactly twelve hours
later, I glance at the clock and form the belief that the time is 11:56. My belief is true, of
course, since the time is indeed 11:56. And my belief is justified, as I have no reason to
doubt that the clock is working, and I cannot be blamed for basing beliefs about the time
on what the clock says. Nonetheless, it seems evident that I do not know that the time is
11:56. After all, if I had walked past the clock a bit earlier or a bit later, I would have
ended up with a false belief rather than a true one.
How Is Knowledge Acquired?
Propositional knowledge can be of two types, depending on its source:
a priori (or non-empirical), where knowledge is possible independently of, or

prior to, any experience, and requires only the use of reason (e.g. knowledge of logical
truths and of abstract claims); or
a posteriori (or empirical), where knowledge is possible only subsequent, or

posterior, to certain sense experiences, in addition to the use of reason (e.g. knowledge
of the colour or shape of a physical object, or knowledge of geographical locations).
Knowledge of empirical facts about the physical world will necessarily involve
perception, in other words, the use of the senses. But all knowledge requires some
amount of reasoning, the analysis of data and the drawing of inferences. Intuition is
often believed to be a sort of direct access to knowledge of the a priori.
Memory allows us to know something that we knew in the past, even, perhaps, if
we no longer remember the original justification. Knowledge can also be transmitted
from one individual to another via testimony (that is, my justification for a particular
belief could amount to the fact that some trusted source has told me that it is true).
There are a few main theories of knowledge acquisition:
Empiricism, which emphasizes the role of experience, especially experience

based on perceptual observations by the five senses in the formation of ideas, while
discounting the notion of innate ideas. Refinements of this basic principle led to
Phenomenalism, Positivism, Scientism and Logical Positivism.
Rationalism, which holds that knowledge is not derived from experience, but
rather is acquired by a priori processes or is innate (in the form of concepts) or intuitive.
Representationalism, (or Indirect Realism or Epistemological Dualism), which

holds that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real world itself, but
merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation.
Constructivism (or Constructionism), which presupposes that all knowledge is

"constructed", in that it is contingent on convention, human perception and social
experience.
What Can People Know?
The fact that any given justifications of knowledge will itself depend on another
belief for its justification appears to lead to an infinite regress.
Skepticism begins with the apparent impossibility of completing this infinite chain
of reasoning, and argues that, ultimately, no beliefs are justified and therefore no one
really knows anything.
Fallibilism also claims that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible, or

at least that all claims to knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. Unlike Skepticism,
however, Fallibilism does not imply the need to abandon our knowledge, just to
recognize that, because empirical knowledge can be revised by further

observation, any of the things we take as knowledge might possibly turn out to
be false.
The Stranger; Albert Camus Plot (Point of View regarding Epistemology
Meursault, the narrator, is a young man living in Algiers. After receiving a

telegram informing him of his mother’s death, he takes a bus to Marengo, where his
mother had been living in an old persons’ home. He sleeps for almost the entire trip.
When he arrives, he speaks to the director of the home. The director allows Meursault
to see his mother, but Meursault finds that her body has already been sealed in the
coffin. He declines the caretaker’s offer to open the coffin.
That night, Meursault keeps vigil over his mother’s body. Much to his
displeasure, the talkative caretaker stays with him the whole time. Meursault smokes a
cigarette, drinks coffee, and dozes off. The next morning, before the funeral, he meets
with the director again. The director informs him that Thomas Perez, an old man who
had grown very close to Meursault’s mother, will be attending the funeral service. The
funeral procession heads for the small local village, but Perez has difficulty keeping up
and eventually faints from the heat. Meursault reports that he remembers little of the
funeral. That night, he happily arrives back in Algiers.
The next day, Meursault goes to the public beach for a swim. There, he runs into
Marie Cardona, his former co-worker. The two make a date to see a comedy at the
movie theater that evening. After the movie they spend the night together. When
Meursault wakes up, Marie is gone. He stays in bed until noon and then sits on his
balcony until evening, watching the people pass on the street.
The following day, Monday, Meursault returns to work. He has lunch with his
friend Emmanuel and then works all afternoon. While walking upstairs to his apartment
that night, Meursault runs into Salamano, an old man who lives in his building and owns
a mangy dog. Meursault also runs into his neighbor, Raymond Sintes, who is widely
rumored to be a pimp. Raymond invites Meursault over for dinner. Over the meal,
Raymond recounts how he beat up his mistress after he discovered that she had been
cheating on him. As a result, he got into a fight with her brother. Raymond now wants to
torment his mistress even more, but he needs Meursault to write a letter to lure his
mistress back to him. Meursault agrees and writes the letter that night.
The following Saturday, Marie visits Meursault at his apartment. She asks
Meursault if he loves her, and he replies that “it didn’t mean anything,” but probably not.
The two then hear shouting coming from Raymond’s apartment. They go out into the
hall and watch as a policeman arrives. The policeman slaps Raymond and says that he
will be summoned to the police station for beating up his mistress. Later, Raymond asks
Meursault to testify on his behalf, and Meursault agrees. That night, Raymond runs into
Salamano, who laments that his dog has run away.
Marie asks Meursault if he wants to marry her. He replies indifferently but says
that they can get married if she wants to, so they become engaged. The following
Sunday, Meursault, Marie, and Raymond go to a beach house owned by Masson, one
of Raymond’s friends. They swim happily in the ocean and then have lunch. That
afternoon, Masson, Raymond, and Meursault run into two Arabs on the beach, one of
whom is the brother of Raymond’s mistress. A fight breaks out and Raymond is
stabbed. After tending to his wounds, Raymond returns to the beach with Meursault.
They find the Arabs at a spring. Raymond considers shooting them with his gun, but
Meursault talks him out of it and takes the gun away. Later, however, Meursault returns
to the spring to cool off, and, for no apparent reason, he shoots Raymond’s mistress’s
brother.
Meursault is arrested and thrown into jail. His lawyer seems disgusted at
Meursault’s lack of remorse over his crime, and, in particular, at Meursault’s lack of grief
at his mother’s funeral. Later, Meursault meets with the examining magistrate, who
cannot understand Meursault’s actions. The magistrate brandishes a crucifix and
demands that Meursault put his faith in God. Meursault refuses, insisting that he does
not believe in God. The magistrate cannot accept Meursault’s lack of belief, and
eventually dubs him “Monsieur Antichrist.”
One day, Marie visits Meursault in prison. She forces herself to smile during the
visit, and she expresses hope that Meursault will be acquitted and that they will get
married. As he awaits his trial, Meursault slowly adapts to prison life. His isolation from
nature, women, and cigarettes torments him at first, but he eventually adjusts to living
without them, and soon does not even notice their absence. He manages to keep his
mind occupied, and he sleeps for most of each day.
Meursault is taken to the courthouse early on the morning of his trial. Spectators
and members of the press fill the courtroom. The subject of the trial quickly shifts away
from the murder to a general discussion of Meursault’s character, and of his reaction to
his mother’s death in particular. The director and several other people who attended the
vigil and the funeral are called to testify, and they all attest to Meursault’s lack of grief or
tears. Marie reluctantly testifies that the day after his mother’s funeral she and
Meursault went on a date and saw a comedic movie. During his summation the
following day, the prosecutor calls Meursault a monster and says that his lack of moral
feeling threatens all of society. Meursault is found guilty and is sentenced to death by
beheading.
Meursault returns to prison to await his execution. He struggles to come to terms

