The Existentialism of Albert Camus

okay well today we're going to be talking about exists centrality existential ISM is a movement that gained a great deal of I'm gonna put Fame and became highly attractive to people around the time of the Second World War and for a couple decades thereafter so from the 40s through the 60s this was a very prominent philosophical movement it actually started earlier you can argue the Kierkegaard who's an existentialist a lot of people see Nietzsche as a proto existentialist the first person I think of as really fully an existentialist is probably Martin Heidegger although it will see there were significant differences between Heidegger's thought and the thought of Albert Camus and John Paul Sartre or for that matter Simone de Beauvoir various other famous existentialist writers but the questions at least being asked are very similar so at that point this movement began to sort of lose steam although it's still very much alive in Woody Allen movies but many events here are some of the main works of this tradition don't wolf Arts Being and Nothingness caboose myth of sisyphus variety plays like you were novels like the stranger to play Sartre wrote a novel nausea and so this is something expressed in philosophical works but also in works of literature and dependent thinking spreading the idea the works of literature were probably more influential than the philosophical works and for that matter movies made industry sure maybe even more influential than that the most famous existentialist did jean-paul Sartre pictured there he was born in 1905 and so in the 40s he was roughly 40 years old it said the central problem he says is really existence and in particular luck what does it mean does life have a meaning does it mean anything to exist both he and Camus think the meaning of life is really the central philosophical question now philosophers throughout history you know that's a sort of natural thing to think philosophers draw this for him and thought Aristotle starts to question what is there but what are the basic categories of things that exist and lots of philosophers and lots of traditions have begun with the question what should I do what kind of person should I be some philosophers have been concerned especially with knowledge and so up said what can i know how can I know what is knowledge anyway this is a different kind of Western what does it mean to be alive what does it mean to exist does life have any meaning at all now Sartre unlike some earlier writers who end up concluding that well life does have a meaning in various ways do you think's in the end this question is kind of an anthro and so major themes are absurdly number one the fact that we're constantly confronted with things in life that don't seem to have any meaning that undermine any meaning we have try to assign our lives and also then a resulting alienation I feel alienated from the world from other people from myself and so there's a distance that opens up between me and the world between me and you between me and myself in trying to understand myself because I counter something absurd I encounter something forward to me something opaque wherever I try to actually understand it instead of feeling unified with the world I end up feeling apart from a stranger in this world Camus in fact begins the myth of Sisyphus with a very dramatic state the most fundamental philosophical question says is the question of suicide it's really connecting the face to this question of whether life has a meaning if you think life as meaning you're willing to overcome all sorts of adversity you're willing to face difficulties you're willing to go to suffering but if in the end the suffering the adversity convinces you the life meaning that suicide becomes an attractive option and so he parked he's concerned with the psychological question why do some people commit suicide but in a certain sense his question is really more abstract than that is life worth living if it has a meaning then perhaps it's worth living but if it has no meaning he's worried that maybe it's not now in a way his answer is going to be well it doesn't really have any intrinsic meaning but it's worth living anything so it starts out as it is assuming that this question of suicide the question of the meaning of life are really the same question by the end they come apart it will turn out he says that the real question is is life worth living and his answer is going to be an emphatic yes even if in the end it doesn't have a meaning in itself apart from something we'd end up in solitude but here's the traditional view that I want to contrast the existential human this is really the view of Aristotle but a lot of traditional philosophy is based on a similar sort of you human beings strive toward happiness now some people have a very narrow conception of happiness Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill consider it simply pleasure in the absence of pain but there are small things of it much more broadly as United Ian is living well as flourishing thriving okay fulfilling your human potential and fulfill your human function is on there what it is to be excellent as a human being is to fulfill our function about but that raises an important question what its function what army for we've considered that question in relation to Mars where we thought Marx has an answer it's we make things we produce things that's really what's really distinctive of us that's really our function we've seen other possible answers aerosol says well it really comes down to what's distinctive about us as human beings how do we differ from other animals the answer is be engaged in rational activity we act according to rational planets now it might be that other animals are capable of activity factor of their people activity are they capable of rational activity well maybe within a very short timeframe the cat knows what to do remind me that's time for dinner and so on but on the other hand is not very complicated we are capable of concocting plans for the future and actually acting on those plans we're capable of long-range planning and animals whatever they're capable of seemed to be restricted for a very short timeframe cats might think oh I want to eat in the next five minutes they're not good at thinking I like to be doing a