Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
In the wake of Second World War, the French existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were close friends. They drank and argued together, often spending long nights out on the town. All around them, Paris was being rebuilt. Through their writing, Sartre and Camus hoped to guide this new France toward a more equitable future. They became celebrities, their every movement reported in the newspapers. But it was not to last. In 1952 they fell out bitterly. The disagreement between Camus and Sartre became the philosophical feud of the century. Why did it happen? And how could two such close friends become such unforgiving enemies?
Camus versus Sartre is the first instalment of ‘Philosophy Feuds’, Aeon’s original series of short animations, each of which tells the story of a famous – or not so famous – spat, break-up, falling-out or fracas. More than just revealing the hilarious and all-too-human pettiness of the world’s greatest thinkers, ‘Philosophy Feuds’ is about the fascinating ideas behind each of these rifts – and how these ideas continue to matter today.
Read an accompanying Aeon Idea on the feud by Sam Dresser.
Director & Animator: Andrew Khosravani
Producer: Kellen Quinn
Writer: Sam Dresser
Sound designer: Eli Cohn
Narrator: Travis Brecher
Additional Illustration: Rafa Court
Music: 8th and Fitzwater by Pond5
video
Philosophy of mind
‘Am I not at least something?’ A surreal dive into Descartes’s Meditations
3 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Surreal, dazzling visuals form an Iranian expat’s tribute to defiance back home
10 minutes
video
History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
video
Love and friendship
Never marry a man you love too much, and other views on romance in Sierra Leone
5 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
video
Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes