![]() We argue that it is in these comparatively-under-considered but vital Camusian texts, we find Camus' sustained, mature reflection on the limits, place and need for contemplative modes of activity, carried out in terms of his symmetrical criticisms of artistic formalism and realism. Part 2, "Solidaire", then turns to Camus' mature, postwar philosophy of artistic creation in The Rebel and "Creating Dangerously", his Nobel Prize address, in light of Sartre et al's Marxissant criticisms of his work. Secondly, we examine the analysis of Camus' conception of "the life of the artist" in The Myth of Sisyphus, as such a modern form of the vita contemplativa which responds to the absence of the theological-metaphysical presuppositions of earlier forms of this possibility. What is focal here, firstly, is Camus' ongoing engagements with classical Greek thought and culture as a counterbalance to modern, post-Hegelian historicisms. ![]() ![]() Part 1 of the paper, "Solitaire", examines Camus' encounters with, and sympathetic responses to, different historical avatars of the vita contemplativa. ![]() In this paper*, I argue that Albert Camus ought to be numbered as one of the few thinkers of the last century who, whilst not advocating for a wholesale contemplative withdrawal impossible in later modernity, sought to preserve a sense of the merits and necessity of otium or scholia in the good life and society. ![]()
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