year I think the cat has a plan for its life in the width human being some plans for their lives and if you doubt this episode of the room it doesn't want to leave its scratches very impatiently at the door and if you say relax I'll be back back in an hour it is anyway we're capable of acting according to rational plans we're capable of thinking in long radius turns and acting and this basic idea naturalism is ends up beating us to the conclusion that we do have a purpose we do have a function namely rational activity if you want to evaluate our lives as successful or unsuccessful look at the extent to which we excel in rational activity now Sartre has a different thesis in fact what gives this movement its name existentialism is the thesis that existence precedes essence what he means by that is that we exist without any inherit without any intrinsic essence and then anything that becomes our function any meaning we assign members is secondary existence is first what that means is we really don't have any essence we really don't have any intrinsic function if we ask what are we for and Aristotle says to engage in rational activity and mark says to make things to produce and someone whose religious let's say says to glorify God and to stand it's a relational sort says we don't have what are we for I don't know okay and it's not just by the way my skepticism we can't be sure but before he is really saying beyond for anything we just exist our being is what it is okay and there is no function we are designed to fulfill we're not really here with any assigned purpose so what would be an analogy for that somebody who really doesn't know close no actually I can't think what 1776 a movie they sort of say about the founding of the United States and the Declaration of Independence at one point a delegation from one of the colonies comes in and says some cognitive Congress we're here without instructions okay in other words we often been asked by our legislature to vote for independence against independence we have no instructions we're just here okay and that might be a good analogy for what we are all like before disarmed we come without instructions we have no purpose and so you might think where's the owners meant for this body where is the manual that tells me what to do this life he says there is no owners man okay there's no essence there's no function the religious person might say I read the Bible of it Aristotle might say listen it's all about happiness so let me teach you longer so you'll be good with the right civility part let me teach you more over truth so you go to the Activity part Sartre says there's no man there is no function it's all up to you now in a way that's an exciting prospect we're free to choose our purpose we're truth free to choose our so we're not given anything intrinsically you're not bound by any essence in a sense the religious person look the essence of you is to be in a relationship with God that already restricts what you ought to be doing with your life the same thing with Aristotle you should be acting according to rational plans that restricts what you do with your life Marx make things produce things that's something that gives you direction but also restricts what you do with your life but Sartre says do whatever you want you don't hang on to the Eternity purpose you are free to define yourself write your own owners man we've seen an idea like that before I did become the puppet of yourself you are the author of your destiny that was a theme we saw in beard oh yeah the characters in search of an author and so you'd say Pirandello has a sort of existential approach to things we are all characters in search of an author we are all people's work really in the position of being able to craft our own lives and decide our own folk decide what defines success or failure or meaning in general for us it follows that we're exactly free and in fact existentialist love putting characters in these plays and novels in situations where they seem to have no freedom at all where the on death row for example or they're sitting in a little room that might be purgatory or might be heaven or might be hell they can't get out but all of that is a way of saying well even in situations where it looks like you have no freedom you're stuck in a room and you can't get out you're stuck in a cell on death row nevertheless you are rapidly free it's not a question of externally what you can do what you can't it's a question of your mind and how you can see the real life the meaning you assigned your life so there's a distinction starts draw start draws it's what he's getting in part from Heidegger it's a distinction that is based on the difference really at the end between a first-person view of life and a third-person view says look if you take this third person view and his name for that is facticity or being in itself it looks like other thing are in themselves they are what they are they have an essence and our past is like that too our past is unchangeable it's something that is what it is and we can't do anything about so if I look at the inanimate objects for example if they're like this I look at gosh what my sunglasses and do they have a purpose okay they all be see in bright light I think I can't see you when I take my glasses off with my dark glasses I can really see anyway that's something that yeah but they are what they are right I can't read they can't change that it's not like the Sun buses could say you know I'm tired filtering light I'm gonna do something else I've decided to take up the guitar classes can't do right thing they are what they they can't make up any block there - it'll be different they're fixed their essences fix they can't change and the same thing is true my own path so I can't change that but I exist for much that first person view of me in the present and thinking about the future that's different I can define the meaning of my life however I want now admittedly I'm constrained by my circumstances and constrained by my past in certain ways but in other ways I am radically free I am capable of deciding I'm going to be a totally different person now I am going to cast aside my past and do something completely different so I exist for myself not for anything else not for a day not for rational activity not for production I'll