PHIL 180 Lecture 16: Camus on Meaning of Life
Document Summary
Albert camus (1913 1960) was a french author, philosopher, and journalist who was awarded the nobel prize for literature in 1957. His most famous works were the novels la. Peste (the plague) and l" tranger (the stranger) and the philosophical essay the myth of. He died in a car accident in france. The rest is secondary, says camus, because no one dies for scientific or philosophical arguments, usually abandoning them when their life is at risk. Yet people do take their own lives because they judge them meaningless or sacrifice them for meaningful causes. This suggests that questions of meaning supersede all other scientific or philosophical questions. As camus puts it: i therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. [i] What interests camus is what leads to suicide. This rejection of life emanates from deep within, and this is where its source must be sought.