with his situation, and he has trouble accepting the certainty and inevitability of his fate.
He imagines escaping and he dreams of filing a successful legal appeal. One day, the
chaplain comes to visit against Meursault’s wishes. He urges Meursault to renounce his
atheism and turn to God, but Meursault refuses. Like the magistrate, the chaplain
cannot believe that Meursault does not long for faith and the afterlife. Meursault
suddenly becomes enraged, grabs the chaplain, and begins shouting at him. He
declares that he is correct in believing in a meaningless, purely physical world. For the
first time, Meursault truly embraces the idea that human existence holds no greater
meaning. He abandons all hope for the future and accepts the “gentle indifference of the
world.” This acceptance makes Meursault feel happy.--
Camus borrowed from Heidegger the sense of being "abandoned" in the world,
and he shared with Sartre the sense that the world does not give meaning to
individuals. But whereas Sartre joined Heidegger in insisting that one must make
meaning for oneself, Camus concluded that the world is "absurd," a term that has
(wrongly) come to represent the whole of existentialist thinking. Indeed, one of the
persistent errors in the popular understanding of existentialism is to confuse its
emphasis on the "meaninglessness" of the universe with an advocacy of despair or
"existential angst." Camus insists that the absurd is not license for despair.
At the outset of World War II, Camus published a novel entitled L'étranger (1942;
first trans. in English as The Outsider, 1955; best known by the title The Stranger) and
an essay called Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942; English trans. The Myth of Sisyphus,
1955). With those two books, he became a spokesman for the new modern morality, the
ability to face life in the face of "the Absurd," a metaphysical a sense of confrontation
between ourselves and an "indifferent universe." The Myth of Sisyphus is ostensibly a
re-telling of the story of Sisyphus, who was condemned to spend all of eternity pushing
a rock up a mountain, where it would then roll back down of its own weight. This is the
fate of all of us, Camus suggested. We expend all of our energy pushing our weight
against futility and frustration. Camus presents the question of whether life is worth
living, or, put differently, whether we ought to commit suicide. Camus's Sisyphus throws
himself into his meaningless project, and thereby makes it meaningful. "One must
consider Sisyphus happy," concludes Camus, and so, too, by acknowledging and
throwing ourselves into the absurdity of our own lives, might we be.
The protagonist of The Stranger, by way of contrast, accepts the absurdity of life
without much thinking about it. Is our acceptance of the absurd therefore tinged with
bitterness and resentment? Camus seems torn between acceptance and defiance.
Similar themes motivate La Peste (1947; English trans. The Plague, 1948) and
L'Homme révolté (1951; English trans. The Rebel, 1954). In Camus's final novel, La
Chute (1956; English trans. The Fall, 1957), a perverse character named Jean-Baptiste
Clamence exemplifies the culmination of all of the bitterness and despair for the most
part rejected by his previous characters and in his earlier essays. Clamence, like
Meursault in The Stranger, refuses to judge people, but Clamence makes the refusal to
judge a matter of philosophical principle, "for who among us is innocent?" Indeed, how
can one be innocent in a world that is absurd?
Existentialism today has weathered thirty years of post-modernism and a

shift of the center of philosophy from Europe to America. Enthusiasm for
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre is as great as ever, and the philosophy
of choice and responsibility remains the cornerstone of a great deal of American
philosophy, even among those who would not recognize their debt to the existentialists.
The Word ‘Ethics’ and the Concept of Ethics
The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide
ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and
applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and
what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than
expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus
on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments,
and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more
practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong
conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties
that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied
ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide,
animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear
war.
By using the conceptual tools of metaethics and normative ethics, discussions in

