Quotation
Last reviewed:
“I rebel — therefore we exist.”
Albert Camus · Absurdism · Modern · 1951
What does it mean?
I rebel, therefore we exist. The absurd man of the earlier essay could seem alone. Rebellion, he now says, discovers a limit and a human value in the very act of refusing humiliation, and so discovers other people. A rival reading hears a cartesian pun and nothing more, or a blank cheque for any revolt. The book will spend itself attacking revolutions that betray the limit they began with, including the ones that become murder in the name of history. Another reading thinks he has abandoned the absurd for moralism.
Did Albert Camus really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Anthony Bower's English of Je me révolte, donc nous sommes. The introduction argues that rebellion, unlike the isolated absurd, founds a value and a 'we'. Stuart Gilbert did other books. Bower did The Rebel. The dash is the familiar English.
Where it comes from
The Rebel, introduction, in Anthony Bower's translation
Approximate date: 1951.
How to use it
A strike meeting in a hospital trust finds, in the refusal of a particular humiliation, a sense of 'we' that was not in the individual complaints. The sentence says that discovery is what rebellion is. It does not say every refusal founds a right to anything the meeting then wants. The Rebel is severe about rebellions that forget the limit. A meeting that quotes only the pun has kept the energy and lost the limit.
A mindset reading
Descartes is in the grammar on purpose. The cogito is turned outward. If you cannot say what value he thinks appears in the refusal, you have a slogan. The value is the solidarity against humiliation, and it is why calculated murder is, for him, a betrayal of rebellion.
Understand the philosophy
The Rebel, 1951, is the book that broke him from Sartre's circle. The introduction is the axiom. The later chapters are the history of metaphysical and historical revolt. Bower is the translator. The axiom without those chapters is not his politics.
- freedom
- society
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
I rebel, therefore we exist. The absurd man of the earlier essay could seem alone. Rebellion, he now says, discovers a limit and a human value in the very act of refusing humiliation, and so discovers other people. A rival reading hears a cartesian pun and nothing more, or a blank cheque for any revolt. The book will spend itself attacking revolutions that betray the limit they began with, including the ones that become murder in the name of history. Another reading thinks he has abandoned the absurd for moralism.
Did Albert Camus really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Anthony Bower's English of Je me révolte, donc nous sommes. The introduction argues that rebellion, unlike the isolated absurd, founds a value and a 'we'. Stuart Gilbert did other books. Bower did The Rebel. The dash is the familiar English.
Which work is it in?
The Rebel, introduction, in Anthony Bower's translation Approximate date: 1951.