Philosophy of rebellion and absurdity by Albert Camus. Philosophy of the absurd

Concepts and problems of absurdity and rebellion in the works of Albert Camus

Introduction

Albert Camus is one of the greatest representatives of Western philosophy of the 20th century. Among the variety of philosophical issues raised in the works of A. Camus, the problems of absurdity and rebellion were chosen for this essay.

The inconsistency of the world and being, the meaning of life, the attitude to freedom, the ambiguous assessment of the place and role of man in the world and in society - these questions have always been open and have attracted thinkers at all times. But they became especially relevant in the 20th century, which will go down in history as an era of rapid development of technology and the emergence of a technogenic habitat, an era of dramatic political transformations and global wars, an era of the formation and collapse of hitherto unknown totalitarian regimes.

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

Part 1. The concept of absurdity, its philosophical understanding

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

Problems of the meaning of being, the value of life and freedom

Starting the essay with an attempt to understand the reasons that can cause a person to voluntarily die, Camus approaches the concept of a sense of absurdity. This feeling, according to the author, arises primarily on the basis of the contradiction between a person and the world around him, or, in the words of Camus, "between the actor and the scenery."

If the world lends itself to explanation, even if not too convincing, it is understandable and acceptable to a person. But as soon as a person realizes the illusory nature of this explanation, he begins to feel like a stranger in the universe. The question arises before a person: is life worth living?

Out of this contradiction arises the sense of absurdity. Camus briefly describes the factors inherent in this feeling.

Absurdity penetrates the mind of a person unexpectedly, when at some point he suddenly feels empty, tired from everyday life. Suddenly he ceases to understand the meaning and purpose of this everyday life. The chain of habitual actions is broken, and it is at this moment, according to the author, that the consciousness of a person, which had previously been frozen in mechanical life, begins to move.

Another factor of absurdity is time. A person living in the future suddenly realizes that time is his enemy. As Camus says, there is a kind of revolt of the flesh against the effects of time.

The next step is a person's feeling of his alienness in the world around him. The world, in essence, has an inhuman beginning. The density and strangeness of the world express the absurdity of being.

In addition, something inhuman is hidden in the person himself - the behavior, gestures, actions of other people cause confusion, showing what a person as a physical being really is. This, too, is absurd.

The mortality of man and the inevitability of death give additional content to the feeling of absurdity.

Camus specifically dwells on the problem of intellect, reason and knowledge of the world. The cognizability of the world for man lies in its reduction to human concepts. However, there is an invariable contradiction between what a person thinks he knows and what he really knows.

Cognition of the world with the help of images (literature, painting, etc.) presupposes the absence of exact knowledge. At the same time, mastering the world with the help of science is also impossible, since it is only capable of identifying and listing individual phenomena. At the same time, Camus notes that the world as such is not absurd, it is unreasonable. The absurdity lies in the clash of this unknowability of the world with the desperate thirst for clarity, the call of which is heard in the human soul. Absurdity is born from the collision of the human demand to be happy and comprehend the rationality of the world, on the one hand, and the silent unreason of the world, on the other.

With this conclusion, Camus opposes himself to many of his contemporary philosophical schools, who argued that everything that exists is reasonable, and everything is knowable with the help of reason.

Delving deeper into the analysis of the concept of absurdity, Camus notes that the feeling of absurdity arises when considering not single facts and impressions, but when comparing the current state of things with a certain kind of reality, action - with a world that surpasses it. Camus says that the absurd is rooted neither in man nor in the world, but in their joint presence. Absurdity is the only link between them. Developing his thought, the author defines a kind of trinity: absurdity, human consciousness and the world. The exclusion of one of these terms will lead to the destruction of the whole generality.

The clash and struggle of these components suggests a lack of hope (but, as Camus emphasizes, this is not despair), constant denial (but not renunciation) and conscious dissatisfaction. Violation of these conditions eliminates absurdity, since discord is destroyed by agreement. Absurdity, according to Camus, makes sense only to the extent that they do not agree with it. He also adds that a person who has realized the absurd is forever attached to it.

Returning to the problem of the meaning of being, Camus notes that to experience and experience everything that is supposed to be fate means to fully accept it. However, if a person has realized that fate is absurd, he will not be able to survive its trials if he does not do everything possible to maintain this absurdity revealed by consciousness. “To live is to keep the absurd alive,” says Camus.

Therefore, the author draws a very important conclusion that the experience of the absurd and suicide are incompatible categories. A person who has realized the absurdity of being finds the meaning of life precisely in the constant battle of the mind with reality that surpasses it.

Accordingly, the impoverishment, the relief of reality, which nourishes the greatness of man with its inhumanity, means the impoverishment of man himself. Therefore, Camus considers that the main consequence of the absurdity is that a person, with his consciousness, testifies from day to day to the truth, which is a challenge to the superior world.

Turning to the concept of freedom, Camus notes that absurdity nullifies all the chances of a person for the illusory eternal freedom professed in religion, but returns the freedom of actions and inspires her. After realizing the absurd, a person understands: there is no higher freedom than the freedom to be, the only freedom that serves as the basis for truth.

The reason for the inner freedom of a man of absurdity lies in the fact that he realizes that there is no tomorrow in his former understanding of expecting something from the future. A return to a distinct consciousness, an escape from everyday sleep, are the initial premises of an absurd freedom.

According to the author, the realization of the absurd involves the replacement of the quality of the experience of being by its quantity. In other words, the important thing is not to live as well as possible, but to experience as much as possible. And this, in turn, is to feel your life, your rebellion, your freedom as much as possible.

The influence of "absurdity" on human existence

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

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

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

Morality is based on the position that an act has its consequences, which either justify it or cross it out. On the contrary, the absurdity is limited to the opinion that these consequences should be judged calmly. According to the author, absurdity does not single out the guilty, for it there are only those who are responsible. All kinds of experience of being are equivalent, says Camus. Therefore, if a person has a clear consciousness, then his actions serve him. Otherwise, they cause damage to him, and the person himself, but not the circumstances, is responsible for this.

Consciousness and lack of hope - these are the features that Camus endows the man of the absurd. The feeling of sadness, arising either from ignorance or from unfulfilled hopes, is not familiar to him. Such, for example, is Don Juan, the hero-lover, cited by the author as an illustration to his reasoning. Don Juan is clearly aware that he is just an ordinary seducer, and does not hope to find the ideal of perfect love. Camus defines his life principle: no matter what happens after death, but what a long string of days ahead for someone who knows how to be alive.

Another phenomenon where, according to the author, absurdity is vividly represented is theater. The performance played on the stage is nothing but an illustration of the absurdity of life: in a few hours in a closed space, the actors embody unique and whole destinies. The analogy implied by the author is obvious: in the same way, a person's life is limited by its term and passes within the framework of a transcending world.

Another example given by the author is the conquering hero or adventurer. Such a person is the main end in itself for himself. He alone is the master of his fate; everything that he wants to achieve, he strives to achieve in his lifetime, not placing hopes on "memory in the hearts of his descendants." He prefers fame among his contemporaries to all kinds of fame. The conqueror is fully aware of his greatness and the ability to achieve more in the present than those around him.

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

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

Summing up the argument about the absurd, Camus cites the myth of Sisyphus. Using this image as an example, Camus vividly reveals the influence of absurdity on human existence. On the one hand, the agony experienced by Sisyphus under the weight of a piece of rock is the very transcendent world that Camus spoke of earlier. On the other hand, the clarity of mind allows Sisyphus to resist this world: he rises above fate, realizing that this is his own path, and only he is his master. Camus imagines Sisyphus happy, because he recognizes and realizes all oppressive circumstances, and thus becomes above them.

So, having considered and analyzed the concept of absurdity, Camus defines three main consequences of absurdity: a clear consciousness, with the help of which a person opposes the world, inner freedom and the diversity of the experience of being. With the help of the work of the mind and consciousness, the man of the absurd turns into the rule of life that which was an invitation to death, thereby gaining the meaning of being and rejecting suicide.

The feeling of absurdity that arises as a result of the work of consciousness allows a person to overestimate his fate. This can be considered one of the prerequisites for another concept considered by Camus in his work - the concept of rebellion.

Part 2. Rebellion and the image of a rebellious person

Awakened consciousness shows a person the absurdity of life, the incomprehensibility and injustice of the human lot. This breeds rebellion, the purpose of which is transformation. The main motive of the rebellion, in the words of Camus, "Man is the only creature that refuses to be what it is."

These ideas are key in the writer's work. And by combining them into one, it is possible to determine the central theme of Camus' philosophy - the question of the meaning of human existence, the question of whether "life is worth or not worth living." Let us now consider the concepts of rebellion and absurdity in more detail. 3. On the absurdity of existence The first work in which Albert Camus seriously reflects on the topic...

Nutrition about the emergence of this “metaphysical state”. Absurdity for Camus - tse discord. By itself, the world is not absurd, and people ______________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Div .: Moskvina R.R. “Method of the absurd” by A. Camus as a phenomenon of non-classical philosophizing / Questions of Philosophy. - 1974. - N10 .-S.137. also. “The absurdity of people, - stverzhuє Camus, - s ї ...

People who are accustomed to paying their attention to the world around them and its details are no longer a wonder to notice absurd things around. Absurd - what is it? Something that is contrary to common sense, goes beyond the usual framework, is stupid or ridiculous ...

Our life is full of absurdity. And so it was, probably, from the very moment when a person began to realize himself and those around him, as. But if at first the philosophy of existence, called existentialism, was developed, which focused on the uniqueness of human existence, then later, moreover, it was from it that another doctrine developed - absurdism.

Today we will talk about absurdism, the main milestones on the path of its development and its most prominent representatives.

What is absurdism and how did it appear?

Absurdism is a system of philosophical views, according to which it is argued that human existence has no meaning.

As a theory of worldview, absurdism is considered as part of the philosophy of existentialism, and the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard, a philosopher of Danish origin in the 19th century, are considered to be its roots. However, absurdism appears as an already formed philosophical concept in the work of the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus "The Myth of Sisyphus". In his work, Camus was based on the ideas of Kierkegaard, as well as such people as Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edmund Husserl, Nikolai Berdyaev and others.

The starting point in the emergence of absurdism as a philosophy of the absurd was the world wars that took place in the first half of the 20th century. These wars gave rise to a lot of human death and suffering, social disorder, etc., which became the basis for the emergence and development of the ideas of existentialism as a movement of humanism.

So, in the first half of the last century, people became interested in the work of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, and the ideas of absurdism began to gain more and more popularity. The result was that the absurdism firmly entered the history of philosophy, as well as many areas of art, such as writing, poetry, theater, etc.