applied ethics try to resolve these controversial issues. The lines of distinction between
metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue
of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial
behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of
self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that
procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come
from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?"
1. Metaethics
The term "meta" means after or beyond, and, consequently, the notion of
metaethics involves a removed, or bird's eye view of the entire project of ethics. We
may define metaethics as the study of the origin and meaning of ethical concepts. When
compared to normative ethics and applied ethics, the field of metaethics is the least
precisely defined area of moral philosophy. It covers issues from moral semantics to
moral epistemology. Two issues, though, are prominent: (1) metaphysical issues
concerning whether morality exists independently of humans, and (2) psychological
issues concerning the underlying mental basis of our moral judgments and conduct.
a. Metaphysical Issues: Objectivism and Relativism
Metaphysics is the study of the kinds of things that exist in the universe.
Some things in the universe are made of physical stuff, such as rocks; and perhaps
other things are nonphysical in nature, such as thoughts, spirits, and gods. The
metaphysical component of metaethics involves discovering specifically whether moral

values are eternal truths that exist in a spirit-like realm, or simply human conventions.
There are two general directions that discussions of this topic take, one other-worldly
and one this-worldly.
Proponents of the other-worldly view typically hold that moral values are
objective in the sense that they exist in a spirit-like realm beyond subjective human
conventions. They also hold that they are absolute, or eternal, in that they never
change, and also that they are universal insofar as they apply to all rational creatures
around the world and throughout time. The most dramatic example of this view is Plato,
who was inspired by the field of mathematics. When we look at numbers and
mathematical relations, such as 1+1=2, they seem to be timeless concepts that never
change, and apply everywhere in the universe. Humans do not invent numbers, and
humans cannot alter them. Plato explained the eternal character of mathematics by
stating that they are abstract entities that exist in a spirit-like realm. He noted that moral
values also are absolute truths and thus are also abstract, spirit-like entities. In this
sense, for Plato, moral values are spiritual objects. Medieval philosophers commonly
grouped all moral principles together under the heading of "eternal law" which were also
frequently seen as spirit-like objects. 17th century British philosopher Samuel Clarke
described them as spirit-like relationships rather than spirit-like objects. In either case,
though, they exist in a spirit-like realm. A different other-worldly approach to the
metaphysical status of morality is divine commands issuing from God's will. Sometimes
called voluntarism (or divine command theory), this view was inspired by the notion of
an all-powerful God who is in control of everything. God simply wills things, and they
become reality. He wills the physical world into existence, he wills human life into
existence and, similarly, he wills all moral values into existence. Proponents of this view,
such as medieval philosopher William of Ockham, believe that God wills moral
principles, such as "murder is wrong," and these exist in God's mind as commands. God
informs humans of these commands by implanting us with moral intuitions or revealing
these commands in scripture.
The second and more this-worldly approach to the metaphysical status of

morality follows in the skeptical philosophical tradition, such as that articulated by Greek
philosopher Sextus Empiricus, and denies the objective status of moral values.
Technically, skeptics did not reject moral values themselves, but only denied that values
exist as spirit-like objects, or as divine commands in the mind of God. Moral values,
they argued, are strictly human inventions, a position that has since been called moral
relativism. There are two distinct forms of moral relativism. The first is individual
relativism, which holds that individual people create their own moral standards. Friedrich
Nietzsche, for example, argued that the superhuman creates his or her morality distinct
from and in reaction to the slave-like value system of the masses. The second is cultural
relativism which maintains that morality is grounded in the approval of one's society -
and not simply in the preferences of individual people. This view was advocated by
Sextus, and in more recent centuries by Michel Montaigne and William Graham
Sumner. In addition to espousing skepticism and relativism, this-worldly approaches to
the metaphysical status of morality deny the absolute and universal nature of morality
and hold instead that moral values in fact change from society to society throughout
time and throughout the world. They frequently attempt to defend their position by citing
examples of values that differ dramatically from one culture to another, such as attitudes
about polygamy, homosexuality and human sacrifice.
b. Psychological Issues in Metaethics
A second area of metaethics involves the psychological basis of our moral

judgments and conduct, particularly understanding what motivates us to be moral. We
might explore this subject by asking the simple question, "Why be moral?" Even if I am
aware of basic moral standards, such as don't kill and don't steal, this does not
necessarily mean that I will be psychologically compelled to act on them. Some answers
to the question "Why be moral?" are to avoid punishment, to gain praise, to attain
happiness, to be dignified, or to fit in with society.
I. Egoism and Altruism
One important area of moral psychology concerns the inherent selfishness of

humans. 17th century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes held that many, if not all, of
our actions are prompted by selfish desires. Even if an action seems selfless, such as
donating to charity, there are still selfish causes for this, such as experiencing power
over other people. This view is called psychological egoism and maintains that self-
oriented interests ultimately motivate all human actions. Closely related to psychological
egoism is a view called psychological hedonism which is the view that pleasure is the
specific driving force behind all of our actions. 18th century British philosopher Joseph
Butler agreed that instinctive selfishness and pleasure prompt much of our conduct.
However, Butler argued that we also have an inherent psychological capacity to show
benevolence to others. This view is called psychological altruism and maintains that at
least some of our actions are motivated by instinctive benevolence.
II. Emotion and Reason
A second area of moral psychology involves a dispute concerning the role of

