Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd

Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd

• 
  How does Camus define the absurd condition?
  
• 
  What three options does man have when confronted with the absurd? In Camus's perspective, why are the first two not defensible options?
  
• 
  According to Camus's philosophy, how--or in what--does one find happiness?
  
• 
  Camus "draw[s] from the absurd three consequences"; what are these three consequences? How does he define each of these three?
  
• 
  Explain Camus and the philosophy of the absurd's perspective on any three of the following topics, as listed in the entry: The meaning of life; elusion; God; suicide; personal meaning; freedom; hope; integrity.
  

Although the notion of the 'absurd' is pervasive in all of the literature of Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus is his chief work on the subject. In it, Camus considers absurdity as a confrontation, an opposition, a conflict or a "divorce" between two ideals. Specifically, he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning and clarity on the one hand – and the silent, cold universe on the other. He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith or recognition. He concludes that recognition is the only defensible option.^[9]

For Camus, suicide is a "confession" that life is not worth living; it is a choice implicitly declaring that life is "too much". Suicide offers the most basic "way out" of absurdity: the immediate termination of the self and its place in the universe.

The absurd encounter can also arouse a "leap of faith", a term derived from one of Kierkegaard's early pseudonyms, Johannes de Silentio (although the term was not used by Kierkegaard himself^[10]), where one believes that there is more than the rational life (aesthetic or ethical). To take a "leap of faith", one must act with the "virtue of the absurd" (as Johannes de Silentio put it), where a suspension of the ethical may need to exist. This faith has no expectations, but is a flexible power initiated by a recognition of the absurd. [Although one, at some point, recognizes or encounters the existence of the Absurd, in response, one actively ignores it.] However, Camus states that because the leap of faith escapes rationality and defers to abstraction over personal experience, the leap of faith is not absurd. Camus considers the leap of faith as "philosophical suicide", rejecting both this and physical suicide.^[10][11]

Lastly, a person can choose to embrace his or her own absurd condition. According to Camus, one's freedom – and the opportunity to give life meaning – lies in the recognition of absurdity. If the absurd experience is truly the realization that the universe is fundamentally devoid of absolutes, then we as individuals are truly free. "To live without appeal",^[12] as he puts it, is a philosophical move to define absolutes and universals subjectively, rather than objectively. The freedom of humans is thus established in a human's natural ability and opportunity to create his own meaning and purpose; to decide (or think) for him- or herself. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as he or she represents a set of unique ideals which can be characterized as an entire universe in its own right. In acknowledging the absurdity of seeking any inherent meaning, but continuing this search regardless, one can be happy, gradually developing his or her own meaning from the search alone.

Camus states in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death, and I refuse suicide".^[13] "Revolt" here refers to the refusal of suicide and search for meaning despite the revelation of the Absurd; "Freedom" refers to the lack of imprisonment by religious devotion or others' moral codes; "Passion" refers to the most wholehearted experiencing of life, since hope has been rejected, and so it is concluded that every moment be lived fully.

[edit] The meaning of life

According to absurdism, humans historically attempt to find meaning in their lives. Traditionally, this search follows one of two paths: either concluding that life is meaningless, and that what we have is the here-and-now, or by filling the void with a purpose set forth by a higher power - often a belief in God, or adherence to some religion or abstract, irrational concept.

[edit] Elusion

Camus perceives filling the void with some invented belief or meaning as a mere "act of eluding"—that is, avoiding or escaping rather than acknowledging and embracing the Absurd. To Camus, elusion is a fundamental flaw in religion, existentialism, and various other schools of thought. If the individual eludes the Absurd, then he or she can never confront it.

[edit] God

Even with a spiritual power as the answer to meaning, another question arises: What is the purpose of God? Kierkegaard believed that there is no human-comprehensible purpose of God, making faith in God absurd itself. Camus on the other hand states that to believe in God is to "deny one of the terms of the contradiction" between humanity and the universe (and therefore not absurd), but is what he calls "philosophical suicide". Camus (as well as Kierkegaard), though, suggests that while absurdity does not lead to belief in God, neither does it lead to the denial of God. Camus notes, "I did not say 'excludes God', which would still amount to asserting".^[14]

[edit] Suicide

For some, suicide is a solution when confronted with the futility of living a life devoid of all purpose, as it is only a means to quicken the resolution of one's ultimate fate. For Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus, suicide is not a worthwhile solution, because if life is veritably absurd, it is therefore even more absurd to counteract it; instead, we should engage in living, and reconcile the fact that we live in a world without purpose. Suicide, according to Camus, is merely another way of avoiding the Absurd, rather than continuing to live in spite of it.

[edit] Personal meaning

For Camus, the beauty which people encounter in life makes it worth living. People may create meaning in their own lives, which may not be the objective meaning of life (if there is one), but can still provide something for which to strive. However, he insisted that one must always maintain an ironic distance between this invented meaning and the knowledge of the absurd, lest the fictitious meaning take the place of the absurd.

[edit] Freedom

Freedom cannot be achieved beyond what the absurdity of existence permits; however, the closest one can come to being absolutely free is through acceptance of the Absurd. Camus introduced the idea of "acceptance without resignation" as a way of dealing with the recognition of absurdity, asking whether or not man can "live without appeal", while defining a "conscious revolt" against the avoidance of absurdity of the world. In a world devoid of higher meaning or judicial afterlife, the human being becomes as close to absolutely free as is humanly possible. It is through this freedom that man can act either as a mystic (through appeal to some supernatural force) or an absurd hero (through a revolt against such hope).

[edit] Hope

The rejection of hope, in absurdism, denotes the refusal to believe in anything more than what this absurd life provides. Henceforth, the absurd hero's refusal to hope becomes his or her singular ability to live in the present with passion. Hope, Camus emphasizes, however, has nothing to do with despair (meaning that the two terms are not antonymous). One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope. Hope is perceived by the absurdist as another fraudulent method of evading the Absurd, and by not having hope, one will be motivated to live every fleeting moment to the fullest.

[edit] Integrity

The absurdist is not guided by morality, but rather, by his or her own integrity. The absurdist is, in fact, amoral (though not necessarily immoral). Morality implies an unwavering sense of definite right and wrong at all times, while integrity implies honesty with the self and consistency in the motivations of one's actions and decisions.