Absurdism

>I'm feeling too much secondhand embarrassment here
decorum is a spook, my property

well why should we revolt against the absurd?

For Camus' absurdism to work you have to assume that human beings automatically have to always feel the tension between the yearning of fundamental questions to the stark "absurd" nature of reality.

Why is the nature of reality so "absurd" to us? Reality never set out to be absurd, it is what it is. I also feel like absurdism is setting a precedent that the human conscious or "soul" is absolutely separate from reality when I believe we are reality itself, so what is the big deal? Reality is only absurd because of our own egos, it's only absurd when reality comes into friction with our assumptions.

but im a dummie maybe I am not understanding camus.

Hm, so essentially, if I'm reading you right, your disagreement with Camus is that spiting the Absurd is silly? Affirming the Absurd isn't really a problem, just doing what you want, because in the face of it, the only thing that matters is pursuing what you believe, and not what is the hypothetical truth? So, pursuing something like God isn't a problem in the face of the Absurd, because you personally see it as more of a struggle than wrestling with meaninglessness.

Please let me know if I've misunderstood you, but those are some good points if I didn't.

True enough, that's actually a good point. Just like the poster above (I think), is it really worth it to rebel against non-understanding?

I don't really think that was his point; I think it more boils down to:
1. Life may or may not have ultimate meaning
2. It doesn't matter if it does, because humans are too small to comprehend the whole of reality (regardless of separation from it through souls or otherwise)
3. (this is the part I think the posters above disagree with) One MUST rebel against that meaninglessness by crafting something of their own, and it can't be something that states an ultimate meaning, like God.
As far as I understand Camus, that's his argument. And reading the posts above, I'd say the 3rd one is kind of silly; just do what makes YOU personally feel meaning, even if it's something hypothetically universal, like faith in God.

From what you're saying, it seems you think Camus anthropomorphizes reality too much, making it out to be, if not malicious, far too "smart" for us (for lack of a better word). In your opinion, reality is what it is, and trying to assign value to it is just a human falsehood, yes?

Again, please tell me if I've misunderstood, because these arguments are very interesting.

I felt that the explanation for why we need to revolt against the absurd was very light, and much of the book assumes you've accepted his argument and allows you to explore his other tangents (like the examples of the Don Juan, Conqueror, and Actor).

If I'm remembering right, I believe he explains that there's a fundamental need in humans to find truth when there's none to be found. We have a constant need to explain things, but when we keep digging to the basis of reality we find nothing.

The quote:

>There is no truth, only truths.

comes to mind. He goes through a couple lines of reasoning and basically concludes that you run into circular reasoning and don't really get anywhere when you try to find absolute truth.

Anyway, he says that if you realize that existence is absurd, why don't you just kill yourself? The entire book is MOSTLY about explaining how you might live "without appeal" after accepting this. He even admits (I believe) that this is the focus of the book. He wants to know if you can live without appeal even though suicide seems to be the logical end when you conclude life has no truth.

I liked the sections about how he shows that people actually just bypass the absurd by taking a leap of faith and accepting it as some sort of god. He believes that the absurd man must "keep the absurd alive" i.e. tension between your questions and the absurd.

Anyway I went off-topic here, but to answer your question he provides less of a proof and more of an exploration of what happens after you accept that life is absurd.

I don't think by "revolting" against the absurd Camus meant to literally rebel against it the way rioters rebel against a government, for example.

The "absurd" as outlined Sisyphus could essentially be summed up as the idea that Humanity and The World are heterogeneous- two separate systems that don't seem to acknowledge one another or have any semblance of a system, but are bound together by Existence, and the tension, the turbulence, and futility, is a product of the disparity between Man and The World. That is the Absurd.

>This divorce between man and his life...is properly the feeling of absurdity.

The Myth of Sisyphus is actually about suicide, whether or not a man, after facing the absurd, should kill himself.

By stating that one must rebel against the absurd, he isn't saying to actually REBEL, out of spite or animosity, but he actually means to say "look at this existence which seems to work against you, and choose to live anyway." That's the rebelling he's referring to. To rebel against the absurd is to acknowledge that there is no fathomable meaning and yet to choose to go on living anyway.

It literally just means "don't kill yourself, go on living"

Doesn't he outline different types of revolts in The Rebel? The Nihilistic Rebellion is the one I remember atm. I saw it as an actual act of rebellion.

I haven't yet read The Rebel, but I can definitely see how his philosophy calls for that clarification

>By stating that one must rebel against the absurd, he isn't saying to actually REBEL, out of spite or animosity, but he actually means to say "look at this existence which seems to work against you, and choose to live anyway."
Does existence really work against us, or is it that human beings are relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe, and thus the universe is indifferent to the will of an individual at all.