reason in motivating moral actions. If, for example, I make the statement "abortion is
morally wrong," am I making a rational assessment or only expressing my feelings? On
the one side of the dispute, 18th century British philosopher David Hume argued that
moral assessments involve our emotions, and not our reason. We can amass all the
reasons we want, but that alone will not constitute a moral assessment. We need a
distinctly emotional reaction in order to make a moral pronouncement. Reason might be
of service in giving us the relevant data, but, in Hume's words, "reason is, and ought to
be, the slave of the passions." Inspired by Hume's anti-rationalist views, some 20th
century philosophers, most notably A.J. Ayer, similarly denied that moral assessments
are factual descriptions. For example, although the statement "it is good to donate to
charity" may on the surface look as though it is a factual description about charity, it is
not. Instead, a moral utterance like this involves two things. First, I (the speaker) I am
expressing my personal feelings of approval about charitable donations and I am in
essence saying "Hooray for charity!" This is called the emotive element insofar as I am
expressing my emotions about some specific behavior. Second, I (the speaker) am
trying to get you to donate to charity and am essentially giving the command, "Donate to
charity!" This is called the prescriptive element in the sense that I am prescribing some
specific behavior.
From Hume's day forward, more rationally-minded philosophers have opposed

these emotive theories of ethics (see non-cognitivism in ethics) and instead argued that
moral assessments are indeed acts of reason. 18th century German philosopher
Immanuel Kant is a case in point. Although emotional factors often do influence our
conduct, he argued, we should nevertheless resist that kind of sway. Instead, true moral
action is motivated only by reason when it is free from emotions and desires. A recent
rationalist approach, offered by Kurt Baier (1958), was proposed in direct opposition to
the emotivist and prescriptivist theories of Ayer and others. Baier focuses more broadly
on the reasoning and argumentation process that takes place when making moral
choices. All of our moral choices are, or at least can be, backed by some reason or
justification. If I claim that it is wrong to steal someone's car, then I should be able to
justify my claim with some kind of argument. For example, I could argue that stealing
Smith's car is wrong since this would upset her, violate her ownership rights, or put the
thief at risk of getting caught. According to Baier, then, proper moral decision making
involves giving the best reasons in support of one course of action versus another.
III. Male and Female Morality
A third area of moral psychology focuses on whether there is a distinctly female

approach to ethics that is grounded in the psychological differences between men and
women. Discussions of this issue focus on two claims: (1) traditional morality is male-
centered, and (2) there is a unique female perspective of the world which can be
shaped into a value theory. According to many feminist philosophers, traditional morality
is male-centered since it is modeled after practices that have been traditionally male-
dominated, such as acquiring property, engaging in business contracts, and governing
societies. The rigid systems of rules required for trade and government were then taken
as models for the creation of equally rigid systems of moral rules, such as lists of rights
and duties. Women, by contrast, have traditionally had a nurturing role by raising
children and overseeing domestic life. These tasks require less rule following, and more
spontaneous and creative action. Using the woman's experience as a model for moral
theory, then, the basis of morality would be spontaneously caring for others as would be
appropriate in each unique circumstance. On this model, the agent becomes part of the
situation and acts caringly within that context. This stands in contrast with male-
modeled morality where the agent is a mechanical actor who performs his required
duty, but can remain distanced from and unaffected by the situation. A care-based
approach to morality, as it is sometimes called, is offered by feminist ethicists as either
a replacement for or a supplement to traditional male-modeled moral systems.
2. Normative Ethics
Normative ethics involves arriving at moral standards that regulate right and
wrong conduct. In a sense, it is a search for an ideal litmus test of proper behavior. The
Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative principle: We should do to others what
we would want others to do to us. Since I do not want my neighbor to steal my car, then
it is wrong for me to steal her car. Since I would want people to feed me if I was
starving, then I should help feed starving people. Using this same reasoning, I can
theoretically determine whether any possible action is right or wrong. So, based on the
Golden Rule, it would also be wrong for me to lie to, harass, victimize, assault, or kill
others. The Golden Rule is an example of a normative theory that establishes a single
principle against which we judge all actions. Other normative theories focus on a set of
foundational principles, or a set of good character traits.
The key assumption in normative ethics is that there is only one ultimate criterion
of moral conduct, whether it is a single rule or a set of principles. Three strategies will
be noted here: (1) virtue theories, (2) duty theories, and (3) consequentialist theories.
A. Virtue Theories
Many philosophers believe that morality consists of following precisely defined

rules of conduct, such as "don't kill," or "don't steal." Presumably, I must learn these
rules, and then make sure each of my actions live up to the rules. Virtue ethics,
however, places less emphasis on learning rules, and instead stresses the importance
of developing good habits of character, such as benevolence (see moral character).
Once I've acquired benevolence, for example, I will then habitually act in a benevolent
manner. Historically, virtue theory is one of the oldest normative traditions in Western
philosophy, having its roots in ancient Greek civilization. Plato emphasized four virtues
in particular, which were later called cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and
justice. Other important virtues are fortitude, generosity, self-respect, good temper, and
sincerity. In addition to advocating good habits of character, virtue theorists hold that we
should avoid acquiring bad character traits, or vices, such as cowardice, insensibility,
injustice, and vanity. Virtue theory emphasizes moral education since virtuous character
traits are developed in one's youth. Adults, therefore, are responsible for instilling virtues
in the young.
Aristotle argued that virtues are good habits that we acquire, which regulate our
emotions. For example, in response to my natural feelings of fear, I should develop the
virtue of courage which allows me to be firm when facing danger. Analyzing 11 specific
virtues, Aristotle argued that most virtues fall at a mean between more extreme
character traits. With courage, for example, if I do not have enough courage, I develop
the disposition of cowardice, which is a vice. If I have too much courage I develop the
disposition of rashness which is also a vice. According to Aristotle, it is not an easy task
to find the perfect mean between extreme character traits. In fact, we need assistance
from our reason to do this. After Aristotle, medieval theologians supplemented Greek
lists of virtues with three Christian ones, or theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.
Interest in virtue theory continued through the middle ages and declined in the 19th
century with the rise of alternative moral theories below. In the mid 20th century virtue
theory received special attention from philosophers who believed that more recent
ethical theories were misguided for focusing too heavily on rules and actions, rather
than on virtuous character traits. Alasdaire MacIntyre (1984) defended the central role
of virtues in moral theory and argued that virtues are grounded in and emerge from
within social traditions.
B. Duty Theories
Many of us feel that there are clear obligations we have as human beings, such
as to care for our children, and to not commit murder. Duty theories base morality on
specific, foundational principles of obligation. These theories are sometimes called
deontological, from the Greek word deon, or duty, in view of the foundational nature of
our duty or obligation. They are also sometimes called nonconsequentialist since these
principles are obligatory, irrespective of the consequences that might follow from our
actions. For example, it is wrong to not care for our children even if it results in some
great benefit, such as financial savings. There are four central duty theories.
The first is that championed by 17th century German philosopher Samuel