But why did this very absurdism "hook" the mass consciousness so? To answer this question, one should turn to the views of his most ardent supporters - Soren Kierkegaard, Lev Shestov and Albert Camus, who we have already mentioned more than once.

Soren Kierkegaard

Soren Kierkegaard raises the idea of ​​absurdism in several of his works, the most important of which is Fear and Trembling. Criticizing the Christian religion in this work, the author cites as an example a scene from the Bible, where Abraham sacrifices his son to the Lord. This is precisely what Kierkegaard shows that man is not free, and his being is absurd. The faith of Abraham is absolute for Kierkegaard, who can easily and simply make a sacral and holy deed pleasing to God out of murder. And this paradox does not fit into any framework.

Despite his critical attitude towards religion, Soren Kierkegaard did not downplay the importance of faith in human life. On the contrary, he spoke of the fact that faith goes beyond understanding, being transcendent, and therefore absurd. It cannot be justified logically, although it is extremely effective. And that was Kierkegaard's main idea.

Lev Shestov

In the works of the Russian existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov, the established social norms of morality and morality, as well as the totality of the prerequisites for human existence, were actively criticized. More specifically, it can be noted that in his work Shakespeare and His Critic Brandes, Lev Shestov, citing the heroes of William Shakespeare's tragedies Othello and Macbeth as an example, seeks to prove that moral laws and universal norms of morality are untenable.

Here the author also focuses on the image of a rebel man who has nothing but his life that he could lose, which is the reason for his further struggle. It was this rebellious spirit that was subsequently reflected in the work of Albert Camus.

Albert Camus

Despite the fact that the concept of "absurdity" permeates all the works of Camus with a thin red line, his main creation in this direction is considered to be the "Myth of Sisyphus". Here the absurdity is seen as opposition, confrontation and conflict between two ideals. The existence of man is absurd, because represents a conflict of the human desire to be meaningful and meaningful with the cold, indifferent and silent universe or God.

Albert Camus also points to the existence of special human experiences that awaken the very concept of the absurdity of being. Realizing this, i.e. direct contact with the absurd causes a person to make a choice between suicide, a "leap of faith" and acceptance.

According to Camus, suicide is, as it were, an admission that life is simply not worth living - life itself is not worth it. Such a choice implicitly postulates that life is already “too much”. Suicide hides a direct "exit" from an absurd situation through an instant "completion" of oneself and one's place in the world.

Faced with the absurd, a person may also choose to take a "leap of faith" (a term also used by Kierkegaard, by the way), which is a way of coming to terms with a personal existence steeped in absurdity. "Leap of Faith" is considered by the author as a retreat from freedom and truth, a shelter in deceit, laziness of the intellect. From this follows the third - the acceptance by a person of the mournful fact of the absurdity of his life.

Human freedom, in the views of Camus, as well as the opportunity to find the meaning of existence, lies in the confirmation of absurdity and its acceptance. In the event that an absurd experience is a true awareness of the freedom of the Universe from anything absolute, then a person is also free. Camus calls this "living without trusting" and, according to this statement, any universalisms and absolutisms must be determined subjectively.

Hence the conclusion that freedom lies in the fact that a person is able to find his own individual meaning and purpose in life, he can make his own choice. And the personality is transformed into a more valuable element of existence, representing a complex of ideals peculiar only to it. Personality itself can be characterized as the whole Universe.

And in conclusion, it is worth touching on one of the most important topics in absurdism and in philosophy in general - the topic of the meaning of life.

The meaning of life in absurdism

Absurdism tells us that throughout history man has tried in one way or another. Some people came to the conclusion that life has no meaning, and all that a person has is the current moment, or they began to feel emptiness, convinced that everything was predetermined by Providence. Such feelings include belief in God and adherence to any of the religions in general.

Others found answers to all their questions in suicide. For people who, for one reason or another, have come to believe that life is meaningless, suicide becomes a way through which you can quickly reach the final point of your destiny.

But people are also capable of independently creating for themselves the meaning of being, which, quite likely, will not be objective, but will bring something into life and give something for which it is worth continuing one's path. This, by the way, was what Albert Camus said. But one of the fundamental ideas here is that a person must maintain a distance between the absurdity of being and an artificially invented meaning, and he must treat this distance with irony.

But I would like to say that a life in which there is no meaning, for many people, has become the reason for the lack of happiness, the cause of apathy and indifference, unwillingness to do anything and achieve something. Of course, we are not judges of anyone, but, as adults, we can argue that such a life cannot be lived, or at least not worth it.

Absurdism, although it has found a response in the hearts of many people, is still a rather utopian worldview. Having been imbued with his ideas, there is nothing left but to hang your head or try on the image of a sort of fighter for no reason.

Wouldn't it be better to open your eyes wide, take a deep breath and realize that there is a meaning to life, and it lies in life itself, in how we live it and what kind of people we become?

There are very, very many points of view on the meaning of being, and all of them can be supported by strong arguments. But it doesn't matter which one we follow, the main thing is to remain cheerful and cheerful people.

“So go, eat your bread with joy,
and drink your wine in the joy of your heart,
When God is pleased with your works...
Everything that your hand can do, do it according to your strength;
because in the grave, where will you go,
there is no work, no reflection, no knowledge, no wisdom.”
Ecclesiastes 9:7, 10

INTRODUCTION

The philosophy of existentialism arises at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century as an attempt to answer the eternal questions of human civilization: about God, about being, about the purpose of human life and the mystery of fate - questions whose solution should be contemporary to a living person, meet his understanding of reality in a concrete way. historical segment. Understanding, which was most influenced by the greatest and stunning successes of science against the backdrop of terrible moral degradation, reflected in the many millions of victims of two world wars, in the inhuman and systematic extermination of huge masses of defenseless people by weapons, hunger, unbearable working conditions in countless camps. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the shift in the center of attention of philosophy from the problems of being and the objective nature of things to the subject, that is, man, his inner world and experiences. At the center of this new philosophy for that period is ““existence”, human existence, as it appears in the direct experience of its “being-in-the-world” - in acts of care, fear, love, hatred, repentance, despair, determination, hope and etc. Being always “thrown” into one or another specific situation, existence makes a choice of itself, thereby realizing its inherent freedom” . This existence, one way or another, is a connecting thread that unites the creativity and views of existentialist philosophers, thanks to it we distinguish them as adherents of one philosophical direction. However, despite the similarity of the initial premises, each philosopher draws his own conclusions from them, draws his own picture of the world with the proposed model of human behavior in it, thereby differing and standing out from a number of other philosophers.

The general concept of the philosophy of existentialism is usually understood as several separate currents, highlighted by the individuality of the approach to solving existential problems (or to the impossibility of solving them). In addition to some stand-alone variants of the philosophy of existentialism (such as, for example, “pre-existentialism” by S. Kierkegaard and “positive existentialism” by N. Abbagnano), there are two main areas - theistic (K. Jaspers, G. Marcel) and atheistic existentialism (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus). And if “theistic existentialists seek to overcome human alienation by rediscovering the world of personal communication with other people and God”, “they try to reawaken in modern man a sense of depth and mystery in the familiar and show how he can find his real Self”, i.e. "discover a new approach to the transcendent", then "Sartre and Camus speak of man and for man who has lost or never had faith in God", "they both try to show the consequences of atheism as they see them and explain to a lonely and alienated individual the situation in which he is”, in other words, they try to help find answers to such seemingly simple and at the same time complex questions: “How should a person live in a world where there is no predetermined value? How can he give any meaning to his life?”

In general, in the works of Sartre and Camus, one can trace quite a lot of parallels, if desired, the main of which, I think, is the unwillingness to simplify and embellish the situation, to facilitate the “abandonment” of a person into this world and his “involuntary” freedom by faith in the presence of God or by ciphers of the transcendent . However, despite the similarity of the philosophical positions of these authors, I still want to note that Albert Camus is a special case. Firmness, consistency, uncompromisingness, depth, clarity and no self-deception - these fiery qualities of his philosophy make it possible to distinguish him from a number of existentialists, and no matter how the reader treats Camus's views, it seems that there will not be anyone who would refuse to recognize the power, the infinite power this philosophy, revealing to the admirers of Camus its bewitching beauty. Strength, perhaps, not so much in the sense of the depth and logical completeness of the philosophical system, but in the sense of Camus's truthfulness, first of all, to himself in answers to basic philosophical questions - answers that leave a person nothing but the bitter truth, and, despite everything, emphasizing its greatness. “Shades, contradictions, psychological impurities, always brought by the “objective” mind into the essence of questions, have no place in ... research and passionate search,” writes Camus himself. “All that is needed here is merciless, that is, logical thought. And it's not easy. It's always easy to be logical. And it is almost impossible to be logical to the end.

For Camus, probably even more than for Sartre, it is characteristic that we are dealing “not so much with philosophy as with philosophizing, or with some “border area” between the one and the other. The attitude of Camus himself to the philosophy of existentialism, including his own, can be expressed in a phrase from The Myth of Sisyphus: “I take the liberty of calling the existentialist position here philosophical suicide ... in which it denies itself and tries to surpass itself in what is its denial. Indeed, it is extremely difficult to build a coherent philosophical system, consciously setting extremely clear boundaries, not at all embellishing the state of affairs and not even allowing the possibility of giving things some other meaning than the one that they clearly show. Under such conditions, a clear line between a philosophical and a work of art is involuntarily erased. This is also why it is impossible to separate Camus' philosophical works from his artistic prose, since "his short stories are as full of deep meaning as philosophical treatises, and the latter are as beautiful as small essays." One cannot but agree that “Camus must be read ... It must be read slowly, enjoying the extraordinary beauty of the style, unexpected in a new way and even paradoxical and elegant and romantic in the old way.”

In this work, I would not like to look for differences (although they certainly exist) in the philosophical or literary talent of Camus and Sartre, which could be interpreted as a preference for one philosopher over another, since, I confess, I deeply sympathize with the views and work of both. I’ll just note that each of them was characterized by his own rich figurative language, “almost poetic language creation, metaphorical ... style, numerous borrowings from other languages, including “dead”, contextual meanings ...”, in a word, everything "what language practice has acquired in order to reveal to 'other' personalities the finest nuances of the author's own experiences". This is not surprising, because existentialist philosophers “are trying to crush the social consciousness and the thinking of the crowd in order to awaken the individual to see his existential position and his responsibilities and opportunities as a free individual. This...is one of the reasons why they use such dramatic and emotional language. In many cases, they do this to draw attention to long-known truths that are not yet recognized as deeply affecting everyone. Despite the similarity of the main ideas of the philosophical and artistic creativity of Sartre and Camus, each had his own style, his own techniques, his own main philosophical themes.

