Abstract

Tobias Cheung

‘Life-Worlds and Ambiguity: A Comparison Between Albert Camus and Yasunari Kawabata.’
The paper focuses on the problem of ambiguity and the rationalization of life-worlds in the modern area. If neither religious nor metaphysical nor scientific “reasons” are sufficient to give satisfying answers to questions that arise out of life-worlds, we have to ask for the form of the narrative and the mode of reflection that we should use to search for answers. Camus and Kawabata have chosen a literary style. I will argue that this style produces for both of them not only a complementary narrative to other, seemingly more “important” discourses, but a form of expression that is closely related to a specific mode of reflection.
The problem of ambiguity is not just a property of life-worlds that serve as a contingent background for decision-making processes. Rather, such a “solution” would ignore the problem as a second-order problem. Camus and Kawabata have always been opposed to this solution. In The Stranger and Snow Country, they showed how ambiguity informs decision-making processes and how the involvement of ambiguity in decision-making processes is not only inextricable, but also inextinguishable. Camus and Kawabata argued that every decision-making process must also expose a certain awareness of its own “undecidedness”. Such an absurd situation is for them the conditio humana of life-worlds, that is to say of individual existences in modern cultural settings.
In the paper, I will expose and retrace the problem of ambiguity in the writings of Camus and Kawabata. However, Kawabata and Camus belong to different cultural settings. I will discuss these differences and compare their perspectives. Camus and Kawabata have both been influenced from expressionism, phenomenology, existentialism and the critic of subjectivity in art, literature and philosophy of the first half of the 20th century. Both of them know the Second World War. Their life-world concepts react to these influences. I will finally argue that the problem of ambiguity plays also a major role in life-world or knowledge concepts that characterize the relation between individuals and their respective societies at the beginning of the 21st century.


	Tobias Cheung ‘Life-Worlds and Ambiguity: A Comparison Between Albert Camus and Yasunari Kawabata.’ The paper focuses on the problem of ambiguity and the rationalization of life-worlds in the modern area. If neither religious nor metaphysical nor scientific “reasons” are sufficient to give satisfying answers to questions that arise out of life-worlds, we have to ask for the form of the narrative and the mode of reflection that we should use to search for answers. Camus and Kawabata have chosen a literary style. I will argue that this style produces for both of them not only a complementary narrative to other, seemingly more “important” discourses, but a form of expression that is closely related to a specific mode of reflection. The problem of ambiguity is not just a property of life-worlds that serve as a contingent background for decision-making processes. Rather, such a “solution” would ignore the problem as a second-order problem. Camus and Kawabata have always been opposed to this solution. In The Stranger and Snow Country, they showed how ambiguity informs decision-making processes and how the involvement of ambiguity in decision-making processes is not only inextricable, but also inextinguishable. Camus and Kawabata argued that every decision-making process must also expose a certain awareness of its own “undecidedness”. Such an absurd situation is for them the conditio humana of life-worlds, that is to say of individual existences in modern cultural settings. In the paper, I will expose and retrace the problem of ambiguity in the writings of Camus and Kawabata. However, Kawabata and Camus belong to different cultural settings. I will discuss these differences and compare their perspectives. Camus and Kawabata have both been influenced from expressionism, phenomenology, existentialism and the critic of subjectivity in art, literature and philosophy of the first half of the 20th century. Both of them know the Second World War. Their life-world concepts react to these influences. I will finally argue that the problem of ambiguity plays also a major role in life-world or knowledge concepts that characterize the relation between individuals and their respective societies at the beginning of the 21st century.