DE Weekly: Camus, Absurdism, & Revolt
Below is an archived email originally sent on April 6, 2026.
Camus, Absurdism, & Revolt
One of the first names mentioned when one discusses the great philosophers of Existentialism is Albert Camus. There are those, however, who say that Camus was neither a real philosopher nor an Existentialist. One such person who claimed to believe both of those things was Camus himself.
“Why am I an artist and not a philosopher?” Camus wrote in his Notebooks, 1942–1951. “Because I think according to words and not according to ideas.”
This is not out of the ordinary for philosophers in history: Jean-Paul Sartre, too, rejected the term “existentialist” to describe his philosophy, and did not consider himself one either.
Be that as it may, when people ask me which existentialist philosopher they should read for an introduction to the field, I typically recommend Camus. So, in today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why Camus is, in fact, a philosopher and, at least tangentially, an existentialist, as well.
Born in 1913 in French Algeria, Camus bore the labels novelist, writer, author, journalist, political activist, and humanist––all the labels, it would seem, but existentialist.
And yet, while he either thought his body of work not coherent or defined enough to be called philosophy or he simply did not want to confine himself to any one label, it has since been treated as the foremost example of a philosophy that would not have existed without Camus: Absurdism.
Camus’s absurdism posited that there is an “unreasonable silence” in the universe, and that human existence is inherently meaningless because the universe offers no meaning. Where the “absurdity” arises from is the fact that our human nature creates in us an insatiable desire for some kind of meaning in life; that the universe offers none is the ultimate complement to this absurdity.
Similar ideas were expressed by the existentialists of Camus’s day, as well, but Camus differentiated himself by expressing a proper response to this absurdity: revolt.
Is your reaction to a “meaningless” world to commit suicide, or to surrender to false hope (philosophical suicide)? Well, that would be wrong, Camus says. Instead, the right thing to do is to revolt: to fully engage with your freedom in life and live passionately, fully, and defiantly in the face of absurdity.
I find it necessary to pause here and mark an important distinction about Camus’s absurdism, namely, it is not intended to be nihilistic.
In fact, Camus was adamant about the fact that we cannot allow ourselves to succumb to nihilism. For him, it was actually existentialism, not absurdism, which ran the risk of leading to nihilism.
The reason for this was that Camus believed existentialists “betrayed” themselves by appealing to a transcendent “something” beyond the limits of the human condition. He believed that they endorsed a type of escapism which took our focus away from life and projected it onto something that doesn’t exist.
If we allowed ourselves to do that, Camus argued, it would lead to nihilism, because we would be engaged in a hopeless search (for inherent meaning in a universe where there is none).
In his book-length essay The Myth of Sisyphus, which I think is a masterfully written philosophical treatise if there ever was one, Camus writes that, try as we might, we cannot separate ourselves from “this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion” (51).
The existentialists essentially believed the same. Always seeking to distance himself from them, though, Camus wrote further that “The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits” (49).
In other words, it is our human nature to seek a cohesive meaning in life, but we would do well to realize our limits and live accordingly.
It was Sartre, in a review of Camus’s The Stranger, who I believe put it best: “The absurd, to be sure, resides neither in man nor in the world, if you consider each separately. But since man’s dominant characteristic is ‘being in the world,’ the absurd is, in the end, an inseparable part of the human condition.”
Any philosopher can harp on the mysteries of life and the shortcomings of their philosophical predecessors to appropriately confront these mysteries, but not all philosophers end up supplying a good way of working past these shortcomings to live life fully.
Why I believe Camus is indeed both a philosopher and an existentialist is that, in his case, he actually did.
He presented three choices as a response to the tragic, absurd disharmony between our human condition and the universe. The first two I’ve already mentioned: physical suicide and philosophical suicide. Neither of these will do, though.
The third (and only logical) choice Camus presented was to accept the absurdity of life––to embrace it––and to continue living.
That life is absurd is unavoidable. It’s a fact we cannot change. What we can do is accept it, and do so courageously. We can live life better with the knowledge that we are in revolt of meaninglessness, so that we might find meaning.
That’s the whole point of Camus’s philosophy (and yes, it is a full-fledged philosophy), whether you call it Absurdism or Existentialism.
The point is that absurdity is a paradox: human beings are able to ask the question, “What is the meaning of existence?” but unable to conceptualize what that meaning could be.
We are able to discuss the problem, but unable to provide adequate answers.
Like Sisyphus, we labor at rolling our boulder up the mountain, only to watch it roll back down again.
Also like Sisyphus, we contemplate the meaning of it all on the walk back down to retrieve the boulder again. And we find it within ourselves to roll it back up once more. One must imagine humanity happy.
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” –– Albert Camus, Youthful Writings
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