exist for me and I get to define what my identity Charles Taylor who is sympathetic to the existentialist puts it this way we are self interpreting animals we are capable our lives we interpret what we do there's no built-in interpretation it's not as if there is no manual that tells you how to interpret human lives when they succeed when they fail we are self interpreting we write the individual families themselves well I mentioned that the first person who really sounds a lot of these existential themes I think it puts them together in a package so it looks a lot like what come let's start to say his Martin Heidegger a German philosophers he wrote a great work in 1927 called being in time it is a long working as a difficult work but it lays out many of the themes that then Sartre and Camus pick up so I'm going to talk for a few minutes about time now later Heidegger joins the Nazi Party there's one is described as a turn into spot really I think a series of turns and he had the running a lot of crazy stuff but that early work seems to be valuable and introduces a number of important philosophical themes even though shortly thereafter he really starts going off in a very different direction in any case but key concept for him is something called das sind das eine is well company sort of the german words there and be so literally translated would be just being there and it really is he uses it something like consciousness now I think one problem with the work is that it's ambiguous whether this is an individual consciousness or consciousness in German but in any of that he says this is up evening doesn't simply occur among other beings rather and is optically distinguished if it's me this thing is concerned about this very meeting this is him laying out that vision of that first-person perspective that idea of being formed itself it is a strange kind of beat the sunglasses exist for me okay but is in a way that is concerned about my very being I can reflect on the meaning of my own life I could say what is it all about anyway the sunglasses can't do no other sort of animal could really do this we can ask questions about the meetings of our lives and in a sense what defines human consciousness is that capacity for reflection that ability to ask about our own meaning to think about our own lives and that's where I know he says things in the world aren't like they just present themselves to the things themselves he says they aren't just appearances of something else no they were just sort of the optics of the manifest image they are the things that we just take seriously and they're the primary existence they were a bit hard they are however we're not just one of those things we understand ourselves in terms of our own existence in terms of the possibilities we have the possibility to be itself or not be itself by the way above this if you start looking at it carefully you realize that's really hard to understand what is he talking about Tiger feels like that he's really Clark country spent but the existential question is really to be or not to be is it something now we see canoes idea the fundamental Western is to be or not to be but also this question of possibility thinking about the point of living the meaning of life that's something that is really distinctive of the human perspective so what makes us human he's saying is that ability to ask about the meanings of our lives to be self interpretive to think wait a minute what is it all about why is life worth living only we are really people Wester now I give my life meaning he says I can do that and how do I do it by selecting certain projects I think I'm gonna call it and that gives my life meaning for a time actually wait are you graduate you will suddenly find it charming because this project takes up years of your life and you'll think when I graduate it's gonna be so and you will okay and then later you think huh no and it mean maybe a long big plan now maybe it's like well now I go to medical school or maybe it will be like that I have that job but for a lot of it's gonna be like huh Wow okay I had that through experience when I got tenure it's like what I will not probably get tenure at the University well okay so I work and I publish and I do all this stuff and so I was 29 when I got tenure and then I flee now or later I wanted to become chairman and so I became chairman of the department and that's thing huh now chairman I'm the boss awesome so what do we do right it's like okay that was a project but now you need a new project and I gotta figure now there's something else that's the height of your stress is here when I select these projects for myself going to college or getting this job or doing that sort of thing all that's fine and all but gives a meaning to my life but how do I select those things and keep in mind that although Sark legasus I'm graphically free to do anything I want right I've got a horizon repulsive a range of possibilities that are open to me there are some things that I cannot be there are other things though that I can be even if it involves a radical break from what I did that has now when they think about that he says it's crucially connected to another point about human life I am thrown into this world it's one of his most fundamental laws this idea being thrown there it is a dream gabor from the throne that I experienced what does he mean by that well I'm in the world but it's not in a way of my own making I didn't choose to be born I didn't choose to be born at this particular point in time or where I was or the gender or the race that I am I didn't choose to actually have a lot of aspects of the character that I have they were just given to me okay I just found myself in a certain place at a certain time with certain characteristics built-in they were not things I could change now lots of things about my life I can change but there are some things that are just dead I was born in 1955 I kind of changed I can't say oh but it would have been a lot better be born I drove it sorry Susan Wright that was just given us and so there are lots of things just get it we're thrown into the world in a way that we can't do much anything about Miss Lee and he says my promise is something that gives me the sense that is sequence I've been delivered over that is to say somehow I am NOT under