Let us begin by asking what Camus meant when he talked about the feeling of the absurd as a particular kind of feeling.

English-speaking psychologists and philosophers typically distinguish between different kinds of affective mental states, such as feelings, emotions and moods (e.g., de Sousa 2013; Johnson 2009). In the Myth of Sisyphus Camus used the term “feeling” in a sense that appears to be ambiguous with regard to this differentiation (as a result of his general lack of conceptual rigor, and maybe also as a result of the fact that the differentiation does not straightforwardly translate into French terms; see 1942). To my mind, an important step in illuminating Camus’ conception of the feeling of the absurd is to reconstruct it in the more fine-grained affective vocabulary just mentioned. So which particular kind of affective mental state had Camus in mind when he characterized the feeling of the absurd? Did he mean a feeling, an emotion or a mood?

The first hypothesis to consider is of course that Camus meant just what he said, namely that the feeling of the absurd is a feeling (a “sentiment”, as he put it in the French original). This interpretation can be ruled out rather quickly. Psychologists and philosophers typically use the term “feeling” to refer to conscious experiences of our own bodily or mental states, for example, to pleasure or pain, or to what it is like to love or to hate someone.Footnote 3 But neither the feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense nor its appearances can be coherently understood as feelings in this sense.

Take, first, the feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense. Camus describes this feeling as “indeterminate”, “vague” and “elusive”. Feelings qua conscious experiences of bodily or mental states, however, tend to be rather determinate, clear and definable (at least more determinate, clear and definable than other kinds of affective mental states). We can easily tell how pleasure differs from pain, how experiences of love differ from experiences of hate, and so on. Moreover, the examples that Camus provides of appearances of the feeling of the absurd also suggest that these appearances must not be understood as feelings qua conscious experiences of bodily or mental states. Both weariness, strangeness, nausea, and horror are much more readily classified as belonging to other kinds of affective mental states (as will be explained below).

If Camus did not use the term “feeling” to denote conscious experiences of our own bodily or mental states, to which kind of affective mental states did he intend to refer to instead? As mentioned above, philosophers and psychologists typically distinguish at least two further relevant kinds: emotions and moods. The precise nature of these states is highly contested. However, there is at least agreement about some of emotions’ and moods’ most basic conceptual features (see, e.g., de Sousa 2013; Johnson 2009; Solomon 2008: 10–14).

Emotions are commonly defined as rather specific responses to internal or external stimuli. Moreover, they are supposed to be intentional, i.e., directed at specific objects. For example, a person’s fear of a big dog barking at her is most likely a response to stimuli involving the dog (such as the person’s perception or memory of it), and the fear is also about the dog. The duration of emotions tends to be rather short, typically in the range of some minutes or even only seconds. During this short time, emotions fill up our conscious awareness to a significant extent. This high intensity likely relates to the fact that emotions come along with specific dispositions to behavioral, cognitive and affective changes. When a person is afraid, for example, she may tremble, her heart rate may increase, she may start sweating; and these physiological activations may lead her to run away or shout for help.

Moods are commonly defined as contrasting with emotions with regard to all of the above mentioned features (see, e.g., Deonna et al. 2015: 195; de Sousa 2013; Johnson 2009; but see, e.g., DeLancey 2006). To begin with, moods are rather general and somewhat indeterminate. We typically characterize them in more unspecific terms than emotions; as “good”, “bad” or “tense”, for example. Moods are not responses to specific stimuli or intentional in nature either. For instance, although a person’s bad mood may have partly originated in her being angry with somebody, this mood itself is not a response to some perceived offense or directed at such an offense. This non-intentionality of moods is also reflected in English language. While it makes sense to say “I am angry that you broke my vase”, “I am in a bad mood that you broke my vase” sounds rather strange (see DeLancey 2006: 528). Finally, moods also differ from emotions in that they can last up to days or weeks, tend to be much less intense, and come along with dispositions to behavioral, cognitive and affective changes which are more general and often less strong.

The following table summarizes the above-mentioned widely accepted features of moods and emotions (see Table 1).Footnote 4

Table 1 Widely accepted features of emotions versus moods (see, e.g., de Sousa 2013; Johnson 2009; Solomon 2008: 10–14) Full size table

Above I have argued that Camus did not mean feelings (in the sense in which this term is commonly used by philosophers and psychologists) when he discussed the feeling of the absurd. May he have meant emotions or moods?

Let us first consider the feeling of the absurd in its narrow sense. To repeat, Camus characterizes this feeling as “indeterminate”, “vague” and “elusive”. He also suggests that it is more indeterminate and vague than mental states that we would ordinarily qualify as emotions, such as jealousy and generosity (2005: 9). Finally, in discussing the feeling of the absurd in its narrow sense Camus repeatedly draws on the metaphor of an “absurd climate” (2005: 9, 10, 27). Compared to the weather, the climate only admits of gradual and small changes, and by definition ranges over a long period of time. All of these characterizations strongly suggest that what Camus meant when he spoke of the feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense was a certain kind of mood (see Reiff 1999: 26).

To the extent that commentators have addressed Camus’ conception of the feeling of the absurd they have typically assumed that the feeling in its narrow sense and its appearances are instantiations of one and the same kind of affective mental states (see, e.g., Reiff 1999: 29). On this assumption we should find that Camus understands the appearances of the feeling of the absurd as moods as well. At least one of his examples of these appearances may indeed be classified as a mood, namely anxiety. In his brief discussion of this state (2005: 12) Camus refers to Martin Heidegger, who understood anxiety as being unspecific and at least somewhat indeterminate, and who argued that it is not a response to or directed at a specific event in the world, but rather relates to being-in-the-world as such (1962: 174–176, 230–231).

That said, there is strong evidence that Camus generally understands the feeling of the absurd’s appearances as emotions rather than as moods. Consider, for instance, his examples of weariness and horror in the face of one’s own mortality. Both of these mental states are relatively specific and determinate. They are also responses to specific stimuli and have specific intentional objects. Weariness is typically a response to and about one’s performing or having to perform certain routine acts, such as having to go to work every day (Camus 2005: 11; see Sec. 3 below). Horror tends to be a response to witnessing the death of other living beings, and is about the fact that some day one is going to die as well (see also Sec. 3 below). Both weariness and horror also tend to be quite intense (though in very different ways), and come along with dispositions to quite specific and strong behavioral, affective and cognitive changes. While weariness may correlate with a lack of motivation, tiredness and weak forms of nausea, horror of one’s mortality often manifests itself in panic and physiological changes such as increased heart rate and blood pressure.

These considerations suggest that in speaking of the “feeling of the absurd”, Camus did not only refer to a mood (feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense), but also to emotions (appearances of the feeling of the absurd). He himself did not explain how this mood and these emotions relate to each other. There is a natural way of understanding their relation, though. Moods do not only influence people’s behavior and cognitions, but also other affective mental states, including our emotions. If a person is in a bad mood, for example, she is prone to getting angry, but unlikely to become amused. The relation between the absurd mood and absurd emotions may thus be understood as one of causation. The absurd mood causally promotes the emergence of absurd emotions; it constitutes the soil, so to speak, on which absurd emotions (such as weariness, nausea or horror) tend to grow.

There is at least some evidence that Camus understood the relation between the feeling of the absurd in the narrow sense (i.e., the absurd mood) and the appearances of this feeling (i.e., the absurd emotions) in this way. In the Myth of Sisyphus, for example, he wrote that the emotions he is interested in “take with them their own universe” and “light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate” (2005: 9). This entails that there is a specific universe and climate (a specific mood) that typically accompanies these emotions.