Abstract
The philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus have typically been considered as inverted images of each other. Kierkegaard turns to faith in God as a path of redemption from meaninglessness while Camus rejects faith as a form of intellectual suicide and cowardice. I argue that an analysis of key terms of contest—faith and lucidity, revolt and suicide, Abraham and Sisyphus, despair and its overcoming—serves to blur the lines of contrast, making Kierkegaard and Camus much closer in their views of what sort of life we should live in face of the forsakenness of our condition than they seem at first glance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Readers of Kierkegaard know that there is no such thing as “Kierkegaard’s idea of faith.” His writing about faith is vast, complex, and wonderfully inconsistent. Thus the idea of faith I have chosen to focus on in this essay, while a recurring one, is certainly not without conflicting evidence in Kierkegaard’s writings. I have chosen to emphasize it both because it is the one I find most compelling and because it allows for the most interesting and productive engagement with Camus.
“The absurd” for Kierkegaard is the fact that “with God all things are possible, even the impossible” (1974a, p. 157).
Kierkegaard’s sermon was later published in 1851 along with another as Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays. The Two Discourses are included in Walter Lowrie’s edition of Training in Christianity (1967a). The passage from Matthew also serves as the “Invitation” which opens Training.
See Timothy Dalrymple (2009) for an excellent discussion of the theme of the bull of Phalaris in Kierkegaard.
References
Barthes, R. (1977). The death of the author. In Barth, image, music, text (S. Heath, Trans.) (pp. 142–48). New York: Hill and Wang.
Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus and other essays (J. O’Brien, Trans.). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1956). The rebel: An essay on man in revolt (A. Bower, Trans.). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1957). Nobel acceptance speech. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech.html.
Camus, A. (1958). Caligula. In Caligula and three other plays (S. Gilbert, Trans.) (pp. 2–74). New York: Alfred Knopf.
Camus, A. (1965). Lettre de mai 1952 à Libertaire. Essais (pp. 750–753). Paris: Gallimard.
Camus, A. (1968a). Intelligence and the scaffold. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 210–218). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1968b). On Jean-Paul Sartre’s la nausea. Alger républicain, 20 Octobre 1938. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 199–202). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1968c). Nuptials. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 63–105). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1968d). Preface to the stranger. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 335–337). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1968e). Replies to Jean-Claude Brisville. Interview. La Bibliothéque Idéale (1959). In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 357–365). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1988f). The stranger (M. Ward, Trans.). New York: Vintage International.
Camus, A. (1968g). The wrong side and the right side. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays(E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 5–61). New York: Random House.
Camus, A. (1995). Reflections on the guillotine. In Resistance, rebellion, and death (J. O’Brien, Trans.) (pp. 175–234). New York: Vintage.
Cruickshank, J. (1960). Albert Camus and the literature of revolt. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dalrymple, T. (2009). On the bronze bull of Phalaris and the art and imitation of Christ. International Kierkegaard Commentary, 23, 165–198.
d’Aubarède, G. (1968). Encounter with Albert Camus. Les nouvelles literatures, 10 Mai 1951. In P. Thody (Ed.), Albert Camus: Lyrical and critical essays (E. C. Kennedy, Trans.) (pp. 349–357). New York: Random House.
Golomb, J. (1995). In search of authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus. London: Routledge.
Hochberg, H. (1965). Albert Camus and the ethics of absurdity. Ethics, 75, 87–102.
Kant, I. (1965). The critique of pure reason (N. K. Smith, Trans.). New York: St. Martin. References are to the standard pagination of the Prussian Academy edition of Kant’s works.
Kierkegaard, S. (1938). The journals of Søren Kierkegaard (Ed. and trans. A. Dru). London: Oxford University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1962a). The point of view for my work as an author: A report to history. (W. Lowrie, Trans.). New York: Harper and Row.
Kierkegaard, S. (1962b). My activity as a writer. In The point of view for my work as an author: A report to history (W. Lowrie Trans.). New York: Harper and Row.
Kierkegaard, S. (1964). Repetition (W. Lowrie, Trans.). Harper: New York.
Kierkegaard, S. (1967a). Training in christianity (W. Lowrie, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1967b). Søren Kierkegaard’s journals and papers (1967–1978) (6 Vols, Ed. and Trans. H. Hong and E. Hong). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. References are to entry numbers.
Kierkegaard, S. (1968a). The concept of irony (L. Capel, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1968b). Concluding unscientific postscript (D. Swenson and W. Lowrie, Trans. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1971). Either/or. (2 Vols. D. Swenson and L. Swenson, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1974a). Fear and trembling (W. Lowrie, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1974b). The sickness unto death (W. Lowrie, Trans). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1985). Philosophical fragments (Ed. and trans. H. Hong and E. Hong). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1993). Upbuilding discourses in various spirits (H. Hong and E. Hong, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1997). The concept of anxiety (Ed. and trans. H. Hong and E. Hong). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Logozzi, M. M. (2007). Albert Camus: The awareness of extraneousness. Analecta Husserliana, 95, 374–375.
Pawar, S. (1988). Trusting others, trusting God: Concepts of belief, faith and rationality. Surrey. England: Ashgate.
Picascia, R. (2007). The struggles of faith: A defense of Kierkegaard. George Washington University Philosophy Conference.
Poole, R. (1993). Kierkegaard: The indirect communication. New York: University of Virginia Press.
Poole, R. (1998). Kierkegaard: Twentieth century receptions. In A. Hannay & G. D. Marino (Eds.), Cambridge companion to Kierkegaard (pp. 48–76). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rae, M. (1997). Kierkegaard’s vision of the incarnation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rasmussen, J. (2005). Between irony and witness: Kierkegaard’s poetics of faith, hope, and love. New York: T & T Clark.
Reichenbach, B. (1976). Camus and Kierkegaard: A contrast in existential authenticity. Christian Scholar’s Review, 5, 223–240.
Sagi, A. (1994). Albert Camus and the philosophy of the absurd. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.
Sagi, A. (2000). Kierkegaard, religion, and existence: The voyage of the self. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.
Sartre, J.-P. (1962). An explication of the stranger. In G. Brée (Ed.), Camus: A collection of critical essays (pp. 108–121). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Stewart, J. (2009). Kierkegaard as a forerunner of existentialism and poststructuralism. In J. Stewart (Ed.), Kierkegaard’s international reception (pp. 421–474). Surrey, England: Ashgate.
Thompson, J. (1972). Master of irony. In J. Thompson (Ed.), Kierkegaard: A collection of critical essays (pp. 103–163). Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Walsh, S. (1994). Living poetically: Kierkegaard’s existential aesthetics. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Wood, J. (1999). Camus and twentieth-century clarity: The sickness unto life. The New Republic, 8, 88–96.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Berthold, D. Kierkegaard and Camus: either/or?. Int J Philos Relig 73, 137–150 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9400-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-013-9400-y