What do you think?
Rate this book
The Myth of Sisyphus
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1942
About the author
Albert Camus
797 books30.8k followersWorks, such as the novels
The Stranger
(1942) and
The Plague
(1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel Prize of 1957 for literature.
Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work.
He also adapted plays of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Dino Buzzati, and Requiem for a Nun of William Faulkner. One may trace his enjoyment of the theater back to his membership in l'Equipe, an Algerian group, whose "collective creation" Révolte dans les Asturies (1934) was banned for political reasons.
Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest, he came at the age of 25 years in 1938; only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation served as a columnist for the newspaper Combat.
The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction."
Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation.
Besides his fiction and essays, Camus very actively produced plays in the theater (e.g., Caligula, 1944).
The time demanded his response, chiefly in his activities, but in 1947, Camus retired from political journalism.
Doctor Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the absurd and of injustice, and confirms words: "We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them."
People also well know La Chute (The Fall), work of Camus in 1956.
Camus authored L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom) in 1957. His austere search for moral order found its aesthetic correlative in the classicism of his art. He styled of great purity, intense concentration, and rationality.
Camus died at the age of 46 years in a car accident near Sens in le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin.
Chinese 阿尔贝·加缪
Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work.
He also adapted plays of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Dino Buzzati, and Requiem for a Nun of William Faulkner. One may trace his enjoyment of the theater back to his membership in l'Equipe, an Algerian group, whose "collective creation" Révolte dans les Asturies (1934) was banned for political reasons.
Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest, he came at the age of 25 years in 1938; only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation served as a columnist for the newspaper Combat.
The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction."
Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation.
Besides his fiction and essays, Camus very actively produced plays in the theater (e.g., Caligula, 1944).
The time demanded his response, chiefly in his activities, but in 1947, Camus retired from political journalism.
Doctor Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the absurd and of injustice, and confirms words: "We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them."
People also well know La Chute (The Fall), work of Camus in 1956.
Camus authored L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom) in 1957. His austere search for moral order found its aesthetic correlative in the classicism of his art. He styled of great purity, intense concentration, and rationality.
Camus died at the age of 46 years in a car accident near Sens in le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin.
Chinese 阿尔贝·加缪
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,461 reviews
November 9, 2020
By the end of high school I was a very unhappy person and had been so since our family moved from unincorporated Kane County to Park Ridge, Illinois when I was ten. At the outset the unhappiness was basically consequent upon leaving a rural setting, small school and friendly, integrated working-class neighborhood for a reactionary suburb, large school and unfriendly upper middle-class populace whose children were, by and large, just as thoughtlessly racist and conservative as their parents were. By fifteen, however, the quality of the unhappiness had begun to change as I had made, really made, some friends in the persons of Richard Hyde and Hank Kupjack. By the end of high school, thanks to them and to the rise of the sixties counterculture, I actually had many friends, some of them from the political left, some identified with the avant garde world, some just plain disgruntled teen potheads. But by then unhappiness had become character and had been elevated from an emotional to a philosophical state of being.
On the one hand, it had a lot to do with not having had a girlfriend since Lisa in the first grade. On the other hand, and this was more prominently to mind, it had to do with the reasons, the serious reasons, for not having one. They were that I was unusually slow in physical development and unusually short in stature. In my mind, I was uncontestably unattractive. If any girl would like me it would be because of personality and intelligence,
I had no insecurity about intelligence as a teen, but quite a bit about personality. Feminism didn't become an issue until college, but I was ashamed about thinking of women sexually when it seemed clear they would be offended or disgusted were they to know of it. I developed the practice of not looking at females unless speaking with them. I walked with my head down, eyes to the ground, in order to avoid such guilt-ridden gazes. While other guys played around with the girls in our circle, I maintained a generally grave persona, holding "serious" conversations or reading while they flirted. A feeling of superiority was confusedly mixed with strong feelings of inferiority to these other, more comfortable, persons. While it was easy to dismiss most of the "straight" kids at school as mindless, this was not possible with many persons in our circle, particularly some of the older ones whom I admired for their learning and critical intellects.
The other, philosophically deeper, dimension of this unease was that I myself was so "critically intelligent" that I had no ground upon which to stand. I had strong moral feelings but I was unable to convince myself that they were more than personal tastes. My early public school education had emphasized the sciences. While I could understand human values as having some meaning in terms of biology and evolutionary theory, I could not fit myself positively into that picture. I certainly wasn't biologically "fit". Thoughts of suicide were frequent.