Pufendorf, who classified dozens of duties under three headings: duties to God, duties
to oneself, and duties to others. Concerning our duties towards God, he argued that
there are two kinds:
 a theoretical duty to know the existence and nature of God, and

 a practical duty to both inwardly and outwardly worship God.
Concerning our duties towards oneself, these are also of two sorts:
 duties of the soul, which involve developing one's skills and talents,
and
 duties of the body, which involve not harming our bodies, as we
might through gluttony or drunkenness, and not killing oneself.
Concerning our duties towards others, Pufendorf divides these between absolute
duties, which are universally binding on people, and conditional duties, which are the
result of contracts between people. Absolute duties are of three sorts:
 avoid wronging others,

 treat people as equals, and
 promote the good of others.
Conditional duties involve various types of agreements, the principal one of

which is the duty is to keep one's promises.
A second duty-based approach to ethics is rights theory. Most generally, a "right"

is a justified claim against another person's behavior - such as my right to not be
harmed by you (see also human rights). Rights and duties are related in such a way that
the rights of one person imply the duties of another person. For example, if I have a
right to payment of $10 by Smith, then Smith has a duty to pay me $10. This is called
the correlativity of rights and duties. The most influential early account of rights theory is
that of 17th century British philosopher John Locke, who argued that the laws of nature
mandate that we should not harm anyone's life, health, liberty or possessions. For
Locke, these are our natural rights, given to us by God. Following Locke, the United
States Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson recognizes three
foundational rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson and others rights
theorists maintained that we deduce other more specific rights from these, including the
rights of property, movement, speech, and religious expression. There are four features
traditionally associated with moral rights. First, rights are natural insofar as they are not
invented or created by governments. Second, they are universal insofar as they do not
change from country to country. Third, they are equal in the sense that rights are the
same for all people, irrespective of gender, race, or handicap. Fourth, they are
inalienable which means that I cannot hand over my rights to another person, such as
by selling myself into slavery.
A third duty-based theory is that by Kant, which emphasizes a single principle of

duty. Influenced by Pufendorf, Kant agreed that we have moral duties to oneself and
others, such as developing one's talents, and keeping our promises to others. However,
Kant argued that there is a more foundational principle of duty that encompasses our
particular duties. It is a single, self-evident principle of reason that he calls the
"categorical imperative." A categorical imperative, he argued, is fundamentally different
from hypothetical imperatives that hinge on some personal desire that we have, for
example, "If you want to get a good job, then you ought to go to college." By contrast, a
categorical imperative simply mandates an action, irrespective of one's personal
desires, such as "You ought to do X." Kant gives at least four versions of the categorical
imperative, but one is especially direct: Treat people as an end, and never as a means
to an end. That is, we should always treat people with dignity, and never use them as
mere instruments. For Kant, we treat people as an end whenever our actions toward
someone reflect the inherent value of that person. Donating to charity, for example, is
morally correct since this acknowledges the inherent value of the recipient. By contrast,
we treat someone as a means to an end whenever we treat that person as a tool to
achieve something else. It is wrong, for example, to steal my neighbor's car since I
would be treating her as a means to my own happiness. The categorical imperative also
regulates the morality of actions that affect us individually. Suicide, for example, would
be wrong since I would be treating my life as a means to the alleviation of my misery.
Kant believes that the morality of all actions can be determined by appealing to this
single principle of duty.
A fourth and more recent duty-based theory is that by British philosopher W.D.
Ross, which emphasizes prima facie duties. Like his 17th and 18th century
counterparts, Ross argues that our duties are "part of the fundamental nature of the
universe." However, Ross's list of duties is much shorter, which he believes reflects our
actual moral convictions:
 Fidelity: the duty to keep promises