Ok, I understand more I think then.

As to this post

Well, I can't say anything about the "value" of reality, I think the concept of value is very subjective and inconsequential.
All I am proposing is this, I believe we ("we" as in pertaining to all living entities with functioning sensory apparatuses and maybe even going as far as having cognisant abilities) are reality. the cosmos (all and everything) is nothing more than information, and information is absolutely nothing without something to process it. The abstract concept of "meaning"" is inconsequential if there are no living entities to process the information. In theory, the last living entity to ever exist in the universe will be the last life-line of reality itself, but not the cosmos. One is a concept that can only exist with living beings, the latter is just information with mysterious origins.

How does this apply with Camus? Well if my beliefs are true, why is reality absurd? If we are reality why do we beckon to the cosmos, which is just the data we are being fed through our eyes and ears and nose? Creating your own meaning is not in rebelling against meaninglessness, having a meaning is simply a past-time of a living beings consciousness, if it be your own or someone else's.

Camus assumes moral nihilism. He never argues for it, he never gives any reasons, for him it's just the way it is. So already 3/4 of all contemporary moral philosophers implicitly disagree with him (and any and all such arguments for some kind of moral realism are also arguments against Absurdism). The second damning thing he does (which is especially so since it is the defining aspect of his philosophy, the only thing that makes it unique) is that he never explains how in a world without moral imperatives why we ought to live the Absurd life. He doesn't have recourse to the tools of the virtue ethicist which leaves him with no way of navigating this problem.

His philosophy immediately implodes because he does not (and cannot do so since it is implicitly impossible within his worldview) reconcile his first assumption with his second imperative. I'm pretty sure in some way he recognises this for in his Sisyphus essay he takes about twenty pages of needlessly flowery language to explain how it happens when in fact he has explained nothing and has merely obfuscated the inconsistently.

nihilism is the end game of philosophy, unless you accept religion and go from there

Absurdism is to meaning what agnosticism is to religion

It is both the coward's way out and the only sensible answer

>he never explains how in a world without moral imperatives why we ought to live the Absurd life
Because it's absurd.

You are conflating the two definitions for absurd.

Id say that its more of the beginning of philosophy.

All absurdism is just realizing that life has no inherent meaning. But the fact that life has no meaning isn't positive or negative by itself. Teenage absurdism is basically just nihilism. Camus absurdism is more like, life has no meaning, so why not give it meaning. Hitch thought that we give life meaning through things like philosophy, poetry, literature, and art. Thats where i stand any way.

ted.com/talks/casey_gerald_the_gospel_of_doubt?language=en

This reminds me of this TED Talk.

The absurd is giving meaning to life in the first place. No matter the meaning its absurd to connect reality with inherent meaning. But absurdism is the act of embracing the absurd and giving life the meaning you wish to give it.

So if you arent a nihilist then you have to be an absurdist to some extent.

Different guy here.

What do you mean by keep the absurd alive?

I never got the feeling Camus presented absurdity as an imperative at all, just as the optimum way of dealing with a world that doesn't have any imperatives. we "ought" to live an absurd life because otherwise we misrepresent the world either by giving it meaning it doesn't have or by denying that we want it to have meaning at all, but the "ought" is a suggestion, not an imperative. Camus doesn't make this explicit enough, though.

This.
This makes complete sense actually.

Ive been lurking and i feel like you have pretty similar views on life as Tyson

This is not true. Absurdism is to meaning as saying god definitely doesn't exist is to atheism.

best lit thread in a while tbqhfam

I second this.

yeah, that's what I meant to imply. Thanks for clarifying

Yes he does make it an imperative. The essay is asking should we commit suicide. He categorically says no because it destroys a component which allows for Absurdity to exist. He's not saying I don't think you should kill yourself but you could if you wanted to. He is saying you cannot kill yourself. The book seeks to invent value in following the Absurd when the Absurd is predicated on the meaninglessness of existence.

>Camus doesn't make this explicit enough, though.
I could not disagree more. The book is a resounding no to suicide which means necessarily a yes to following his conception of the Absurd.

>optimum
Even using words like this aren't helpful. There is no optimum in a valueless world.

Very true. I thought I'd reached enlightenment as a teenager by reading through existentialism and accepting Absurdism. Then I turned 20. Its a useful pragmatism that can help cope with finding your place in the world and revolting against self-destruction, but if you think its anything more than a comfortable pragmatism to take refuge in on small occasions, then you have no grasp of the breadth of philosophy.