control of things now I will take more and more control of my life as I make decisions choose projects but it's always against that background well I'm in this place that I didn't choose I've got a range of possibilities that I didn't choose so certain aspects of this or not under my control for example I was born in 1955 I was born in Pittsburgh so there was a certain setting that was part of my heart I didn't choose that I couldn't change that I was born actually that's the main building of the University of Pittsburgh where I got my PhD I was born about a mile away from that building so high throw was boring got my PhD in the places but unlike pop I did travel more than ten miles from the place of my burden but I ended up sorting the back at the same place yes and you know there are lots of aspects of back up for a meeting about the house I lived in is a little kid this is one of the foreman of events of my childhood sure date seven 1960 World Series listen I got to tell you this because this is also an awesome story about things that fell into my lap okay my elementary school had one telly and my first-grade teacher had the presence of mind to request that one television at the very beginning of September for a science program the afternoon of the last game of the World Series she was an optimist she thought Pirates are gonna win the pennant and they're gonna be in the World Series and it's gonna games she thought well the sack weeks in advance okay she wanted to make sure our class would have that television so this game was on the entire elementary school crowds into our room I remember sitting at a desk thank you I'm really lucky down the desk you become like the principal's there all these other teachers a bit of Dare classic coming we probably have four humming people in this room built a whole 30s everybody's like this we're all watching that tape anyway yeah I was born into a certain family here's my mom okay so anyway none of that was really well some aspects of this or something I mean my wife is in those pictures so part of that is focus but lots parts of that I didn't really choose and so what does that mean well it does mean according to Heidegger that I have choices I can choose the meaning of my own life but always within this background this is arisin that in many ways has been given to me but I did not choose and so for Heidegger I'm tree even I'm not really radically free because after all my choices are really framed for me to learn sent by my throne this into the world well the office art takes this further because he says look it doesn't really matter where you were born or what race you are or you know what your family characteristics were like all of that stuff that's not what matters what really matters is your conception of your own life whether you think of your life is worth leading living and what kind of meaning you assigned to it and that is something you're free to do no matter what your circumstances are so even if you're gonna settle on death row even if you're born in a certain place in time you can define your meaning for everyone so he says you're not really yes in material terms literally yes you're pounded by that horizon you can't change the circumstances of your birth but he says that has nothing with the meaning you assign your life that's something that you are capable of doing independently evolved so he says sometimes you do just what what you think people want you to do a lot of our actions are undertaken because other people make us or at least give us the thought that that would be a good thing to do but he says really the key thing is to act off entik that is to say because you choose to do it not because someone else is for you to do it to act because you choose it and pull the advance the responsibility of that choice that is what it is authentically well there's an interesting issue here I think that arises because if there are aspects of my life that are simply given to me if I'm thrown into the world with certain things I'm not responsible for what is my attitude about those things Heidegger says well really it over 4,000 to become fully aware of itself yes it has to embrace those given aspects and so it's important that I embrace all that I not reject it it come to accept it it is natural for me to appeal in this form for me to feel alienated from it and yet in the end for me to develop my personality I need to embrace it I need to say yeah I'm that guy born in 1955 in Pittsburgh a Pittsburgh pirate fan it's that's important for renewing breaks cat movies will see says actually no I have inevitably going to revolt against it those things are given to me I feel them as a prison the natural response is to repel and cancel and so my freedom consists in my rebellion against those things that are we given elements of my nature now if you're a lot of attitudes in between you might think well look except those who turn to strong reason to reject or just hold them apart neither embrace me nor rhythms returned him until you have some strong reasons the terms for some of these attitudes are boyk aphelion as opposed to like a phobia Waco's coming from the greek meaning basically for works are not important what zone and then feeling of being full of an opiate the fear or hatred so it's a question of one's own the things that you're sort of given do naturally embrace those things and love them and take them off as part of your characters or are they things to you or to reject basically the first option is the height across to embrace those things take the throne the severe nature and embracing whereas the latter is really take those things that you're given those from the suspects and reject push them away Heidegger does have an argument for why he thinks that any historical thinking politically or by your own life is very dangerous but now let's go back to a really central theme in the theater we've seen this in peridot for example our existence that is to say the fact that it has no intrinsic meaning it has no meaning other than the one who cares so here we see a little bit why do we do well I realize that existence precedes essence and she was free to kill all the or gods or I'll read the existential cat if you've never watched any of these videos you've got to watch them they take a while and so I don't want to do it