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Sep. 30th, 2013
Camus and Sartre
Sep. 30th, 2013 06:11 pm<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Although both wrote important works of philosophy and fiction and successfully tackled a number of other genres, by temperament the one was primarily a philosopher, absorbed with theories and general ideas, the other primarily a novelist, most comfortably capturing concrete situations [...] The brilliant young philosopher took absurdity as his starting point and slowly, in the five years between Nausea and Being and Nothingness, explored how human activity constitutes a meaningful world from brute, meaningless existence. The philosophizing novelist built an entire worldview on the sense that absurdity is an unsurpassable given of human experience.
[...]
Each one immediately noticed that the other was writing both philosophy and literature. And each immediately saw how much they shared. Their writing, with its unconventional plots and seemingly unmotivated characters, stressed that existence was absurd. They faced this absurdity honestly and lucidly, and they agreed that most people (including philosophers) did not do so. They prized living authentically.
-- Ronald Aronson, “Camus and Sartre”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Both being part of the French Resistance against the Nazis must have helped in bringing them together as well. But what is a good school of philosophy without schisms? There will be differences, a rivalry, a lost friendship, but that is later.
Although both wrote important works of philosophy and fiction and successfully tackled a number of other genres, by temperament the one was primarily a philosopher, absorbed with theories and general ideas, the other primarily a novelist, most comfortably capturing concrete situations [...] The brilliant young philosopher took absurdity as his starting point and slowly, in the five years between Nausea and Being and Nothingness, explored how human activity constitutes a meaningful world from brute, meaningless existence. The philosophizing novelist built an entire worldview on the sense that absurdity is an unsurpassable given of human experience.
[...]
Each one immediately noticed that the other was writing both philosophy and literature. And each immediately saw how much they shared. Their writing, with its unconventional plots and seemingly unmotivated characters, stressed that existence was absurd. They faced this absurdity honestly and lucidly, and they agreed that most people (including philosophers) did not do so. They prized living authentically.
-- Ronald Aronson, “Camus and Sartre”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Both being part of the French Resistance against the Nazis must have helped in bringing them together as well. But what is a good school of philosophy without schisms? There will be differences, a rivalry, a lost friendship, but that is later.
Reading Life
Sep. 30th, 2013 09:03 pmI don't think I am doing Plato justice by making his dialogues my bathroom reading, my crapper reading. But I am not dropping Plato. I am giving him a slot in my daily reading life.
I don't want to give up on the idea of having a book for my bathroom reading, though. I am thinking: fiction. Lighter fiction. I don't really want to get a new book, not a new detective or crime novel, nor any kind of pulpy fiction. I think I will just demote one of the books that has been in my daily reading. This way I do not increase the number of daily slots to fit Plato in. I am going to consign Salter's "A Sport and a Pastime" to the toilet. Hell, I was thinking about dropping it altogether. We will see how this works out.
I don't want to give up on the idea of having a book for my bathroom reading, though. I am thinking: fiction. Lighter fiction. I don't really want to get a new book, not a new detective or crime novel, nor any kind of pulpy fiction. I think I will just demote one of the books that has been in my daily reading. This way I do not increase the number of daily slots to fit Plato in. I am going to consign Salter's "A Sport and a Pastime" to the toilet. Hell, I was thinking about dropping it altogether. We will see how this works out.