Camus’ Feeling of the Absurd

Journal of Value Inquiry 52 (4):477-490 (2018)
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Abstract

Albert Camus is most famous for his engagement with the absurd. Both in his philosophical and literary works his main focus was on the nature and normative consequences of this idea. However, Camus was also concerned with what he referred to as the “feeling of the absurd”. Philosophers have so far paid little attention to Camus’ thoughts about the feeling of the absurd. In this paper I provide a detailed analysis of this feeling. It turns out that the feeling of the absurd is not, strictly speaking, a feeling. It is rather a conjunction of a mood (feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense) and of emotions that this mood tends to give rise to (appearances of the feeling of the absurd). Moreover, both moods and emotions qualify as absurd in virtue of their promoting the discovery of the absurd; that is, the discovery that humans search for meaning, but the world does not answer this search.

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Thomas Pölzler
University of Graz

Citations of this work

Absurd Relations.Jacob Fox - 2019 - Human Affairs 29 (4):387-394.
Albert Camus’ Philosophy of Love.Paul G. Neiman - 2021 - Philosophical Investigations 44 (3):318-338.
Camus on the Value of Art.Thomas Pölzler - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (1):365-376.

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References found in this work

The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Behaviorism 15 (1):73-82.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 92 (2):280-281.
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters.Susan Wolf - 2010 - Princeton University Press.

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