Neither victims nor executioners

Camus as public intellectual

John Foley

pp. 221-244

in: Allyn Fives, Keith Breen (eds), Philosophy and political engagement, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

As a public intellectual—a writer who engaged publicly with matters of public importance—Albert Camus made significant contributions to a wide range of critical public debates in post-war France. In this chapter, Foley examines Camus's attempt to introduce a moral vocabulary into the principal political debates of his time. Through an examination of Camus's on-going debates with Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean Paul Sartre, and in particular Camus's career as an essayist and journalist, Foley argues that Camus's refusal to offer a philosophical justification for violence sets him apart from fellow writers on the Left at that time and also is indicative of his exemplary contribution as a public intellectual.

Cited authors

Merleau-Ponty Maurice

Sartre Jean-Paul

de Beauvoir Simone

Camus Albert