Quaderni IRCrES-CNR, (2018) vol. 3, n. 2 cap. 4

Albert Camus fenomenologo del Mediterraneo

Albert Camus’ phenomenology of the Mediterranean

SAMANTHA NOVELLO

Dottore di ricerca, docente di Filosofia e Storia nella scuola superiore a Firenze e specialista del pensiero filosofico-politico di Albert Camus.

corresponding author: novellos@yahoo.com

Abstract

The present article challenges the (un)timeliness and originality of the reflection on the Mediterranean in the work of French Algerian writer and Nobel Prize winner, Albert Camus, in the light of the contemporary sociological and philosophical analyses of the effects of Western rationalisation and globalisation (Bauman 2015; Žižek 2016). It focuses on the import of Max Scheler’s emotional phenomenology in Camus’s understanding of the Mediterranean and it explores the ethical and political implications of the «Mediterranean legacy» from the writer’s early works to his philosophical essays as to provide a «method» to evade the contemporary judgemental pathological perversion (ressentiment), rooted in an attitude of self-centeredness and hatred. Associated with the maternal figure and with the notion of revolt, the Mediterranean denotes an existential re-orientation that culminates in an attitude of world-openness or love, in which the French writer grounds his personal engagement against the totalitarian drifts of modern rational organisation and traces the condition for a renaissance of human co-habitation and civilization beyond nihilism.

Keywords: The Mediterranean, Phenomenology, Love, Resentment, Rationality, Stranger, Max Scheler, Jean Grenier, Ethics.

DOI: 10.23760/2499-6661.2018.007

How to Cite this Article

Novello S. 2018. “Albert Camus fenomenologo del Mediterraneo”, in Emina A. (a cura di), Territori e Scenari. Ripensare il Mediterraneo, Quaderni IRCrES-CNR, vol. 3, n. 2, pp. 35-53, http://dx.doi.org/10.23760/2499-6661.2018.007