Camus himself spoke, as it were, of two cycles of his works. The theme of the absurd is devoted to the work of the 30s, the theme of rebellion is "The Rebellious Man", the novel "The Plague" and the play "The Righteous". As Camus said in an interview given in Stockholm before the Nobel Prize, in the first cycle negation is presented, the second solves positive problems; both were conceived simultaneously and implemented sequentially.

So, we have come to the main topic discussed in the work, namely, Camus's philosophy of the absurd. As already noted, Camus is not only a philosopher, "after all, first of all, he is a great writer." Therefore, I think it would be wrong to simply retell the author's main philosophical "work of the absurd" - his "Myth of Sisyphus" - in isolation from his artistic prose. Instead, I will try to trace the emergence of absurdity, reveal its essence and understand what consequences a person can find for himself from it on the basis of three works of the author at once, united by one theme. These are The Myth of Sisyphus, the story The Stranger and the play Caligula, and the first of them will be taken as the main source of the ideas of the philosophy of the absurd. I’ll make a reservation right away that, in my opinion, the abundance of quotes given by me below, perhaps redundant for the disclosure of any other topic, in this case will be useful, since it will make it possible to at least a little feel the originality of Camus’s “philosophizing”, richness and color bizarrely colored style that characterizes his literary and philosophical talent, because, finally, his philosophy of the absurd is as much a philosophical construction as the emotional appeal of the author to the reader.

THE RISE OF THE ABSURD

The feeling of the absurd, according to Camus, comes either suddenly and immediately, or human life over a long period is a gradual and constant immersion in the depths of the absurd; but, in any case, the whole future life changes, it is no longer possible to forget about its absurdity. Such is Caligula's instant insight: “I just suddenly felt that I needed the impossible. In my opinion, the existing order of things is no good.” Such is the life of the protagonist of the "Outsider" Meursault, immersed in a constant sense of absurdity: "You can't change anything in life, everything is the same." And further: “Everything is all the same, everything does not matter, and I know very well why ... Throughout my absurd life, through the years that have not yet come, a gloomy breath rushed towards me from the depths of the future and equalized everything in its path, and from this everything that was promised and imposed on me became as ghostly as the years that I actually lived.

The scene of “absurd insight” in The Myth of Sisyphus is described even more strongly, with frightening simplicity: “A feeling of absurdity can hit in the face of any person at the turn of any street ... Rising in the morning, tram, four hours in the office or at the factory, food , tram, four hours of work, food, sleep, and so on, in the same rhythm, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday ”(In fact, this is a description of Meursault's lifestyle). “Most of the time this road is followed without much difficulty. But one day, the question “why?” suddenly arises, and everything starts with fatigue, highlighted by surprise.

This fatigue is the first sign of an impending sense of absurdity. The absurdity has not yet captured the whole person. According to Camus, “fatigue is at the same time the last manifestation of mechanical life, and the first discovery that consciousness has come into motion. Fatigue awakens consciousness and causes everything that follows. What follows can be either a return to unconsciousness or a final awakening. So, for the first time a person is faced with this fatigue that awakens his consciousness, and now it depends on him whether his consciousness will speak loudly or fall silent again. One way or another, this fatigue according to Camus is the first call, the first rebellion of the flesh, and "absurdity reveals itself in this rebellion of the flesh." Thus, thanks to consciousness, absurdity enters human life for the first time.

However, awareness is not the absurdity itself, it is only a part of what is necessary for a full sense of the absurdity of being. And Camus points out the next important step that a person takes on the path to the absurd. “Another step below us is the feeling of our alienness in the world - we will discover ... with what force nature, the landscape itself can deny us ... The primitive hostility of the world reaches us through the millennia. At some point, we cease to understand this world for the simple reason that for centuries we understood only the images and drawings in it that we ourselves had previously invested in it, but for some time now we have not had the courage to resort to this unnatural trick. The world eludes us because it becomes itself again... One thing is clear: in this density and this strangeness of the world, absurdity reveals itself. Camus the writer, through the mouth of Caligula, echoes Camus the philosopher: “This world, as it is, cannot be endured.”

"The hostility of the world" Camus - a very important step in understanding his philosophy of the absurd. Indeed, scientific schemes and theories, replacing one another and designed to explain the world to us, shout with each other about solving the world's riddles and mysteries. But in fact, they remain only hypotheses, at best, only newer and closer to reality attempts to describe phenomena, and individual phenomena, which are a negligible part of the entire diverse picture of the world. As a result, no matter how close we approach the truth, we will never fully comprehend it, and the main questions of life will remain unanswered. This is what terrifies people. He passionately wants to know the universe, but all his attempts, like the attempts of Camus himself, are shattered by the irrationality and alienness of the world: “... all earthly science does not give anything that can assure me that this world belongs to me ... I I understand that with the help of science I can identify and enumerate phenomena, but I can’t master the world in any way. Even if I feel with my finger all the windings of its relief, I will not know more about it.

The next stage on the path to absurdity is the perception by a person of other people in their mechanistic manifestation, in their activity devoid of meaning, in their alienation to each other and to the conscious individual. And on this issue, Camus involuntarily echoes Sartre. “People also exude something inhuman,” he writes. “The painful confusion before the inhuman in man himself, the involuntary confusion at the sight of what we really are, in short, “nausea,” as one modern writer called it all, also reveals absurdity.” This confusion before the absurdity and nausea of ​​human passions is also experienced by Caligula, so suddenly stung by absurdity in the very heart. His words before and after the encounter with the absurd are indicative. First: “only he who causes suffering to another is mistaken.” And then: “If the treasury matters, then human life does not have it ... Everyone ... must agree with this reasoning and believe that their life is nothing, since money is everything for them. In the meantime, I have decided to be logical, and since the power is mine, you will see what this logic will cost you. I will eradicate contradictions and those who contradict." Meursault, another hero of Camus, in his mother's friends who came to say goodbye to the deceased, are seen rather as automatons in their grotesque mechanical than life manifestation, and he involuntarily feels his loneliness and alienation, opposes himself to them: "... they are inaudibly gliding through the blinding light. They sat down, and not a single chair creaked. Never have I seen anyone so clearly, to the last wrinkle, to the last fold of clothing. However, I couldn’t hear them at all, I just couldn’t believe that they were living people ... What struck me most of all in their faces was that I couldn’t see the eyes, only something flickered in the network of wrinkles ... they all had toothless, sunken mouths ... Then I noticed that they were all sitting opposite me, shaking their heads ... An absurd thought flashed through my mind that they had gathered to judge me.

To top it off, the person seems to remember the impending death, and this is perhaps the most powerful argument of the absurd. Of course, he knew about her before. But there is a huge difference in the pre-absurd concept of mortality and in the awareness of death in its absurdity. Before a collision with the absurd, a person lives as if there is no death at all: "... one will never be able to be sufficiently amazed that everyone lives as if they did not know about death" . However, after the absurdity has taken root in the mind of a person, the absurdity and frightening inevitability of death are everywhere with him, and there is no getting away from them: “In reality, the source of horror is the mathematical immutability of the event of death ... The simplicity and irreversibility of what happened give content to the feeling of absurdity. In the deadly light of this fate, its uselessness comes through. Indeed, death only becomes truly terrible when a person meets the absurdity face to face and realizes it. By the way, Heidegger, quoted by Camus, also speaks of this: “The world can offer nothing to a person who is in the grip of fear.” “People die, and they are unhappy,” exclaims Caligula as if he had just truly realized this common truth. In a sense, it is so, because, of course, he always knew about her, but now, in the radiance of the absurdity, she becomes unbearable to him. To such an extent that Caligula can no longer forget himself in a dream as before, in other words, his life, or rather, his sense of life, has changed radically. “In essence, we are all condemned to death,” the hero of The Outsider echoes him. After such insight, the inevitability of death becomes unbearable. "The idea that 'I am', my way of acting as if everything makes sense..., is all dizzyingly belied by the absurdity of possible death."

These are, in general terms, the prerequisites and conditions for the emergence of absurdity in human consciousness. Let's talk now about its indispensable components.

THE ESSENCE OF THE ABSURD

From what has been discussed above, it may seem that, in essence, absurdity is the world - unknowable, not fully amenable to rational explanation, with its strange laws, with its alienation to man, and finally, with its extremely absurd death that turns everything into vanity. But Camus warns in time, including himself, against such an incorrect interpretation of the concept of absurdity: “I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. By itself, this world is unreasonable - that's all that can be said about it.

So what is absurdity in the interpretation of Albert Camus? “I know what a person wants, I know what the world offers him, and now I can say that I know how they are connected,” the philosopher argues. Camus's answer is this: absurdity is a connection, a combination of the unknowability of the world with the thirst for human knowledge. “It is absurd that this irrationality clashes with the desperate thirst for clarity, the call of which is heard in the depths of the human soul. The absurd depends on man as much as he depends on the world. For Camus, it is very important to understand the confrontation between the human mind and the surrounding reality, from which the absurdity is born. Already in other expressions, he repeats this statement again and again. “... a person finds himself in front of the irrational. He feels the desire to be happy and comprehend the rationality of life. The absurdity is born from the collision of this human request with the silent irrationality of the world... Irrationality, human nostalgia and the absurdity arising from their meeting - these are the three protagonists of the drama that must inevitably put an end to any logic that being is capable of.

“This world does not matter, and whoever understands this gains freedom,” exclaims Caligula, and I just want to add: “absurd freedom.” However, we are talking about freedom itself ahead of us. In the meantime, we note that from the words of Caligula it follows, firstly, that “the world does not matter”, i.e., it is absurd, and, secondly, that someone “understands” this, i.e., the absurdity is realized. The combination of reason and absurdity is evident here. The Stranger is characterized by the words from the emotional revelation of the usually silent Meursault to the priest shortly before the execution: “In vain is he (the priest) sure that he is alive, because he lives like a dead man. Here I am, poor and dispossessed. But I am confident in myself and in everything, much more confident than he, I am sure that I am alive and that I will die soon. Yes, apart from this confidence, I have nothing. But at least no one will take this truth away from me. In the story, Camus is as consistent as in his philosophical essay. Absurdity - Meursault's impending and pre-absurd execution. His confidence in death is the ability to realize the absurd.

Does everything said above mean that one fact of a collision, one feeling of inconsistency between human consciousness and the surrounding world is enough for absurdity to come into its own? Is it enough just once to realize this contradiction and immediately forget about it in order to be an "absurd" person? As it turns out, no. Because, according to Camus, "the whole point is to live in a state of absurdity." As has already been shown, absurdity cannot exist outside the world, but at the same time, absurdity cannot exist outside of human consciousness, and therefore, like everything else in the world, it is subject to death. Therefore, according to Camus, in order to be constantly immersed in absurdity, in order to live in it, a person must be constantly aware of it. As Camus writes, "if I want to keep this conflict, it is only through constant awareness, each time renewed, always in tension." Indeed, "absurdity dies only when it is turned away from it."

