The Strange, Absurd World and the Stranger Glancing from the Mirror: On the Motifs of Estrangement in Albert Camus’s Writings

Maciej KAŁUŻA

Department of the Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University, ul. Grodzka 52, 31-044 Cracow, Poland , Poland

Abstract

The article discusses the sources and the specificity, as well as the evolution, of the category of ‘estrangement’ in Albert Camus’s writings. In Camus’s early essays the feeling of estrangement is the starting point of philosophical reflections which manifest the ultimate need to confront the condition in question, in particular in the sphere of human relations. While Camus’s early reflections are inspired by philosophy of existence as well as by the problem of the absurd, he remains faithful to the idea which he articulated already in 1938, in his review of Sartre’s Nausea, that both the experience of the absurd and the accompanying experience of estrangement must be considered as the point of departure for further philosophical reflection rather than its conclusion.

The body of the article comprises a discussion of the most significant turns in Camus’s intellectual confrontation with the category of estrangement in the course of the development of his conception of value-creating revolt. Camus’s intellectual progression shows his conviction that estrangement, at least in the sphere of human relations, may be overcome by way of dialogue.