 Reparation: the duty to compensate others when we harm them
 Gratitude: the duty to thank those who help us
 Justice: the duty to recognize merit
 Beneficence: the duty to improve the conditions of others
 Self-improvement: the duty to improve our virtue and intelligence
 Nonmaleficence: the duty to not injure others
Ross recognizes that situations will arise when we must choose between two
conflicting duties. In a classic example, suppose I borrow my neighbor's gun and
promise to return it when he asks for it. One day, in a fit of rage, my neighbor pounds on
my door and asks for the gun so that he can take vengeance on someone. On the one
hand, the duty of fidelity obligates me to return the gun; on the other hand, the duty of
nonmaleficence obligates me to avoid injuring others and thus not return the gun.
According to Ross, I will intuitively know which of these duties is my actual duty, and
which is my apparent or prima facie duty. In this case, my duty of nonmaleficence
emerges as my actual duty and I should not return the gun.
C. Consequentialist Theories
It is common for us to determine our moral responsibility by weighing the

consequences of our actions. According to consequentialism, correct moral conduct is
determined solely by a cost-benefit analysis of an action's consequences:
Consequentialism: An action is morally right if the consequences of that

action are more favorable than unfavorable.
Consequentialist normative principles require that we first tally both the good and
bad consequences of an action. Second, we then determine whether the total good
consequences outweigh the total bad consequences. If the good consequences are
greater, then the action is morally proper. If the bad consequences are greater, then the
action is morally improper. Consequentialist theories are sometimes called teleological
theories, from the Greek word telos, or end, since the end result of the action is the sole
determining factor of its morality.
Consequentialist theories became popular in the 18th century by philosophers

who wanted a quick way to morally assess an action by appealing to experience, rather
than by appealing to gut intuitions or long lists of questionable duties. In fact, the most
attractive feature of consequentialism is that it appeals to publicly observable
consequences of actions. Most versions of consequentialism are more precisely
formulated than the general principle above. In particular, competing consequentialist
theories specify which consequences for affected groups of people are relevant. Three
subdivisions of consequentialism emerge:
Ethical Egoism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are
more favorable than unfavorable only to the agent performing the action.
Ethical Altruism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are
more favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent.
Utilitarianism: an action is morally right if the consequences of that action are

more favorable than unfavorable to everyone.
All three of these theories focus on the consequences of actions for different
groups of people. But, like all normative theories, the above three theories are rivals of
each other. They also yield different conclusions. Consider the following example. A
woman was traveling through a developing country when she witnessed a car in front of
her run off the road and roll over several times. She asked the hired driver to pull over to
assist, but, to her surprise, the driver accelerated nervously past the scene. A few miles
down the road the driver explained that in his country if someone assists an accident
victim, then the police often hold the assisting person responsible for the accident itself.
If the victim dies, then the assisting person could be held responsible for the death. The
driver continued explaining that road accident victims are therefore usually left
unattended and often die from exposure to the country's harsh desert conditions. On the
principle of ethical egoism, the woman in this illustration would only be concerned with
the consequences of her attempted assistance as she would be affected. Clearly, the
decision to drive on would be the morally proper choice. On the principle of ethical
altruism, she would be concerned only with the consequences of her action as others
are affected, particularly the accident victim. Tallying only those consequences reveals
that assisting the victim would be the morally correct choice, irrespective of the negative
consequences that result for her. On the principle of utilitarianism, she must consider
the consequences for both herself and the victim. The outcome here is less clear, and
the woman would need to precisely calculate the overall benefit versus disbenefit of her
action.
The Word ‘Ethics ’ and the Concept of Ethics by Albert Camus
Camus’s primary concern with God centered on the notion of divine justice.
Could an otherworldly justice redeem this world, justifying its suffering? Many answer in
the affirmative, with the caveat that this higher justice does its redeeming in a way that
lies beyond our comprehension. God’s ways are “mysterious.” The notion that a higher
being enforces our values, albeit in a way we can’t understand, is profoundly
comforting. And it makes it easier to see why we should be good, as it provides external
validation for our values.
But this “mystery” business didn’t jive with Camus. A form of justice that he couldn’t
understand didn’t have any meaning to him. If what we mean by human justice differs
from divine justice, then divine justice isn’t justice, in our terms; it’s meaningless.
Camus’s ability to understand something and the meaningfulness of that thing were
inseparable. The suffering of the world, then, can’t be redeemed. Human values are not
reflected either by the world or by the divine, and without something beyond-the-human
reinforcing their validity, things get shaky: questions of whether we should care about
anything or see any meaning in our own seemingly random values have a way of
popping up, or, for some of us, forcing themselves down our throats.
Miserable, right? According to a Pew Research poll released last year, a slight majority
of Americans think that belief in God is necessary for morality to exist; in 21 countries of
the 39 surveyed, a sweeping majority answered in the affirmative. But Camus didn’t
start acting like a dick because of his inability to revere God or believe in divine justice.
He found something else to believe in—not in spite of his blasphemous agnosticism, I
don’t think; rather, this position shaped his ethics.
Providing a clear picture of Camus’s ethics is difficult, because his style was
more lyrical than rigorously systematic (which leads some philosophiles to claim that he
wasn’t a philosopher, but those people can go home and make out with a picture of
Kant), and he didn’t offer a list of specific rules to follow. I find it helpful to talk about the
development of his ethics alongside Aristotle’s virtue ethics for some framing.
For Aristotle, beings are good at being the type of being they are when they live
in a way that fulfills the function for which they are specially equipped. For humans, he
decided that function is to act on our rational principle (which means doing boring stuff,
like being moderate in all things). When we do that well, we achieve eudaimonia: a state
of flourishing, being the best human beings we can be. It’s a life well lived, and it’s
glorious.
In Camus’s writing—particularly, The Rebel and The Plague—we find a different

