  Such an intimate link between metaphysics and art explains why existentialists often place certain artists on a level equal or superior to the philosophers: Camus with Dostoievski, Marcel with Bach, Merleau-Ponty with Cézanne, Sartre and de Beauvoir with Faulkner and Kafka. It also partly explains why most existentialist philosophers were equally, or in fact more, active as creative writers. According to them, metaphysical inquiry and artistic practice share a fundamental aim: both are ways of revealing to human beings their own freedom and responsibility.