However, according to the philosopher, even simple constantly renewed awareness is not enough for the existence of absurdity. A person may be aware of the absurd, but he should not accept it. If there is no “conscious dissatisfaction” and “constant denial”, then the discord between man and the world is eliminated, and absurdity is also eliminated with it. "The absurd only makes sense to the extent that it is disagreed with."

We will pay special attention to the words "constant denial". Here lies the indispensable requirement of "the absence of any kind of hope." A hope that can give meaning to human life. And even if a person is always and everywhere aware of the absurdity of life, but he hopes (for the meaning that he will ever penetrate, for eternal life, for reunion with the One or God, even if not very soon, in the distant future), then the absurdity perishes. In this case, hope is interpreted by Camus as self-deception, as a person's unwillingness to accept obvious, even very difficult, truths. According to Camus, the only real knowledge of the true man of the absurd is "that there is no place for hope within the framework of a mind that is sensitive to everything."

The whole life of the Outsider, Meursault, passes under the sign of the denial of hope. Meursault - like no one else, is a person from the real world, living in his present, and he does not need anything else. To the question of the priest, how Meursault imagines eternal life, he exclaims: “So, in order to remember this life, earthly!” . And this is the whole Meursault.

The theme of hope is revealed in a different way in the play "Caligula". If at first the main character hopes that "the hour of transformation will come for me and with me for the whole world, and then people will finally stop dying and be happy", then before death, hope leaves Caligula, and we can say that at this moment he absurd as never before: “... today I am even freer than I have been all these years. I have freed myself from memories and from illusions ... I know that everything comes to an end!

The rejection of hope is perceived by Camus, perhaps, as the most difficult of the conditions of the absurd. As proof of this, he consistently shows how Kierkegaard, Shestov, and Jaspers go from absurdity to hope. It should be noted that the views of these philosophers are close to Camus and are accepted by him in almost everything, except for the point from which hope appears. For Jaspers, hope is a retreat into the transcendent, for Shestov it is the acceptance of an incomprehensible and contradictory God, the only proof of whose existence is in his inhumanity, for Kierkegaard it is in reconciliation, which is expressed in the final denial of the omnipotence of reason and agreement with its limitations, the so-called "sacrifice Intellect" to please the Divine. Camus sees this departure for hope as a philosophical "leap," since there is a gap between absurdity and God that is inaccessible to pure, to the end of logical thought. It is possible to overcome this gap only by “metaphysically” jumping over it, i.e., to come to God contrary to the arguments of reason. This paradoxical logic says that the world is absurd, and there is no way out of this absurdity, but that is why God exists, otherwise would we feel the need for Him?

But enough about that. So, all the conditions are met, thanks to Camus, a person becomes a "man of the absurd." Let us now talk about the consequences that the philosopher draws from this situation.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE ABSURD

According to Camus, as we have already shown, it is necessary to constantly maintain the life of the absurd by constant awareness of it or, in the words of the author, "look at it point-blank." From here Camus derives the idea of ​​rebellion, which occupied one of the main places in the later work of the philosopher and is most fully disclosed in The Rebellious Man. According to Camus, rebellion is a constant clash of a person with his own ignorance. Rebellion is a constant demand for the clarity and openness of the universe to human knowledge. And since the world always remains alien to man, then, thereby, by rebelling, a person, as it were, continuously proves to himself his constant presence in this world. Moreover, the individual realizes that his demand for clarity will never be satisfied, that is, rebellion does not at all give rise to hope. “Rebellion is a conviction in the oppressive yoke of fate, minus the humility that should have accompanied this conviction.” This metaphysical rebellion gives value to human life, it returns its greatness, it would seem, taken away by the reality that annihilates a person. According to the author, there is no spectacle more beautiful than the constant battle of the mind with the surrounding reality, because human pride, power and originality are born in it. Speaking of man, Camus emphasizes that “absurdity is the ultimate tension, which he constantly maintains with his lonely effort. Because he knows that with his awareness and rebellion, day by day, he testifies to his only truth, which is the challenge. And this is the first consequence.

The rebellion of Caligula is evident. For him, this is the main consequence of the absurd. Turning everything upside down, bringing unprecedented and even unthinkable orders to empires, wanting to make the impossible possible through your rule, shaking the deep foundations of human existence with your atrocities - is this not a rebellion? With the rebellion of Meursault, the situation is more complicated. At first glance, it seems that he does not rebel at all, at least I have not been able to find in the outsider any attempts at a "metaphysical" rebellion or its hidden manifestations. However, this does not mean that Meursault is not absurd. Not all consequences of the absurd are equally important to everyone. Meursault's consent is not resignation to fate and complete subordination of oneself, his "indifferent" humility is the deepest inner kinship with the surrounding world. Meursault is with him rather than in a relationship of opposition, but of brotherhood, he is merged with the world and dissolved in it, they live one life. Meursault does not rebel not because he is not absurd; on the contrary, he is so profoundly absurd that he no longer needs rebellion.

The second consequence of the absurd Camus considers freedom. Let's deal with this concept in more detail, because in such a seemingly obvious concept as freedom, a certain paradox is hidden, and, as we will see, freedom is different from freedom.

So, before meeting with the absurd, a person, which seems quite natural, has his own goals and plans for the future and tries to live, guided precisely by them. He weighs his chances of success, counts on some future events; he finally believes in his own control of his own life. Indeed, if we summarize all of the above, it turns out that a person acts in life as if he were free. In a sense, freedom is his subconscious attitude, helping to build his life according to the developed plan. It is the belief that he himself is the master of his life.

This is where the first contradiction appears, which we will try to feel. Living with confidence in his freedom, he in a sense becomes its slave, because he constantly coordinates his actions with the requirements of the goal pursued by him. As a result, he finds himself in a rigid framework of behavior dictated, as it seems to him, by his own choice of his future. Thus, this postulate of freedom, the illusion of which an ordinary person lives, in a certain sense fetters him, and, faced with the absurdity, a person suddenly realizes that “the highest freedom, the freedom to be, the only one that can serve as a basis for truth, does not exist”, because in In this world, death is inevitable, after which everything will be over. Including his illusory freedom.

And vice versa, absurdity, which reduces to zero a person’s chances for eternal freedom in the highest sense, returns him freedom of action, freedom of thought and action, i.e., according to Camus, not “metaphysical”, but his personal, “inner” freedom. In returning to a distinct consciousness, escaping from everyday sleep, the philosopher sees the initial premises of "internal" or, in other words, absurd freedom, in the belief that there is no tomorrow - its immediate cause. Camus sums up absurd freedom as follows: “... death and absurdity appear here, it is clearly palpable, as the principles of the only reasonable freedom: that which is given to the human heart to experience and which it can live. This is the second consequence."

The internal freedom of Caligula, by virtue of his unlimited power, becomes the compulsory freedom of all, it grows to imperial proportions. “Announce to Rome that freedom has finally been returned to him and that with it comes a great test,” says Caligula, knowing full well what kind of freedom he means. For him, freedom is the power of chaos and destruction, Caligula wants to take on the absurd function of the world, himself becoming a blind and inhuman case. Using the example of Caligula, Camus shows the danger of such a destructive inner freedom in conjunction with the power of power.

The example of Meursault illustrates well the difference between metaphysical and internal freedom. Meursault himself describes the boss's offer to take up a new job that offers good prospects: “I said - perhaps, although, in essence, I don’t care. Then he asked if I was not interested in changing my lifestyle. I said, you can’t change anything in life, everything is the same, but it’s already good for me. Meursault understands how stupid it is to count on the highest, eternal human freedom, which could give meaning to his future; it would be more correct to say that this is not even understanding, but its organic sensation. In return, he acquires the freedom of the absurd, which makes him related to the world. It can be said that, like the world, Meursault is alien and incomprehensible to others, but the beauty of the world is the source of his constant quiet and deep joy of life.

So, the man of the absurd rebels, and he is “inwardly” free. What else can be learned from the concept of absurdity? In an effort to answer this question, Camus draws a clear distinction between the quality and quantity of life experience, which is essential for the man of the absurd. And if absurdity exists only in the constant confrontation between the waking consciousness and the darkness that surrounds it, in a state of permanent human rebellion, then the conclusion suggests itself that “it is important not to live as best as possible, but to experience as much as possible”. In the question of the number and quality of years lived, there is an unequivocal choice in favor of quantity. Moreover, the amount of experience is not for Camus a simple equivalent to the number of years a person has lived. Surviving as much as possible means, first of all, confronting the world as often as possible, it means “feeling your life, your rebellion, your freedom, and as much as possible”. And this can be done at any life events that fall on the human lot. In this sense, all types of experience are equal. However, the only obstacle to an even longer human confrontation is death. And although the amount of a person's life experience is not in the literal sense the duration of his life, Camus nevertheless notices that the years of life and experience taken away by death will never be compensated. And nothing depends on the will of man. According to the philosopher, in this case it is only about luck. However, despite the blind lot, the very human desire remains to continue confronting the world and absurd experience, because "the present moment and the continuous following of the present moments in front of a constantly awake soul - this is the ideal of the absurd man" . This constant desire Camus calls passion.

“In this way,” says Camus, summing up his conclusions from the concept of the absurd, “I extract three consequences from the absurd - my rebellion, my freedom and my passion.”

Now let's ask the opposite question: what seemingly obvious conclusions does Camus not draw from the absurdity? First of all, this is a conclusion about human permissiveness. The philosopher, however, notes that the concept of morality is inapplicable to the man of the absurd, since the only morality possible for him - the highest morality, coming from God, is inaccessible, since the man of the absurd himself lives without God. However, the lack of morality does not flow into the principle of permissiveness. Karamazov's "everything is allowed" does not mean at all that nothing is forbidden. In the sense of higher freedom, absurdity does not liberate, but rather binds, dictating its own rules to a person. He does not give permission for any actions, he only makes their consequences equivalent. "He does not advise to act criminally, but he dooms remorse to the futility." And since all kinds of experience are equally valid for the absurd, the performance of one's duty becomes just as legitimate as anything else. In the play, Camus shows how Caligula misunderstands permissiveness. Tyranny is one of the ways that absurdity points to him, and the emperor plunges headlong into his atrocities, it gives him pleasure to watch how human blood is shed at his order, how his subjects tremble and grovel before him, how obsequiously the son of the murdered man smiles at him his father, and the husband of the woman dishonored by him grovels before him. Through the lips of the protagonist of the play, Camus says that this is a false path by which Caligula achieves nothing, while punishment awaits the emperor himself. “I went the wrong way, it leads nowhere. My freedom is false,” Caligula admits to himself.

