The Meaning of Life in Albert Camu's View

While Albert Camus takes human beings to be the only valuable beings, he defines a limited viewpoint and a restricted epistemic scope for them. For Camus, the human reason cannot legitimately deal with some issues, especially the metaphysical world. In his view, the world is absurd and the life of modern humans is worthless and meaningless. With assuming the nonexistence of God, the limits of reason and the absurdity of life, Camus comes to an epistemic horizon that is, in his view, the best way to give meaning to life. In this paper, we review some approaches to the meaning of life, and then formulate Camu's view under 4 theses, and finally we shall criticize his view. The most important foundation of Camu's view is his empiricist, materialist point of view leading to ontological and epistemological limits in human thought. Thus, on the ontological side, Camus has denied the existence of a world beyond the material one, and on the epistemological side, he has denied non-sensuous knowledge. In criticizing his view, we will focus on such foundations.