right now in class but click on this for just google only the existential cat they are wonderful they could pay this existential attitude it's as if the cat is being filmed and when these French movies from the 40s or 50s or we do sometimes confront absurd we're seeking meaning and we can't find it all of a sudden ordinary whatever engaged in these projects our project is giving our lives meaning things go on with that but occasionally we run into these things that come who calls absurd walls places where we collide with the meaninglessness of life the meaninglessness of reality and so we find out that it's are paradoxical phrase were not what we are we are what we are not what he really means is that what I am now is not what I'm really truly now my essence is something that is free to choose it's a question of that open future that horizon I have to understand me and myself in terms of that horizon when our am math is not really what I most truly am that is a question of the possibilities for instruction and so I am what I am it sounds ridiculous but the point is look I am NOT intrinsically what I am right now I have this great field of possibilities open to me and what well it's really a bead that is self interpreting that has a rattle freedom to choose what I have and so I am something that is not what I am at well yes here is another way of looking at this the confrontation with absurdity I know ever every disrobe oh yeah building attended collections these points yeah I know the New York I mean we still probably losing something no appointments in general sure you satisfied deep magpie like urges by building neat collections but you still die over sorry sometimes it mistake your existential crises for technical it's sometimes I distinct this for a universe that cares actually speaking effect today I got invited to the Mewtwo raid when I did the cat right behind me first throw perfect there wasn't it starts 24th Street you had to be invited only people who was wasted huge upper roof I was going to raise a very playful spider but anyway yeah hey consecutive Greek bricks excellent curveball throws every time well the first act of bad thing sorry says is to flee what you cannot leave took me what is okay what is bad faith it's really a question of not taking responsibility to yourself not recognizing that what you are is really up being an almost a little bit of potential instead trying to think you are what you have become already that what you are is defined by your past or defined by those elements of your thoroughness you're given birthplace time gender race everything all of that is something yes it's a part of you but it's not something that really is essentially part of you it's all something that can be rejected or something that can be embraced the feel the possibility that is open to you is everyone not totally why you can't decide you have been born later or earlier but it's very wide and so that fate is thinking these things are just given I don't have any choice and no you always have a choice so sense freedom it's a radical sort of thing we are condemned to be free why condemned because it would be easier if we were just assigned a purpose if it was really like hey here's your job here's your job to make or produce okay but now here's your job to be like ooh that's her I'm condemned to make up my own meaning yeah yes in fact on the CFT is another person who sometimes considered a programming suspensions there were log things in dusty SP that expressed and expressed here as well that notion of my freedom to define my own meaning to define my own choices I think number of characters in Dostoyevsky novel so really existentialist before there was a name for that sort of it another question yeah that's a good question to be or not to be you know that I'm taking that from Shakespeare is Shakespeare a proto existentialist in particular that comes from Hamlet and so if you think about Hamlet I'm not saying Shakespeare was this is really an existentialist but if you think about Hamlet actually Hamlet's undergoing an existential crisis let's not go through the entire plan please yeah there's a lot but but right I mean in a sense he's a great example of somebody undergoing just this existential crisis where he encounters an absurd wall yeah thinks his life is about certain thing but all these problems are eyes and a book he's confronting absurd wall that perserve law and then he has to face that existential question to be or not to be and so I think Sartre Camus Heidegger would all look at Hamlet as somebody who is exactly like their bureaus in a variety of works confronting that question what meaning if any does my life now happen well I do have a choice of self I could be who I want to be so it says and that gives me responsibility what happens to me happens Ruby I could neither affect myself with it nor gets it or resign myself to it so really here he's saying actually Heidegger's wrong and Camus is wrong and so on in the end about this but I have to recognize these mind if I embrace things it is my responsibility if I reject things that is my responsibility whatever I do it is fully my responsibility and he takes this to an extreme look he says hey if there's a war going on it's my war I have responsibility for it he's writing this during the second world war he says look I gotta admit my responsibility why I mean it's not like Sartre started I needed in Poland but nevertheless he says I am a lot I have another way I could always commit suicide I could always just escape to some South East Island if this is my word of involved in it because I've chosen well yes they're all so silly or cartoons but that's not going pretty good death actually I like this fill up up with water a bit you think you walk around up and you're pour the water around it's up to you take the simple suit well finally we get to a bear cub Camus is an Algerian Loren French writer he is the first person to win the Nobel Prize for Literature he was African born he was also the second youngest the youngest was Kipling but then Kevin shortly thereafter and as you can see he is the archetype of the dashing French philosopher I mean awesome team with a cigarette all the songs corrupted in Paris well as the young man he joined the Communist Party but he was really too independent minded to be