The Plague: Modern life Fendt, Gene
Philosophical investigations,
July 2024, 2024-07-00, 20240701, Volume:
47, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
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The social structures and thought patterns of the modern world are the fruits of the Enlightenment, which begins by eliminating final causal explanations in favour of purely material and efficient ...causes. The development and great technical success of Enlightenment procedures has, however, produced a cultural blindness about the good. Camus's novel shows us this cultural blindness through characters who themselves suffer from it; for modern man, it is almost a natural evil—we are born into it. Camus' hope must have been that the vision of the characters' incapacity might help break us from the same incapacity. What the cured life looks like Camus does not say; in the world of our plague, it appears as either odd or mystery.
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Albert Camus's essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" and its impact on the development of the philosophy of absurdism has been dealt with extensively -- so much so that at a certain point the question arises ...whether anything new can be said about it at all. The article by Dr Jernail S. Anand and Prof. Manminder Singh Anand confirms that novelty of perspective is always possible. In their approach, the authors focus on a little dealt with issue: the parallelism between Camus's philosophical attitude as illustrated by his myth of Sisyphus, and the Karmic philosophy. In their view, Sisyphus's perpetual action of pushing up the boulder which regularly rolls back again resonates with the philosophy of Karma propounded by Lord Krishna, in which man is doomed to life after life and suffering after suffering in the cycle of life and death. But whereas Sisyphus is aware of his condition and his revolt turns to acceptance as the only possible 'strategy' to bear with the absurdity of his existence, the Karma believer is, according to the authors, "unaware, unawakened, a fused bulb which cannot house the electric current, and light up." Paradoxically, Sisyphus seems to get closer to Nirvana (remember Camus's statement "One must imagine Sisyphus happy"), than the Karma believer.
Palabras claves: pensamiento realista, verdad, belleza, contemplación, diálogo Abstract This book, Camus in Dialogue with Christian Authors on Key Issues, was conceived in relation with the encyclic ...Fides et ratio (1997). Camus was very concerned during his life with points of contact between his views and the catholic faith known by him but not shared. In my study I ask these and other Christian authors to meet Camus in a dialogue which will be possible in a basic intention of truth on both sides. Sensible a su paisaje natal, mediterráneo, donde la luz se derrama sobre el mar infinito y el sol influye en la tierra que produce plantas de intensos olores y coloridos, Camus experimentó desde el principio el atractivo de esta naturaleza lujosa, lujuriosa:
Albert Camus’ Philosophy of Love Neiman, Paul G.
Philosophical investigations,
July 2021, 2021-07-00, 20210701, Volume:
44, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Albert Camus does not provide a direct or sustained exploration of romantic love. Instead, love is addressed only indirectly in The Myth of Sisyphus, and sporadically in other writings. This article ...analyses the experience of absurdity in love. Absurdity clears away the social, cultural, and philosophical ideals of love to focus on the actual experience of love. With this in mind, a positive account of Camus’ philosophy of love is developed from several different works. This shows that Camus’ philosophy of love centres on the biological feelings of love, which are temporary, non‐exclusive, and do not imply commitment.
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Overlooked historical sources call into question the standard narrative that the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Furman v. Georgia (1972), which temporarily abolished the death penalty, ...reflected a challenge to its arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory application. This Article examines materials that scholars have neglected, including the main brief in Aikens v. California, a companion case to Furman that presented the fundamental constitutional claim: the death penalty is inherently cruel and unusual. Aikens was largely forgotten to history after it became moot, leaving Furman as the main case before the Court. The Aikens brief's humanistic claims and rhetoric are at odds with the widespread idea that Furman was a case about administrative or procedural problems with capital punishment. This is truer of the Furman decision itself than of the way the case was litigated. Depicting any execution as "barbarity," as an "atavistic horror," the Aikens brief marshaled an argument that has garnered much less traction in modern America than Europe: the death penalty is an affront to human dignity. Yet the transatlantic divergence in framing abolitionism was not always as pronounced as it came to be in Furman 's aftermath. Since the Enlightenment, American and European abolitionists had long emphasized normative arguments against capital punishment, thereby revealing why they played a central role in Aikens-Furman. Strikingly, the Aikens brief insistently quoted a European figure whose role in this seminal Supreme Court case has received no attention: Albert Camus. Reflections on the Guillotine, Camus 's denunciation of the death penalty 's inhumanity, is among the sources prominently featured in the man briefs. The of this strategy was Anthony Amsterdam, a famed litigator. Subsequent generations of American abolitionists have placed less weight on humanistic objections to executions, instead stressing procedural and administrative claims. This shift has obscured how a lost chapter in death penalty history unfolded. These events are key to understanding the evolution of capital punishment, from its resurgence in the late twentieth century to its present decline as the number of executions nears record lows. On Furman 's fiftieth anniversary, the Article offers another window into the past as scholars anticipate a future constitutional challenge to the death penalty in one or two generations.
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The novel highlights the versa-tility of 'detective fiction and how through subversion and the intentional breaking of the genre's rules and boundaries the author can construct aform ofresistance. ......an investigation into the intention and effect of Houellebecq's use of the detective novel'will help us see how this particular genre shapes his narration and themes. According to Diana Holmes: "crime writing as a genre works varia-tions on narrative structures so recurrent, pervasive and satisfying that they could be described as mythical" (12). Other critics have identified the importance of Houellebecq's play with genre, most notably Douglas Morreyinhis book length study Michel Houellebecq: Humanity and itsAftermath: "Houellebecq's style appears crucial to the elusive nature of his writing: his unstable register and his shifting focalisation" (35). The traditional detective novel generally presets a clearly defined crime (generally a murder), a wrongly accused suspect, the clueless and antagonistic police, powerfully observant and superior-minded detective, all arriving at a startling and unexpected denouement, in which the detective reveals how the identity of the culprit was ascertained.
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Abstract (English) The research that has been conducted into W.F. Hermans’ novel Ik heb altijd gelijk seems to be overly focused on the scandal caused by the anti-Catholic statements Lodewijk Stegman ...makes in the first chapter. This narrowed scope does not do the novel justice, because it contains more intriguing aspects. Lodewijk Stegman is completely void of ideology, and not only opposed to Catholicism but to communism as well. Hermans proclaims his novel to be ‘against everything’. In 1947, when Hermans is working on Ik heb altijd gelijk, he writes an article about the French philosopher Albert Camus, showing his admiration for the latter. This is peculiar, since Hermans is usually characterized as a nihilist; yet in 1947 he seems to be influenced by absurdist ideas. This article tries to explain how absurdist ideas function in Ik heb altijd gelijk and subsequently offers a suggestion on how we should interpret the term ‘scheppend nihilisme’
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