LIFE IN A STATE OF THE ABSURD

At the very beginning of The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus poses the question of suicide as a fundamental philosophical question. Is life worth living? In order for other philosophical problems to arise, it is necessary first of all to answer this initial question. The entire argument of Camus about the absurd is, therefore, first of all, an attempt to answer the question of the justification of suicide. In view of the foregoing, it becomes obvious that suicide must be rejected. In the world of the absurd, where the only achievement is the amount of absurd experience experienced, there is no place for suicide. It would be, like a philosophical "leap", the most complete acceptance of what exists, while absurdity has nothing to do with humility. Suicide is a kind of death of the absurd. Camus says: "The whole point is to live in a state of absurdity."

So what is it, this life in a state of absurdity? Is there anything else in it, except for the constant contemplation of the absurdity of being and rebellion? As it turns out, there is, and quite a lot. Moreover, it is precisely absurdity that makes a person live an active, full-blooded, active life in the time interval between birth and death, after which there is nothing. To oppose the absurd truth with one's life and one's greatness - that is the primary task of the man of the absurd.

What exactly should be the activity of such a person? Yes, whatever. It can also be a plunge into the abyss of love, as Camus depicts Don Juanism, when Don Juan himself is not just a seducer who collects his male victories, but a man who loves every woman who trusts him with equal strength and with all his soul, again and again plunging into depth of feeling. In the constant dying and rebirth of love, or, more precisely, in the unquenchable youth and newness of love - his rebellion and his freedom, in the power of love - his passion. It may be an actor, life itself, or rather, the very performance of which is the best demonstration of absurdity. Human lives, destinies, unique and completely finished, unfolding and ending in a few hours in a closed space - is this not the highest concentration of absurdity? It may be, finally, the fate of the conqueror, who extracts his courage, strength and absurd justification in his contempt for human death, and especially for his own.

It should be noted that the images briefly outlined above do not in the least exhaust the possible life paths of an absurd person. With the same success, notes Camus, "it could be, if desired, a virgin, an official or the president of the republic." The tyrant and the petty clerk, the literary heroes of Camus himself, are no less absurd than Don Juan and the dramatic actor. But I would especially like to dwell on the image of the creator as the embodiment of the absurd, by which Camus understands, first of all, a philosopher and writer.

To begin with, let us agree that, as Camus rightly notes, if there were no absurdity, art itself might not exist, since the world would be extremely clear, and art, including philosophy and the novel, is in some way our interpretation of the irrational world. So, the art of writing is a product of the absurd, so where else, if not in this activity, can an absurd person most fully manifest himself? It can be concluded that creativity is the perfect realization of the third consequence of the absurd - human passion. In order to come to absurdity, a person must look at things honestly and openly, be logical to the end, and then consistent reasoning will lead him to the goal. Romance, on the other hand, “marks the point from which absurd passions originate and where reasoning stops.” However, it is not enough just to create to be the creator of the absurd. Camus points out exactly how absurd creativity should be: “The task of the man of the absurd is not to find explanations and solutions, but to experience and describe for himself.” The absurd novelist does not pursue explanations and interpretations. He is only an impartial descriptor of human experience, and by describing it, he thereby multiplies its quantity, serving the purpose that is the only correct one in an absurd world. Therefore, not every novelist can rightfully be called absurd. And the point here is not only in attempts to clarify the meaning where for an absurd person it does not exist, the point is also in the presence of hope in the work. There are many writers whose work somehow resonates with the absurd, including Stendhal and Balzac, Proust and Malraux, Dostoevsky and Kafka. However, only a few can be called absolutely creatively absurd. “I expect from absurd creativity the same thing that I demanded from thought - rebellion, freedom and diversity,” writes Camus. "Then it will reveal its utter uselessness." It is precisely this most important quality - the futility, the futility of an absurd novel - that hope just does not allow to be realized. Hope is always a kind of meaning invested by the writer. Camus also finds hope in the novels of Dostoevsky and Kafka, which he valued perhaps more than others. For Dostoevsky, this is life after death in God, i.e., eternal life, for Kafka it is the path to God, which Camus identifies with the castle from Kafka's novel of the same name, where his main character is irresistibly and hopelessly striving.

Casting one general glance over Camus's descriptions of the man of absurdity in its various manifestations, one cannot fail to note the undisguised approval, a pronounced positive assessment given by the philosopher to his absurd heroes. Even Caligula, the brightest personification of evil in human history, acquires in the eyes of Camus his absurd justification. Caligula Albert Camus, it seems to me, cannot be hated; at least he deserves sympathy.

The parting words of the philosopher and writer seem to be reflected in a quotation from Ecclesiastes, which served as an epigraph to this work. Despite the tragedy of human destiny and the inevitability of death, going through life proudly and joyfully - that's what allows a person to be truly a Human.

It is difficult not to feel the emotional charge of the author, which is involuntarily transmitted to the reader, who is imbued with respect for people who, with a clear awareness of the absurd truth, are capable of not losing pride and human greatness. To those who are able to live in a constant conflict between the world and the mind and not lose the ability to enjoy every moment of their lives. At least for me - it is in this that the feeling of the strength and beauty of the philosophy of the absurd of Albert Camus most acutely manifests itself.

It remains for us to point out one more and, perhaps, the most controversial conclusion that Camus concludes from the philosophy of the absurd, which we observe in his treatment of the myth of Sisyphus, which served as the title of the entire philosophical work.

The gods for sins doomed Sisyphus to forever roll a huge stone to the top of the mountain, from where he again and again rolled down to its foot, not without reason believing that there is nothing more terrible than constant useless and hopeless work. The very reasons for such an obvious disfavor of the gods are mentioned by Camus as if in passing. He is much more interested in the very work of Sisyphus in the underworld, although there are no mythological references to this. And Camus independently completes this image of an eternal worker, giving it the most absurd interpretation. Camus vividly imagines the inhuman efforts of Sisyphus, his colossal strain in his useless work. But there is a moment when the stone reaches the top, the descent begins, and for Sisyphus there comes a short respite, equivalent to the enlightenment of the mind for him. This is the very moment when Sisyphus, more than ever, is acutely aware of his suffering and the tragic absurdity of his fate. At first, this short interval of time was filled with suffering, when the memories of the past earthly life were still too strong. But time passed, and now the realization came to Oedipus that his fate belongs to himself, and a piece of rock is his own concern. When Sisyphus returns to his stone, he is clearly aware that the series of senseless actions he performs is a fate chosen by himself, "soldered together by his own memory and sealed with the seal of his death that came too soon." "Here lies the silent joy of Sisyphus." It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily follows from the discovery of the absurd. And yet "one must imagine Sisyphus happy." Here it is - the most paradoxical, and perhaps the most significant conclusion of Camus.

I can't help but quote Meursault's words on what could have been the last night of his life. These words are like the quintessence of absurdity and happiness; it may turn out that Camus says more in them than in the entire philosophical work: “As if a violent outburst of anger cleansed me of pain, relieved me of hope, and before this night, full of mysterious signs and stars, I open up for the first time to the quiet indifference of the world. He looks so much like me, he is like a brother to me, and from this I feel - I was happy, I am happy now.

To paraphrase a little, let's once again cite Camus' conclusion: a man of absurdity - in his life amid the irrationality of the world and the absurdity of death, in the center of everything that is a human destiny - must be imagined happy.

CONCLUSION

So, I tried to fulfill the task set before me, namely, to trace the conditions for the emergence of an absurd sensation in an individual, to identify the components of the absurdity and to show what philosophical conclusions can be drawn from an absurd feeling of life. Perhaps it may be objected to me that the theme of the absurd is far from being exhausted by this, and a number of authors and literary works or even works of art turned out to be outside the scope of this work. Well, it is quite possible that this is actually the case, however, I would like to recall that, according to the original intention and title, the work is not intended to give a complete study of the concept of absurdity, but only to give a description of absurd philosophy, and, moreover, not the philosophy of absurdity in in general, namely "the philosophy of the absurd by Albert Camus". And this very specific goal, it seems to me, has been achieved. Therefore, in this argument about the philosophy of the absurd Camus, I think, we can put an end to it.

Or almost to the point.

Throughout his creative life, the philosopher and writer seemed to be trying for himself to find a justification for his difficult to accept, difficult, hopeless philosophical truth. Hence the evolution of his philosophical views, and his throwing, and his creative crisis of the last years of his life. But, paradoxically, the main confirmation of the absurdity came to Camus at the very last moment. When the car, in which he was returning to Paris on a January day in 1960, crashed into a tree, Camus, perhaps, managed at the very last moment to re-realize his deep rightness, once again convinced of the absurdity of being and the absurdity - this time of his own - of death.

LITERATURE

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(1913 - 1960) in the 50s. was one of the "rulers of thoughts" of the world intelligentsia. The first publications that opened the first period of creativity, two small books of short lyrical essays “Inside Out and Face” (1937) and “Marriages” (1939) were published in Algeria. In 1938 Camus wrote the play "Caligula".

At the time, he was an active participant in the resistance. In those years, he published the essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" and the story "The Outsider" (1942), ending the first period of creativity.

Appeared in 1943 - 1944. “Letters to a German Friend” opens the second period of creativity, which lasted until the end of his life. The most significant works of this period are: the novel The Plague (1947); theatrical mystery "State of Siege" (1948); the play The Righteous (1949); the essay "Rebellious Man" (1951); the story "The Fall" (1956); a collection of short stories "Exile and Kingdom" (1957), etc. Camus also published three books of "Topical Notes" during this period (1950, 1953, 1958). In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize. His novel Happy Death and Notebooks were published posthumously.

It is not easy to get an idea of ​​the philosophy of Albert Camus, since the views expressed in his literary and philosophical works “provide an opportunity for a wide variety of interpretations.” For all that, the nature of this philosophy, its problems and orientation have allowed historians of philosophy to unanimously evaluate it as a kind of existentialism. The worldview of A. Camus and his work reflected the features of the development of the European philosophical tradition.

Camus did not doubt the reality of the world, he was aware of the importance of movement in it. The world, in his opinion, is not arranged rationally. It is hostile to man, and this hostility goes back to us through the millennia. Everything we know about him is unreliable. The world is constantly eluding us. In his conception of being, the philosopher proceeded from the fact that "being can reveal itself only in becoming, while becoming is nothing without being." Existence is reflected in consciousness, but “as long as the mind is silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything reciprocally echoes and is ordered in the unity it so desires. But at the very first movement, this whole world cracks and collapses: an infinite number of shimmering fragments offer themselves to knowledge. Camus considers knowledge as a source of transformation of the world, but he warns against the unreasonable use of knowledge.

