An Artist’s Point of View

Abstract

In February 1935, a review of Max Scheler’s L’homme du ressentiment by philosopher Bernard Groethuysen is published in the NRF.¹ This short text draws attention to Scheler’s phenomenological approach, which is seen as a method of liberation from the ‘servitude’ to the so-called common sense prejudices and the constructs of scientific reason. The phenomenologist’s viewpoint is said to free the world from the domination of the end (‘use’), which values only such things that are perceived to be capable of obtaining prescribed achievement in a more or less distant future (‘lendemain’). It is more than likely that Groethuysen’s review brought Max Scheler’s book to the attention of young Camus, who read it shortly thereafter.²

Dolorem exprimit quia movit amorem (A. Camus Carnets, 1936)