“function” emerge (to put it in Aristotelian terms, which Camus did not): Human beings
possess values—we have ideas of justice, dignity, and good that are profoundly
important to us. We’re unnatural in that way, and this, more so than any “rational
principle,” distinguishes the human from everything else. And, while being alone with
our values can be a huge downer, it also points out what flourishing might look like for
human beings: living in a way that upholds those values, not just because we can, but
especially because we’re the only ones who can. Basically, if Jesus isn’t taking the
wheel, that’s all the more reason for Carrie Underwood to get really good at steering
and to do it all the time, especially when shit is hitting the fan. And just as people die
when they don’t take the damned wheel, values die when we don’t uphold them.
We can color in with a bit more detail what Camus’s eudaimonic human being—
the upholder of values—might look like. In The Rebel, he writes about an inherent
sense of dignity human beings have, a line that is not acceptable to cross, a sense that
our lives matter and that we have the right not to be oppressed. I think that, for Camus,
behaving justly means acknowledging and respecting that line both in ourselves and
others. That means not causing suffering, working against suffering, and just not being
a dick in general. He calls for solidarity with our fellow men, which I think takes us a step
further. For Camus, the value of human dignity outweighs any goals of religion, state, or
cause; we’re more strongly bound to one another than we are to country or Good Word
or ideal or other transcendent entity. As the beings that value, there is no overarching
entity that is more valuable than the human. We end up crossing other people’s dignity
lines when we place these other things on a pedestal and value them more than our
fellow men.
Camus, the blasphemous agnostic, was a lover of human beings and defender of
solidarity founded on inherent dignity. Camus had an ethics.
We don’t need to believe in God to believe in good. I have no doubt that

Christian and other religious beliefs can inspire an ethics of love for human
beings. But for many of us, those roads are closed. The connection between our ability
to understand and our sense of meaningfulness is too strong. Without something to
believe in, some of us despair; if the world is unjust and nothing redeems suffering, then
our values are unsupported and our good deeds are mere drops in a bucket. Camus
showed me, and doubtless many other little heretics out there, that we’re more than
doers of small deeds in the face of a cold and heartless world that renders our actions
pointless. Every act of upholding value imbues the world with a dimension that it would
lack without that human rebellion against indifference. We’re carrying the fire. And, I
hope to God, taking the wheel.
ALBERT CAMUS AND THE ETHICS OF REBELLION
The work of Albert Camus as a philosopher somewhat closely related to European

existentialism has been quite neglected in this country. Camus has disassociated
himself from the existentialist movement, and it is not our intention to prove him wrong.
In view of the fact, however, that he has an interest in many of the same philosophical
issues, and because he frequently seems to state his position, either explicitly or
implicitly, in relationship to that of Sartre, it is doubtful if his attempt to disassociate
himself will succeed. There is little doubt, however, that his thought is to be clearly
distinguished from that of Sartre, and if the term "existentialism" is defined so as to
become nearly identical with Sartre's philosophy, as sometimes seems to be the case,
then no doubt Camus' protest is valid. In the work of Camus we have, as so often in
existentialism, the novelist-philosopher speaking with intensity regarding what it means
to exist in contemporary society. Here also is non-theistic existentialism distinguishing
itself from the philosophy of Sartre. But there are two factors of even greater
significance. Here is French existentialist social philosophy which finds the sociopolitical
program of the Western powers more hopeful and having greater philosophical
justification than comparable activities on the part of Eastern European powers. As
Sartre has moved increasingly toward the Communist real association with the
philosophy of front, Camus retains some the West. Furthermore, with typical
existentialist realism concerning the tragedy of modern man and the perplexities of
contemporary thought and history, he nevertheless would offer modern man a
philosophy of hope. Out of the nihilism of contemporary Europe, which is frequently too
dark for the American mind even appreciates, Camus tries to build an ethics of
salvation.
Our concern in this essay is not with Camus' political reflection except as
illustrative of his ethical position. Rather we shall be interested to find what hope he is
ready to offer modern man, evaluating its nature and ground as a suggestion for
contemporary ethics. This matter is of special interest, for we have been presented a
hope growing out of nihilistic surroundings, presented by a non-the is existentialist. A
comparable position as presented by Sartre has frequently been criticized for offering
little but despair. The early work of Camus, which is now fairly well known, furnishes he
immediate background for his recent discussion. In this early essay especially, as well
as in his more literary pieces, Camus investigated the nature of the "absurd,"
suggesting that this was an appropriate understanding of the relationship of man to his
world. Here the question of suicide was uppermost, as a problem not only of an
individual but of modern man. In a more recent study Camus has raised some problems
growing out of his analysis of the "absurd" as they relate to the life of Contemporary
man in his attempt to understand and justify his existence.
Our discussion will concentrate on this more recent statement. Camus presents
his thesis with vigor of style which compels attention. He also takes this occasion to
indicate, at least implicitly, some major points of issue within French non-theistic
existentialism. We shall indicate first his general line of argument, reserving critical..
comments for the conclusion.
The Word ‘Aesthetics’ and the Concept of Aesthetic by Albert Camus
In 1932, a nineteen year old Albeit Camus wrote an "Essay on Music," perhaps
the first sustained attempt at articulating his ideas regarding aesthetics. It is instructive
to see where his thinking started, youthful affectations included, the better to ascertain
where he stood on these matters ten years later, when he published The Stranger and
The Myth of Sisyphus. This essay argues that this movement from self-expression to
self-questioning is also the movement from a form of mimesis-as-representation to
mimesis-as-production, or what the Brazilian intellectual, Luiz Costa Lima, has
elsewhere traced as the shift from aestheticization to "criticity."
In the "Essay on Music," Camus begins at a point between realism and idealism. He
rejects realism outright, and he remains consistent in this stance for the remainder of his
Ufe; only his arguments for doing so alter over time. In 1932, he states: "According to
[reaUsm], Art ought to concern itself exclusively with the imitation of Nature and the
exact reproduction of ReaUty. This is a definition that not only demeans Art, but, further,
destroys it." However, this initial rejection of realism is based on a naive Romanticism
(fitting perhaps for a nineteen year old aspiring dandy and tuberculosis sufferer): "To
reduce Art to a servile imitation of Nature is to condemn it to produce only the imperfect.
The greater part of the aesthetic emotion, in fact, is a product of our personaUty. The
beautiful is not in Nature; it is we who put it there."
Rejecting realism, Camus tentatively accepts idealism, but with certain reservations:
"This ideaUst theory too often transforms itself into a moral theory, stimulating works
that are flat, false, and boring because they want too badly to provide examples diat are
healthy, respectable, and destined to be imitated." And yet, he goes on to define art
as an "expression of the ideal," based upon the personality of the artist, and as a
form of escapism:
It will simply be an expression of the ideal. It will be the creation of a Dream World
attractive enough to conceal from us the world in which we live with all its horrors. And
aesthetic pleasure will reside exclusively in contemplation of this ideal world. Art will be
the expression, the objectification of things such as we feel they ought to be. It will be
personal and original basically because the ideal, for each of us, varies... And we insist
on the role reserved for personality in Art.
Camus then turns to a comparison between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, pointing out
that Nietzsche derives his aesthetics (especially in The Birth of Tragedy) from
Schopenhauer; and that Schopenhauer, in turn, derives his ideas from Plato: "He
[Schopenhauer] studies Art from a metaphysical point of view in relation to the Platonic
"World of Ideas.". . . And when it has been accomplished we have a vague feeling of
deliverance." Here, Camus sides with Schopenhauer to the extent that Schopenhauer
agrees with Plato: by adding the world of will to an otherwise Platonic metaphysic.
Camus then sides with Nietzsche, but only as far as Nietzsche agrees with
Schopenhauer. Camus distances himself from Nietzsche only when Nietzsche (after
The Birth of Tragedy) moves away from Schopenhauer.
But already certain contradictions are present in Camus' thinking. His judgment
regarding Nietzsche could be applied to himself: "It is only possible to understand these
contradictions in Nietzsche's work - clear and bUnding as they are - when one
remembers that he is a poet as much as a philosopher, and consequently liable to fall
prey to numerous contradictions."6 But as Camus is yet neither a poet nor a philosopher
his contradictions are more revealing. Camus agrees with Nietzsche that the decline of
tragedy comes with Socrates and the introduction of rationalism. Interestingly, Camus is
willing to blame Socrates, even though Socrates is (in The Birth of Tragedy) only a foil
for Platonic rationalism.