Philosopher agreed that science deepens our knowledge about the world and man, but he pointed out that this knowledge is still imperfect. In his opinion, science still does not give an answer to the most urgent question - the question of the purpose of existence and the meaning of everything that exists. People are thrown into this world, into this story. They are mortal, and life appears before them as an absurdity in an absurd world. What is a person to do in such a world? Camus suggests in the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” to concentrate and, with maximum clarity of mind, realize the fate that has fallen and courageously bear the burden of life, not resigning itself to difficulties and rebelling against them. At the same time, the question of the meaning of life acquires special significance; the thinker calls it the most urgent. From the very beginning, a person must “decide whether or not life is worth living”. To answer this “ ” means to solve a serious philosophical problem. According to Camus, “everything else…. secondary." The desire to live, the philosopher believes, is dictated by a person's attachment to the world, in it "there is something more: stronger than all the troubles of the world." This attachment enables a person to overcome the discord between himself and life. The feeling of this discord gives rise to a sense of the absurdity of the world. Man, being reasonable, seeks to streamline, “transform the world in accordance with his ideas of good and evil. The absurd connects man with the world.”

He believed that to live means to explore the absurdity, to rebel against it. “I extract from the absurd,” the philosopher wrote, “three consequences—my rebellion, my freedom and my passion. Through the work of the mind alone, I turn into a rule of life that which was an invitation to death - and reject suicide.

According to A. Camus, a person has a choice: either live in his time, adapting to it, or try to rise above it, but you can also make a deal with it: “live in your age and believe in the eternal.” The latter does not impress the thinker. He believes that one can hide from the absurd by immersion in the eternal, escape into the illusion of everyday life or by following some idea. In other words, you can reduce the pressure of the absurd with the help of thinking.

People who try to rise above the absurd, Camus calls the conquerors. Camus found classic examples of conquering people in the works of the French writer A. Malraux. According to Camus, the conqueror is god-like, “he knows his slavery and does not hide it”, knowledge illuminates his path to freedom. The conqueror is the ideal person for Camus, but to be such, in his opinion, is the lot of the few.

In an absurd world, creativity is also absurd. According to Camus, “creativity is the most effective school of patience and clarity. It is also a stunning testimony to the only dignity of man: stubborn rebellion against his destiny, perseverance in fruitless efforts. Creativity requires everyday efforts, self-control, an accurate assessment of the boundaries of truth, it requires measure and strength. Creativity is a kind of asceticism (i.e., detachment from the world, from its joys and blessings - S.N.). And all this is “for nothing”... But it may be important not the great work of art itself, but the test that it requires from a person.” The Creator is similar to the character of ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus, punished by the gods for disobeying a huge stone rolling up a high mountain, which every time rolls down from the top to the foot of the mountain. Sisyphus is doomed to eternal torment. And yet, the spectacle of a stone block rolling down from a high mountain personifies the greatness of the feat of Sisyphus, and his endless torment serves as an eternal reproach to the unjust gods.

In the essay " Rebellious man”, reflecting on his time as the time of the triumph of the absurd, Camus writes: “We live in an era of masterfully executed criminal plans.” The previous era, in his opinion, differs from the current one in that “previously, atrocity was lonely, like a cry, and now it is as universal as science. Just yesterday prosecuted, today crime has become law.” The philosopher notes: “In modern times, when evil intent dresses up in the robes of innocence, according to the terrible perversion characteristic of our era, it is innocence that is forced to justify itself.” At the same time, the boundary between false and true is blurred, and the rules are dictated by force. Under these conditions, people are divided "not into righteous and sinners, but into masters and slaves." Camus believed that our world is dominated by the spirit of nihilism. Awareness of the imperfection of the world gives rise to rebellion, the purpose of which is the transformation of life. The time of the domination of nihilism forms a rebellious person.

According to Camus, rebellion is not an unnatural state, but quite natural. In his opinion, “in order to live, a person must rebel,” but this must be done without being distracted from the initially put forward noble goals. The thinker emphasizes that in the experience of the absurd, suffering has an individual character, while in a rebellious impulse it becomes collective. Moreover, “the evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone.”

In an imperfect world, rebellion is a means of preventing the decline of society and its ossification and decay. “I rebel, therefore we exist,” writes the philosopher. He considers rebellion here as an indispensable attribute of human existence, uniting the individual with other people. The result of the rebellion is a new rebellion. The oppressed, having turned into oppressors, by their behavior prepare a new revolt of those whom they turn into the oppressed.

According to Camus, "in this world there is one law - the law of force, and it is inspired by the will to power", which can be implemented through violence.

Reflecting on the possibilities of using violence in revolt, Camus was not a supporter of non-violence, since, in his opinion, "absolute non-violence passively justifies slavery and its horrors." But at the same time, he was not a supporter of excessive violence. The thinker believed that "these two concepts need self-restraint for the sake of their own fruitfulness."

Camus differs from a simple rebellion by a metaphysical rebellion, which is a "revolt of man against the whole universe." Such rebellion is metaphysical because it challenges the ultimate goals of humans and the universe. In the ordinary rebellion, the slave protests against oppression, "the metaphysical rebel rebels against the lot prepared for him as a representative of the human race." In metaphysical rebellion, the formula "I rebel, therefore we exist," characteristic of ordinary rebellion, changes to the formula "I rebel, therefore we are alone."

The logical consequence of metaphysical rebellion is revolution. At the same time, the difference between a rebellion and a revolution is that “... a rebellion kills only people, while a revolution destroys both people and principles at the same time.” According to Camus, the history of mankind has known only riots, but there have not yet been revolutions. He believed that “if a true revolution had taken place only once, then history would no longer exist. There would be blissful unity and calm death.”

The limit of the metaphysical rebellion is, according to Camus, the metaphysical revolution, during which the great inquisitors become the head of the world. The idea of ​​the possibility of the appearance of the Grand Inquisitor was borrowed by A. Camus from F. M. Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov. The Grand Inquisitors establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. They can do what God couldn't do. The kingdom of heaven on earth as the embodiment of universal happiness is possible "not thanks to the complete freedom of choice between good and evil, but thanks to power over the world and its unification."

Developing this idea on the basis of the analysis of the representations of F. Nietzsche about the nature of freedom, A. Camus comes to the conclusion that “the absolute power of the law is not freedom, but absolute freedom from law is no greater freedom. Empowerment does not give freedom, but lack of opportunity is slavery. But anarchy is also slavery. Freedom exists only in a world where both the possible and the impossible are clearly defined.” However, "today's world, apparently, can only be a world of masters and slaves." Camus was sure that “domination is a dead end. Since the master can in no way give up dominion and become a slave, the eternal fate of masters is to live unsatisfied or be killed. The role of the master in history comes down only to reviving the slave consciousness, the only one that creates history. According to the philosopher, "what is called history is only a series of long-term efforts undertaken for the sake of gaining true freedom." In other words, “... history is the history of labor and rebellion” of people striving for freedom and justice, which, according to Camus, are connected. He believed that it was impossible to choose one without the other. The philosopher emphasizes: “If someone deprives you of bread, he thereby deprives you of freedom. But if your freedom is taken away, then be sure that your bread is also under threat, because it no longer depends on you and your struggle, but on the whim of the owner.

He considers bourgeois freedom an invention. According to Albert Camus, “freedom is the cause of the oppressed, and its traditional defenders have always been people from the oppressed people”.

Analyzing the prospects of human existence in history, Camus comes to a disappointing conclusion. In his opinion, there is nothing left for a person in history but “to live in it ... adjusting to the topic of the day, that is, either to lie or to remain silent.”

In his ethical views, Camus proceeded from the fact that the realization of freedom must be based on realistic morality, since moral nihilism is destructive.

Formulating his moral position, Albert Camus wrote in "Notebooks": "We must serve justice, because our existence is arranged unfairly, we must multiply, cultivate happiness and joy, because our world is unhappy."

The philosopher believed that wealth is not necessary to achieve happiness. He was against achieving individual happiness by bringing misfortune to others. According to Camus, "Man's greatest merit is to live in solitude and obscurity."

The aesthetic in the work of the philosopher serves as an expression of the ethical. Art for him is a means of discovering and describing the disturbing phenomena of life. It, from his point of view, can serve to improve society, as it is able to interfere during life.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913. in the small town of Mondovi (North Africa), in a French family who moved from Alsace. His father was an agricultural worker. After the death of his father - moving to Algeria, where in 1923-1930. Albert studied at the gymnasium. In 1930 he contracted tuberculosis, which thwarted his plans for an academic career. In 1932-1936. Camus studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, where after graduation he wrote the work "Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism". In 1934 - at a time when many Western intellectuals were inspired by the ideas of Marxism and socialism - Camus joined the French Communist Party, from which he left in 1937 in protest against its policy on the Arab question. Camus had a difficult fate: he was an employee in the export bureau, sold spare parts for cars, and was a home teacher. From 1938 he worked as a journalist.

It is characteristic of Camus's work that he expressed many of his innermost thoughts and ideas through topical journalism. From 1938 until the beginning of the Second World War, he worked for the newspaper "Republican Algiers". The main theme of his newspaper essays is the lack of rights of the Arab population of Algeria, its disasters, which, as Camus presciently foresaw, should have led to deep social protest. During the Second World War, Camus (who returned to France in 1942) participated as a member of an underground group united around the Combat newspaper in the resistance movement. From the end of August 1944, this newspaper emerged from the underground and became one of the most important organs of the left movement in France. Camus wrote editorials for her. Like many in post-war France, where a broad temporary alliance of anti-fascists was formed, where the ideas of socialism became popular again, Camus called for a transition "from resistance to revolution." But soon temporary alliances began to disintegrate. The Komba newspaper turned into a weekly. The cycles of materials published by Camus (for example, the series of articles of 1946 "Neither Victims, nor Executioners") still attracted the interest of readers.