a firm member he was broken up back two years later that became an anarchist and a pacifist but when the Germans invaded France beginning of the Second World War he gave up his pacifism and said join the French Resistance now all of that can look a bit inconstant but one thing that I think is very interesting about canoes history is that he does learn from experience he tries out various ideas when something happens that he can't reconcile with that set of ideas he abandons them he doesn't suppress that he just says already kicking my mother no his idea he's really the person who most develops the steam absurd he says well any treatment the feeling of absurdity that can strike any man nervous as it is it's distressing nudity is elusive but that very difficulty deserves reform okay there are moments where you just confront this absurdity and as means it can happen at any moment what what happens well the stage sets collapse rising Street for Howard hours at the office of the factory meal streetcar four hours of work meal sleep Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday according to the same rhythm this path is easily followed most of the time but then one day the buy arises and everything begins with that weariest tins with amazing so you're just going through the motions you go through the routine right okay it's Friday so I'm supposed to be in class and so on and you just do that and all of a sudden at some point you just confront something often something that's unexpected you sell me supply my doodles what's this all about it's that sir here's another place where we encounter absurdity he says a man notices he's 30 he asserts his youth but simultaneously situates himself in relation to time he takes his place in it he admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to attend he belongs to time and both horror that seizes him recognizes his worst enemy time is the monkey on her backs one of my teachers used to say tomorrow he was longing for tomorrow whereas everything in Nevada reject that revolt of the flat is the absurd when you're young you want to be over right there's seven years old you look at those kids who are eight or nine you think oh oh yeah I'm ready for Nam and then you're eight or nine you think oh well there's really cool kids were like 14 and then when you're 14 it's like all those kids were 18 really I figured out that when you're 80 is like oh you know to be 24 that'd be great then you have 25 and then you're then you're like 28 my age or that denseness of the world you look at something and you realized that sort of thing is radically foreign to me all of a sudden you look at the table and say and you just appreciate its strangeness and you think you know there's something weird about this all these things I'm surrounded by in the world but I don't really understand like what is that trying to figure that out but we look at various things about the somebody tells me there's something weird about that and there were just strange to me anyway certain things happen that just induce in me the sudden feeling of nausea not nausea in this physical senses merrily but there's something about life is just in human says you're watching somebody would say talk on the telephone behind a glass partition you can't hear it but you see is in comprehensible so you know what they're like this is this suffering in the face of man no need you've ended this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are this nausea today's are both is also the absurdity or the stranger you meet okay in the mirror you look in the mirror and you suddenly see yourself and you realize oh that guess where you see yourself in a bug breath and you think that's okay that's two is the observed but ultimately it's the mathematical aspect of things it's that we're all headed toward death we are all terminally ill and ultimately destined to die and he says at that point the uselessness of everything becomes evident no code of ethics no effort Agusta pilot offer your and the face of the cruel mathematics to command our conditions so what kind of make a note life and I feel but otherwise it's hard to say what I know I feel like I'm a stranger to myself I do not know myself and when Socrates says know thyself I don't know how to do it that's completely useless this very heartless mother will forever remain in the final to me so the absurd is something that has to do with my connection in the world well I want to understand the meaning of life the meaning of the world but in the end I can't really do it it doesn't kappa if it has some meaning it to his friends as my ability to know I can't make any sense oh there are all sorts of ways in which we can from the absurd but the real question is what do we do about he says here's what I want to do I will without a deal with our people - something else to justify what I'm doing I want to appeal only to myself I can create my own meaning there's no outside Authority or standard I have to live up to or that I can use this guide in the end up I am condemned to be free I have to define meaning for myself so I have to live without appeal I can't appeal to Scripture I can't appeal to some philosophy I can't appeal to anything else to give money into my life I have to create that mean and so my publicist or rabbi revolts my freedom my passion it is all mine everything I do is something I only chose the point is so live well you might worry about this attitude not going to conclude with this he had two bucks but he was also a link to many other good so 1959 he brings to his mistress say I'll certainly be back to Paris says this frightful separation will left and made us feel more than ever because indeed we have reached the next state tell you know I'm ready Tuesday I'm so happy at the idea to see you again I'm laughing as I write the next day see you Tuesday my dear kissing you over I bless you from the bottom of my heart then another letter sending up a deep to New York [Music] yeah they're mostly beautiful actress so it's good to be an existentialist step

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

Views: 7,684

Rating: 4.9358287 out of 5

Keywords: Albert Camus, Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger

Id: 5UpVYUPHyl8

Length: 44min 23sec (2663 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017