Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication: Making Sense in an A ...

introduced readers to a character who lacked the ability to act upon the accepted social practices of his day and fell into a state of despair as a result. This vivid monologue illustrates what can happen when a common center for action dissipates in the midst of absurdity and demonstrates that the lack of a common center poses a potential problem for a human communicator as he or she seeks to navigate a moment of confusion and contradiction. With this novel, Camus points toward several significant questions that, depending upon how one answers each, have major implications for daily living. Among the questions Camus raises are these: Who has the ability to say whether another person’s decision is right? What ethical standard exists against which one can evaluate and judge both oneself and others? Who determines or controls this standard? What happens when the standard changes or one’s interpretation of the standard changes?

In a notebook entry from June 17, 1947, Camus wrote, “Third Series. Judgment” (Notebook V 158). Camus understood that taking action in an age of absurdity would provoke consequences or judgment for those actions. Although Camus’s original goal was to include the novel The First Man in his cycle exploring judgment, he did not have the opportunity to complete this text during his lifetime. But The Fall explores the topics of judgment and the consequences of living in an absurd age; therefore the novel fits within the planned theme for his third series of work. In order to frame how The Fall represents Camus’s clear announcement of an ethical problem for human communication in an age of absurdity, I first define the metaphor of existential homelessness in relation to this text. Second, I investigate the narrative of The Fall, exploring the central character’s experience of his actions’ consequences in the midst of absurdity—and this novel’s fictional account of existential homelessness. Finally, the lack of trust in social practices conveys The Fall’s clear implications for the current moment, contributing to the idea that Albert Camus serves as a philosopher of communication for the early twenty-first century. These three steps provide the structure as this chapter answers the following question: What communicative problem did Albert Camus announce with the publication of The Fall?