During the war and after it, remarkable artistic and philosophical works by Camus appeared: the story "The Outsider" (1942), the philosophical essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), the novel "The Plague" (1947); essay "Rebellious Man" (1951) and other works. Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1957. The writer also expressed philosophical ideas in his dramatic works - in the plays "Caligula" (it was staged immediately after the war and was very popular in France), "State of Siege" and "The Righteous" . Camus staged dramatizations based on W. Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun" and on "Demons" by F. Dostoevsky at the theater. In the 1950s, in Camus' publicistic work, a special theme was the call for the abolition of the death penalty (a cycle of essays "Reflections on the Guillotine"). His struggle against the colonial policy of France in Algeria continued. January 4, 1960 Camus died in a car accident. Camus, like other French existentialists, was not an armchair philosopher, a follower of any philosophical school. Possessing, according to the testimony of people who knew him, solid philosophical knowledge, he was not inclined to write systematic philosophical works. In an interview, Camus said that he did not believe in the mind enough to believe in the system. At the same time, what researchers rightly pay attention to, Camus's philosophical writings are distinguished by clarity of thought, clarity of structure and rationality of argumentation.

At the center of Camus's philosophizing is the problem of the main antinomies of human existence. (The word "antinomy" is used in a broad sense - as a contradiction, split). These antinomies express the tension and contradiction between the positivity and the absurdity of life, between the world of rebellion and the world of goodness. How are they analyzed in Camus' philosophy?

The main problems and ideas of the philosophy of Camus.

The philosophical ideas of Camus - to an even greater extent than those of Sartre - are woven into the fabric of characters, images, situations of works of art. The writings of Camus, which can be considered properly philosophical ("The Myth of Sisyphus" or "The Rebellious Man"), however, bear little resemblance to ordinary philosophical treatises, with their systematic theoretical constructions, definitions, quotations, etc. To a large extent, the specificity of Camus's philosophizing was due to the main object of his interest. And they became the world of experiences and thoughts of that person, whom Camus himself called "an absurd person." An absurd person, absurd reasoning (philosophy that caught the absurdity of existence and tried to comprehend it), absurd creativity (literature and art, whose hero becomes an absurd person) - these are the themes of Camus' work "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Absurd person.

"What is an absurd person?" - this is the main question, on the discussion of which the solution of other problems of Camus's philosophy depends. The absurd man, writes Camus, "does nothing for the sake of eternity and does not deny it. Not that nostalgia is alien to him at all. But he prefers his courage and his ability to judge. The first teaches him to lead an unappealable life, to be content with what is; the second gives him an idea of ​​his limits. Convinced of the finiteness of his freedom, the absence of a future for his rebellion and the frailty of consciousness, he is ready to continue his deeds in the time that life allots him. Here is his field, the place of his actions, freed from any court but his own. A longer life means no other life for him."

Camus contrasts his image of an absurd person with traditional and modern philosophical and anthropological, moral, religious constructions, ideas about human essence. In the philosophy and work of Camus, there is a bold claim that he will be able to approach the real essence of man closer than other researchers have been able to. Nevertheless, the "absurd man" is also a specific philosophical construct. Its creation in the works of Camus is a continuous controversy. First of all, it is waged against a religious approach to a person, as well as against teachings that impose moral norms on a person from the outside - in accordance with the prescriptions of society, the commandments of religion, etc. “An absurd person is ready to admit that there is only one morality that does not separate from God: this is morality imposed on him from above. But an absurd person lives just without this God. As for other moral teachings (including moralism), he sees in them only excuses, while he himself has nothing to justify. I proceed here from the principle of his innocence.

Camus outlines the position of an absurd person with the words of Ivan Karamazov: "Everything is allowed." However, "absurdity is not the permission of any actions." Karamazov's words only mean that nothing is forbidden. Why? According to Camus, the absurd person does not accept the traditional concept that establishes a connection between the causes and effects of actions. And although the mind of an absurd person is "ready for retribution," he does this not because he feels behind him any guilt or sinfulness imputed to every person by Christianity. For him, an absurd man, "there is responsibility, but there is no guilt." The formal rules and teachings of ethics, the calculations of the scientific mind lose their essential meaning for an absurd person. Only living examples are instructive, bringing to us the breath of human lives. “I have chosen only those heroes,” writes Camus, “who set as their goal the exhaustion of life (or those whom I consider as such). I do not go further than this. I am talking about a world in which both thought and life are devoid of a future. For everything "What induces a person to work and movement stands hope. Thus, the only unfalse thought turns out to be fruitless. In an absurd world, the value of a concept or life is measured by fruitfulness."

The heroes, on the example of which Camus highlights the concept of "absurd man", are Don Juan (and Don Juanism), Actor (and acting), Conqueror, Writer-creator. At the end of the chapter on the absurd man, Camus remarks: “The above images do not contain moral teachings and do not entail judgments. They are sketches, they outline a lifestyle. A lover, a comedian or an adventurer play an absurd game. and a virgin, and a functionary, and the president of the republic. It is enough to know and not hide anything from oneself ... I have chosen extreme cases when the absurdity gives truly royal power. True, this is the power of principles devoid of kingdom. But their advantage over others is that what do they know about the illusory nature of all the kingdoms... Be that as it may, the absurd reasoning had to be restored to its full Brightness of colors Imagination can add many other guises of it - exiles chained to their time; people who, not knowing weakness, know how to live in proportion to the universe without a future. This absurd and godless world is inhabited by hopeless and clear-minded people."

The world of the absurd man in Camus is written out harshly and strongly. This is a person who does not believe in God, God's providence and God's grace. He does not believe in the future, is devoid of hopes and illusions. "A sense of absurdity awaits us at every corner." The reason is that the world of nature and the other person always contain something irreducible to our knowledge, eluding him."It happens that the usual scenery collapses. Rise, tram, four hours in an office or factory, lunch, four hours of work, tram, dinner, sleep; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all in the same rhythm - this is the path that is easy to follow day after day. But one day the question arises "why?" It all starts with this puzzled boredom."

Boredom takes a person out of the rut of a routine, monotonous life. She pushes him to understand that he has to shoulder the burden of a bleak life on his own shoulders. Boredom is the result of a mechanical life, but it also sets the mind in motion. Boredom awakens him and provokes further: either an unconscious return to the usual track, or a final awakening. And sooner or later, awakening is followed by consequences: either suicide or the restoration of the course of life. " Boredom becomes almost a character in Camus's works of art. It is depicted so vividly, so masterfully that the path from truly "metaphysical" boredom to suicide is not The writer-philosopher reveals a deep, from his point of view, existentially inseparable connection between the "alienness" of the world, its "primitive hostility", between the alienation of other people from us, the loss of faith in God and moral values, between the threat of death, let's say, between the whole set of absurd (especially for a person) circumstances of life and "absurd feelings" - and the painful desire of a person to end the intolerance of life, to break out of the circle of absurdity. Thus, the question of suicide comes to the fore in Camus's philosophy. "There is only one truly a serious philosophical problem is the problem of suicide. To decide whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy. Everything else - whether the world has three dimensions, whether the mind is guided by nine or twelve categories - is secondary."

Suicide, Camus notes, is most often seen as a social phenomenon. "We, on the contrary, from the very beginning raise the question of the connection between suicide and the thinking of the individual. Suicide is prepared in the silence of the heart ...". The main aspiration of Camus just turns out to be a truthful, devoid of moralism description of that phenomenon of intellect and feelings, which could be called a craving for suicide. It is generated, as is clear from what has been said, by absurdity, hopelessness as the hallmarks of the human lot. The world outside of man is not absurd . "If absurdity exists, it is only in the human universe." However, Camus insists, man's vocation is to find the strength to live in a state of absurdity. "So I take out out of absurdity, three consequences, which are my rebellion, my freedom and my passion. With a mere play of consciousness, I turn into a rule of life that which was an invitation to death, and reject suicide. "" All the reasoning and sketches of this essay are summarized by the "myth of Sisyphus." If Nietzsche proposed the myth of the “eternal return” to humanity that had lost the Christian faith, then Camus offers the myth of the affirmation of oneself - with maximum clarity of mind, with an understanding of the fallen lot, a person must bear the burden of life, not resigning himself to it - self-giving and the fullness of existence are more important than all peaks . The absurd man chooses to rebel against all gods."

Philosophy of Camus in the context of existentialist thought.

The construction and description of the world of an absurd person forces Camus to more carefully and thoroughly analyze those closest to him, i.e. existentialist, concept. Camus admits that the main antinomy that permeates the life of an absurd person - "the clash between irrationality and a frenzied desire for clarity" - in the 19th and 20th centuries. was the subject of deep interest of philosophers and writers, who became "defenders of the rights of the irrational." "From Jaspers to Heidegger, from Kierkegaard to Shestov, from phenomenologists to Scheler, on a logical and moral plane, a whole family of minds related in their nostalgia, opposing each other in goals and methods, fiercely blocks the royal path of reason and tries to find the true path of truth. I proceed here from the fact that the main ideas of this circle are known and experienced. Whatever their claims were (or could be), they all repelled from an ineffable universe where contradiction, antinomy, anxiety and impotence reign."

It deserves to be noted that revealing the origins, prerequisites, main lines of development of existential thought, Camus pays tribute to Russian philosophy and culture. So, he analyzes in sufficient detail one of the earliest forms of existentialism in Europe - the philosophy of L. Shestov, which he often analyzes in a certain typological unity with the work of S. Kierkegaard. From noting Shestov's merits in the criticism of reason, Camus gives his approach a contradictory assessment: "Shestov draws a legitimate conclusion about the futility of reason ... The laws of nature are significant within certain limits, beyond which they turn against themselves and give rise to absurdity. Descriptively, regardless of assessments of their truth as explanations, they are also quite legitimate. Shestov sacrifices all this to the irrational. The elimination of the requirement of clarity leads to the disappearance of absurdity - along with one of the terms of comparison. The absurd person, on the contrary, does not resort to such equations. He recognizes the struggle, does not feel the slightest contempt for reason and admits the irrational. His eye embraces all the data of experience, and he is not disposed to contemplate a leap without knowing in advance its direction. He knows one thing: there is no more room for hope in his mind."

Camus paid special attention to the analysis of images, concepts, ideas of Dostoevsky. Perhaps, among the writers whom Camus calls novelists-philosophers (these are Balzac, Sade, Stendhal, Proust, Malraux, Kafka), he puts Dostoevsky in the first place. His works of art, says Camus, "completely stand under the sign of the absurd," i.e. most clearly and transparently outline the antinomies of the consciousness and actions of an absurd person. “So, in the novels, as in the Diary, an absurd question is posed. They affirm logic that goes right up to death, exaltation, “strange” freedom, royal glory that has become human. Everything is good, everything is permitted, and there is nothing hated: such are the postulates of the absurd. But how amazing is the creativity that made these creatures of ice and fire so understandable to us! The world of passions and indifference that rages in their hearts does not seem monstrous to us at all. We find everyday anxiety in this world. Undoubtedly no one, except Dostoevsky, was able to convey all the intimacy and all the torture of the absurd world.