>The book seeks to invent value in following the Absurd when the Absurd is predicated on the meaninglessness of existence.

the absurd has value in a practical or emotional way, but not ultimate value. and Camus can't possibly have been unaware of it, because he's very clear about basing absurdism on maintaining both sides of contradiction between the meaningless world and the search for meaning. I think he overstates the case against suicide, though, the absurd isn't actually a reason not to kill yourself, and when Camus says it is he's making an emotional appeal and passing it off as logic.

>There is no optimum in a valueless world.

True, bad choice of words. But given the absence of value, moral arguments for any philosophy become redundant, so the argument for the absurd is really a subjective aesthetic argument. Camus gives it moral weight it doesn't have when he claims it's an answer to his "one truly serious philosophical problem," but I think he's right that embracing the absurd is the most satisfying way to live. it's a subjective preference by definition, but there's no way to have an objective preference.

>I think he overstates the case against suicide
One cannot maintain both sides if one kills oneself, which is precisely the argument he uses against it. His opposition to suicide cannot be stated strongly enough.

>most satisfying way to live
You run into the same problem you do when you used the term optimal. It makes no sense because satisfaction is a value laden term.

>Camus gives it moral weight it doesn't
He tries to give them moral weight, that is the important part. Even though it is wrong we are not aiming to understand Truth, only to understand Camus' position. So it doesn't matter that he tries to give it a moral weight it doesn't have, only that he thinks it has a moral weight. We are attempting to reconstruct his ideas as he thought them, not to improve or change them. And where you are quoted you just admitted him to constituting an attempt to give his revolt a moral like imperative strength.

Is it true he refuted Stirner in his essay; the rebel?

>bloo bloo unless you hold my spooks as above yourself you are trash

>His opposition to suicide cannot be stated strongly enough.

Yes, and we agree that he doesn't back it up.

>It makes no sense because satisfaction is a value laden term.

It makes sense as a subjective preference, and that's all I'm claiming, although maybe it's less than what Camus is claiming. Empirically I personally find absurdism the most satisfying philosophy, but I can only speak for myself.

>We are attempting to reconstruct his ideas as he thought them, not to improve or change them.

Personally I'm trying to defend absurdism as a basic idea, and also work out to what extent I agree with how Camus argues for it and what he concludes, and so I guess I am actually trying to improve or change his ideas. (Not with any great success, obviously.)

>And where you are quoted you just admitted him to constituting an attempt to give his revolt a moral like imperative strength.

As an argument against suicide, yes, otherwise he wouldn't imply that he's solved the problem of suicide. (That or he thinks that the decision to live or die is also basically an aesthetic choice, which I suppose is possible, but seems unlikely.) Whether he tries to claim the same kind of imperative regarding other philosophies making "the leap" I'm not so sure.

[NB I've been an obnoxious Camus fanboy for years, perhaps I've been interpreting Sisyphus too generously and reading things into it that aren't there. Time for another reread...]

...

I haven't been lurking, who's Tyson?

He makes it very clear in the book that the Absurd is not some entity, it is the intersection of "human nostalgia" - or rather the hunger for reason, and the fundamental impossibility of finding absolute truth.

Since we have a thirst for meaning that can't be satisfied, and there isn't absolute truth, it is a constant tension. If you try to subvert this tension by taking a leap of faith with some religion or philosophy, or if you simply let it fade from your consciousness, you can't live as the Absurd Man "without appeal."

I can't find this anywhere. In the English copies they leave out the criticism of stirner

Dang, any idea why? I saw that on the wiki and I was going to get it just because its rare for philosophers let alone noteworthy ones to comment on him

>So already 3/4 of all contemporary moral philosophers implicitly disagree with him
So? There's no rule of nature that says 3/4 of moral philosophers are right nor intelligent.

holy shit

Not as a logical necessity but (and this is the point I was getting at) that a system which assumes what is a minority view without argument is highly suspect. Not only that a certain burden is on his shoulders to show why he holds his position (on which he never elaborates) and that he sees no need to engage with any of the arguments of the vast majority of philosophers. In the context I was responding to someone asking about people who tackle Absurdism, I was pointing out that any of the arguments for moral realism by any of that enormous subset of philosophers is a fatal blow to Camus' ideas.

You guys don't understand what the absurd is.

People have their own systems of how the world works, what is good to do etc.

The world also has it's own self-contained way of working. It is not absurd at all to itself.

The absurd is when they interact but aren't compatible. I say the world is x, but the world is actually y, and has always been so. That feeling is the absurd. When you interact with it, you are brought face to face with your meaninglessness, which can only be escaped by revolt, or essentially choosing to do things you like or believe in despite their meaninglessness.

Why should I image Sisyphus happy?