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Albert Camus is known as an Existentialist due to his perspectives
on life and his writing style. Camus shares with Sartre and Kierkegaard, and with other major traditional existentialists,
from Augustine and Pascal to Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche, "an habitual and intense interest in the active human psyche, in the
life of conscience or spirit as it is actually experienced and lived." (Simpson) Camus "aims at nothing less than a thorough,
candid exegesis of the human condition, and like them he exhibits not just a philosophical attraction but also a personal
commitment to such values as individualism, free choice, inner strength, authenticity, personal responsibility, and self-determination."
(Simpson)
However, one may classify as Camus as an existentialist,
but Camus denies to be one. The argument that can be applied for one to say Camus is not an existentialist is because Camus
is not a metaphysician like Heidegger and Sartre, however there is no specific rule or claim that an existentialist must be
a metaphysician. Another reason to argue that Camus is not involved in Existentialism, is for the fact that to be an existentialist
one must commit to the entire doctrine and Camus was not willing to do so.
In conclusion, Camus writes and employs existentialism
in his works, however he is not willing to commit himself as one like the rest of the philosophers, for example, Kierkegaard,
Heidegger, Sartre, etcetera. "Camus actively challenged and set himself apart from the existentialist motto that 'being precedes
essence'." (Simpson)
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