However, Camus does not accept that main path, which (albeit in different ways) is indicated by Russian philosophers like Shestov and "existentialist writers" like Dostoevsky. Calling on God, seriously promising the kingdom of God and the immortality of the soul, Shestov, Dostoevsky and their other followers artificially remove the tension that they themselves so skillfully, and in the case of Dostoevsky - brilliantly, managed to reproduce. And then it becomes clear that before us is not an absurd writer, that his works are not absurd: they only pose the problem of absurdity. "Dostoevsky's answer is humility or, according to Stavrogin, "baseness". An absurd work, on the other hand, does not provide an answer. That's all the difference." Similar accusations are directed at Kierkegaard, despite the fact that he is recognized as one of the best writers on the absurd. "Christianity, by which he was so intimidated as a child, returns in the end in its most severe form." Kierkegaard, according to Camus, demands "the sacrifice of the intellect". Therefore, all the listed writers and philosophers commit "philosophical suicide": they know about the world of the absurd, about the absurd man, they describe him magnificently, but in the end, by their search for the future, hope, consolation in God, and thanks to them, they seem to cross out the antinomies of the absurd. In this regard, Camus gives a peculiar assessment of Husserl's phenomenology. Camus sees the merit of the latter in the fact that the transcendent power of reason was rejected. Thanks to the phenomena, "the universe of the spirit ... has become unheard of enriched. A rose petal, a boundary post or a human hand has acquired the same significance as love, desire or the laws of gravity. Now thinking does not mean unifying, reducing phenomena to some great principle. Thinking means to learn to see again, to become attentive; it means to control one's own consciousness, to give, in the manner of Proust, a privileged position to every idea or every image. Phenomenology "...opens the whole field of phenomena to the intuition and heart...". Using the example of Husserl, Camus nevertheless wants to clarify that the requirement of clarity, distinctness in relation to the knowledge and development of the world is impossible. Hence the great tragedy of the man who believed in reason. "What I am unable to know is unreasonable. The world is inhabited by such irrationalities."

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

The lonely bachelor Meursault, an office worker and a resident of the Algerian suburbs, is an ordinary man, overwhelmed by boredom and indifference. The mother dies in the orphanage, Meursault goes to the funeral. The next day, life seemed to return to normal. But here Meursault - largely unexpectedly for himself, under the influence of some kind of stupefaction caused by the heat - kills a man. The story is a simple, at first glance, Meursault's story. This short story is written in simple language, brilliantly stylized as the notes of a sincere person who is faced with the threat of death and does not want to hide anything either from himself or from the investigators. Camus contrasts this sincerity with the hypocrisy of the investigation, the ritualism of the actions and judgments of officials. The story "The Outsider" and its author's interpretation (Mursault is convicted because he does not play the game of the people around him, refuses to lie) caused a stormy reaction from readers, gave rise to a whole mountain of responses and interpretations. “Everything looks as if there weren’t an absurd breakdown on the seashore, an “outsider”, you look, and would decide the squaring of the circle of life: how and why to live, if life is an approximation to death. In any case, Camus, who saw in Meursault " a person who, without claiming to be heroic, agrees to die for the truth, "does a lot to inspire faith in the path of solution chosen in the Outsider. And does not achieve what he wants." For we must not forget that the price paid for the unhypocritical, but dangerous following of random impulses and mindsets, for existential insights in a borderline situation is a human life, even two lives, if we count the victim and the "stranger" himself. However, after all, Camus’s intention could be that, having sketched the antinomy between the looseness of human behavior and the need to adhere to the rules of morality and the laws of law external to the individual, showing what tragedy an aggravation of the antinomy can lead to, not offer a solution, leave the question open.

In polemics with other existentialists, Camus raises the issue of his fundamental disagreements with them. The reproach against Jaspers is similar to those directed against Shestov and Kierkegaard. On the one hand, Jaspers "realized that the universe was shaken to its very foundations." On the other hand, having found nothing in experience but the recognition of his own impotence, "Jaspers at once affirms the transcendent being of experience and the superhuman meaning of life ... This reasoning is completely illogical. It can be called a leap."

The dispute between Camus and Sartre is no less important. Sartre, as we have seen, believed that in human existence, existence precedes essence, and that man is entirely responsible for how he formulates his essence. Unlike Sartre, who portrays the human essence as a pure possibility, Camus believes that human existence is initially determined by human nature and contains a set of possibilities that limit human freedom.

As for the dispute with Heidegger, its meaning is deeper than can be judged from direct anti-Heideggerian statements. The point is not only that Camus preferred a transparent, almost classical, sincere, devoid of ambiguity, although constantly paradoxical style of writing and reasoning, to the abstract and abstruse style of Heidegger's Works. The main thing is in those conclusions and grounds that Camus's "philosophy of the absurd" could afford. Perhaps the meaning of this delimitation was expressed most sharply in "Letters to a German friend"Of course, there is no direct polemic with Heidegger. But what is meant is that type of existential philosophizing that deeply and eloquently reveals the drama of the human lot, and then leaves a person alone with despair, so that the path to nationalistic or any other intoxication is left open Camus wrote about his position as follows: “On the contrary, I chose justice for myself in order to remain faithful to the earth. I keep thinking that this world has no higher meaning. But I also know that there is something in him that has meaning, and this is man, for man is the only creature that claims to comprehend the meaning of life. This world is decorated, at least, and our task is to equip it with convincing arguments so that with their help it can fight fate itself ". Thus, sharing the judgment about the inconsistency of traditional humanism, Camus is far from sacrificing humanism as such, to take a nihilistic stance on man and human culture.This brings us to the themes of Camus' deep writing "Rebellious Man".

Philosophical anatomy of rebellion.

"The Rebellious Man" is a multi-layered work, difficult to understand and interpret. Briefly, we can say this: Camus seeks to understand how a person and humanity become capable of murders, wars, through what ideas and concepts their justification is carried out.

Camus recalls the results he achieved in the philosophy of the absurd. Since humanity has become adept at both condemning and defending ("when necessary, inevitable", etc.) wars and murders, it should be recognized that the existing ethics does not provide an unambiguous, logically justified solution to the problem. The rejection of suicide in the philosophy of the absurd indirectly testified that arguments could also be made against murder. But the question still remained unanswered. Now, in The Rebel Man, he was on the agenda. Starting from the philosophy of the absurd, Camus argues, we have come to the conclusion that "the first and only evidence" that is given in the experience of the absurd is rebellion.

"The Rebellious Man" is the first theme of Camus' work under consideration. "This is the man who says no. But, denying, he does not renounce: this is a man who already says “yes” with his first action. "The rebellion of a Roman slave who suddenly refused to obey his master, the suicide of Russian terrorists in hard labor out of protest against mockery of comrades in the struggle - examples from the analysis of which Camus concludes: "In the experience of the absurd, suffering is individual. In a rebellious breakthrough, it acquires the character of a collective existence. It becomes a common undertaking... The evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone. In our daily trials, rebellion plays the same role that the "cogito" plays in the order of thought: rebellion is the first evidence. But this evidence draws the individual out of his loneliness, it is the common thing that underlies the first value for all people. I rebel, therefore we exist.

Camus analyzes the question of "metaphysical rebellion". "A metaphysical rebellion is a man's rebellion against his destiny and the entire universe. This rebellion is metaphysical, since it disputes the ultimate goals of man and the universe." The meaning of metaphysical rebellion is great. At first, rebellion does not encroach on the elimination of God. It's just a "talk on an equal footing". "But this is not about courtly conversation. This is about controversy, inspired by the desire to prevail." Camus traces the stages of metaphysical rebellion - the tendencies gradually emerging in philosophy to "equate" man with God. Then Camus follows an analysis of those forms of rebellion and those "research" of rebellion, which are analyzed using the examples of the work of the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky (he is recognized as one of the best researchers of the "rebellious spirit"), Nietzsche, and surrealist poetry. The main content of the book is an analysis of those forms of rebellion that in the 19th and 20th centuries. turned into devastating revolutions. Camus approaches the "historical revolt" neither as a historian nor as a philosopher of history. He is most interested in what mindsets and ideas pushed (and are pushing) people to regicide, revolutionary unrest, terror, wars, mass destruction of foreigners and fellow tribesmen. Philosophical and socio-political ideas are credited with a truly decisive role in these processes. The philosophy of Hegel and the Hegelians, in a word, varieties of "German ideology" both on German and "Germanized" Russian soil of the 19th century. are carefully studied as the ideological preconditions for destructive revolutionary uprisings. Special attention is paid to Belinsky, Herzen, the Russian nihilists of the 60s, the theoretician of anarchism Bakunin, the populist Nechaev. The chapter "Pickling Killers" dissects the history and ideology of Russian terrorism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Marxism is also analyzed, including its perception on Russian soil. "Rebellion and Revolution" - this theme remains for Camus pivotal throughout his analysis. The connection between the overthrow of principles, the revolutionary upheaval of foundations, and the annihilation of people seems to the author of The Rebellious Man undoubted. "The revolution in the realm of principles kills God in the person of his vicar. The revolution of the 20th century kills what remains of the divine in the principles themselves, and thus sanctifies historical nihilism."

Camus sees similarities between fascism and communism, although he takes into account the differences between them. But there is a similarity, and it stems ultimately from a false philosophy of history, from a call to revolt. "Fascism wanted to institute the advent of the Nietzschean superman. And immediately realized that if God exists, he can be anyone and anything, but above all - the master of death. If a person wants to become God, he must appropriate to himself the right to life and death of others "But, having become a supplier of corpses and subhumans, he himself turned not into God, but into a subhuman, into a vile servant of death. The rational revolution, in turn, seeks to realize the all-man predicted by Marx. But it is worth accepting the logic of history in all its totality, as it will lead the revolution against her own lofty passion, will begin to cripple the person more and more, and in the end she herself will turn into an objective crime.

Despite the harsh criticism of rebellion and revolution, Camus pays tribute to rebellion and revolutionism, since they are generated by the human lot. And therefore, despite the greatest risk and danger, rebelliousness must go through self-criticism and self-restraint. "... The revolutionary spirit of Europe can, for the first and last time, reflect on its principles, ask itself what kind of deviation pushes it towards terrorism and war, and together with the goals of rebellion, gain loyalty to itself." The closing pages of The Rebel Man are hardly convincing. Having brilliantly debunked the rebellious, revolutionary, nihilistic consciousness and action, Camus tried to convince his reader that "true rebellion" and "new revolutionaryism" are possible, free from destructive consequences. And yet, faith in a person who has taken upon himself "the risk and difficulties of freedom", more precisely, faith in millions of singles, "whose creations and works daily deny the boundaries and former mirages of history" - this is what the outstanding writer and outstanding philosopher Albert Camus.