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Saint Mary’s University

Senior High School Department

Albert Camus, (born November 7, 1913, Mondovi, Algeria—died January 4, 1960,

Nobel Prize and Death

Camus’s Literary Career

Philosophical Literature and the Novel of Ideas

adding to Caligula’s original portrait touches of Sade, of revolutionary nihilism, of the

The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu, 1944)—In this grim exploration of the

State of Siege (L’Etat de Siege, 1948)—This odd allegorical drama combines

The Just Assassins (Les Justes, 1950)—First performed in Paris to largely

specific circumstances). The historical Kalyayev passed up his original opportunity to

Nuptials (Noces, 1938)—This collection of four rhapsodic narratives

The Rebel (L’Homme Revolte, 1951)—Camus considered this work a

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1957)—This posthumous collection is of

advantages of pessimism and the virtues (from a non-believer’s standpoint) of

A. Background and Influences

Though he was baptized, raised, and educated as a Catholic and invariably

The young Camus is more of a sensualist and pleasure-seeker, more of a

c. Themes and Ideas

Regardless of whether he is producing drama, fiction, or non-fiction, Camus in

So here we are: poor creatures desperately seeking hope and meaning in a

In Camus’s view there are three possible philosophical responses to this

The second choice is the religious solution of positing a transcendent world of

Rebellion in Camus’s sense begins with a recognition of boundaries, of limits that

III. The Outsider

Camus came by this perspective naturally. As a European in Africa, an African in

IV. Guilt and Innocence

Throughout his writing career, Camus showed a deep interest in questions of

V. Christianity vs. “Paganism”

As a result of this duality of influence, Camus’s basic philosophical problem

Such a leap is certainly implied in an oft-quoted remark from Camus’s “Letter to a

VI. Individual vs. History and Mass Culture

A primary theme of early twentieth-century European literature and critical

In one way or another, the themes of alienation and dehumanization as by-

So Plague is a fascist dictator, and Death a solicitous commissar. Together these

In his reflections on this theme of post-industrial dehumanization, Camus differs

Suicide is the central subject of The Myth of Sisyphus and serves as a

VIII. The Death Penalty

Condemnation of capital punishment is both explicit and implicit in his writings.

Camus’s essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” supplies a detailed examination of

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s

Camus is often classified as an existentialist writer, and it is easy to see why.

However, one troublesome fact remains: throughout his career Camus

Another point of divergence is that Camus seems to have regarded existentialism

Significance and Legacy

On a purely literary level, one of Camus’s most original contributions to modern

At Stockholm Camus concluded his Nobel acceptance speech with a stirring

The Word ‘Metaphysics’ and the Concept of Metaphysics

The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define. Twentieth-century coinages

 The subject-matter of metaphysics is “being as such”

to be a catch-all category, a repository of philosophical problems that could not be

The Problems of Metaphysics

I. Being As Such, First Causes, Unchanging Things

If metaphysics now considers a wider range of problems than those studied in

 “Being is; not-being is not” [Parmenides];

It seems reasonable, moreover, to say that investigations into non-being

The topics “the first causes of things” and “unchanging things”—have

I study the first causes of things, and am therefore a metaphysician. My

This feature of the contemporary conception of metaphysics is nicely illustrated