The Philosophy of Camus: Through a Kierkegaardian Lens

Although Albert Camus is recognised as an important novelist and political commentator, he is often still underrated as a philosopher. Camus' Philosophy, focussing on Camus' explicitly philosophical writings, provides a detailed examination of his intellectual development, and argues that his work constitutes a coherent, carefully argued meditation on central philosophical themes. A systematic comparison of Camus with Soren Kierkegaard provides an interpretive lens through which Camus' central philosophical concerns are brought into focus.

Camus' three thematic "cycles" - dealing with Absurdity, Revolt and Love/Nemesis - are compared and contrasted with Kierkegaard's three "stages of life" - the aesthetic, ethical and religious. Anthony Rudd argues that the Absurd in Camus refers primarily to an experience of the world as lacking Meaning, in a broadly religious sense, which Camus sees as entailing a radical amoralism. Rudd compares this outlook to Kierkegaard's "aestheticism", before considering the reasons for Camus' eventual rejection of Absurdist amoralism for the ethical philosophy which Camus develops in
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