Camus was most comfortable leading us into philosophy through literature. His novel L’étranger raises one of the most important topics of our times: the concept of the stranger. The stranger is the one who is puzzled by existence, cannot or can no longer take it for granted, and therefore opens the door for philosophy as born from reflection. Philosophy is born from wonder, which can be wonder inspired by an encounter with strangeness. Literature is particularly suitable for an encounter with strangeness because it allows us to take the kind of distance from the everyday that is normally missing. In the midst of everyday existence, we are so closely embedded in the world that we cannot reflect on it. In the everyday mode, we do not realise that existence means being-in-the-world (as the philosophers Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty put it). The world is so closely pressed on us, so immediately around us and even within us, that we cannot describe it; cannot even get a sense of it.

¶ 9:17 AM