Thus I was drawn, upon being exposed to them, to the existentialists, particularly Camus. They alone seemed to be trying to speak openly about the actual human condition
I recall reading "The Myth of Sisyphus" while seated in our family's red Opel Cadet station wagon across from City Hall, at the curb of Hodge's Park on a beautiful spring day. Our friends were all about this area between Bob Rowe's Evening Pipe Shop, Park Ridge's Community Church and the Cogswell Dance Studio (our indoors hangouts), but I was avoiding their frivolity, engaged in serious study, while, obviously, inviting an invitation to join in--which, in my moral confusion, I might well have declined.
Just as I was concluding this essay of the collection, the part about Sisyphus being happy with his absurd work, Lisa Cox walked in front of the car, headed west towards the church. Now, Lisa was just another pretty girl in our group, not the particular object of any attention from me. Indeed, she was too young, being two years behind in school. But, not being an intimate friend, she was one of those girls I would tend to guiltily objectify as sexual.
Here, however, it happened differently. She was beautiful, simply beautiful. Her long, tightly waved brown hair and matching corduroy pants, all bathed in sunlight dappled by the new leaves of the elms filling the park, were lovely. I didn't feel guilty for thinking this. I noticed the absence of guilt feelings. It seemed quite paradoxical, just as Camus' comment about Sisyphus had appeared, but true.
I'd call this an ecstatic experience. It didn't last more than a few minutes at most, though the memory of it, and experiences like it, remains clear and cherished.
On the one hand, it had a lot to do with not having had a girlfriend since Lisa in the first grade. On the other hand, and this was more prominently to mind, it had to do with the reasons, the serious reasons, for not having one. They were that I was unusually slow in physical development and unusually short in stature. In my mind, I was uncontestably unattractive. If any girl would like me it would be because of personality and intelligence,
I had no insecurity about intelligence as a teen, but quite a bit about personality. Feminism didn't become an issue until college, but I was ashamed about thinking of women sexually when it seemed clear they would be offended or disgusted were they to know of it. I developed the practice of not looking at females unless speaking with them. I walked with my head down, eyes to the ground, in order to avoid such guilt-ridden gazes. While other guys played around with the girls in our circle, I maintained a generally grave persona, holding "serious" conversations or reading while they flirted. A feeling of superiority was confusedly mixed with strong feelings of inferiority to these other, more comfortable, persons. While it was easy to dismiss most of the "straight" kids at school as mindless, this was not possible with many persons in our circle, particularly some of the older ones whom I admired for their learning and critical intellects.
The other, philosophically deeper, dimension of this unease was that I myself was so "critically intelligent" that I had no ground upon which to stand. I had strong moral feelings but I was unable to convince myself that they were more than personal tastes. My early public school education had emphasized the sciences. While I could understand human values as having some meaning in terms of biology and evolutionary theory, I could not fit myself positively into that picture. I certainly wasn't biologically "fit". Thoughts of suicide were frequent.
Thus I was drawn, upon being exposed to them, to the existentialists, particularly Camus. They alone seemed to be trying to speak openly about the actual human condition
I recall reading "The Myth of Sisyphus" while seated in our family's red Opel Cadet station wagon across from City Hall, at the curb of Hodge's Park on a beautiful spring day. Our friends were all about this area between Bob Rowe's Evening Pipe Shop, Park Ridge's Community Church and the Cogswell Dance Studio (our indoors hangouts), but I was avoiding their frivolity, engaged in serious study, while, obviously, inviting an invitation to join in--which, in my moral confusion, I might well have declined.
Just as I was concluding this essay of the collection, the part about Sisyphus being happy with his absurd work, Lisa Cox walked in front of the car, headed west towards the church. Now, Lisa was just another pretty girl in our group, not the particular object of any attention from me. Indeed, she was too young, being two years behind in school. But, not being an intimate friend, she was one of those girls I would tend to guiltily objectify as sexual.
Here, however, it happened differently. She was beautiful, simply beautiful. Her long, tightly waved brown hair and matching corduroy pants, all bathed in sunlight dappled by the new leaves of the elms filling the park, were lovely. I didn't feel guilty for thinking this. I noticed the absence of guilt feelings. It seemed quite paradoxical, just as Camus' comment about Sisyphus had appeared, but true.
I'd call this an ecstatic experience. It didn't last more than a few minutes at most, though the memory of it, and experiences like it, remains clear and cherished.
August 3, 2021
Le Mythe de Sisyphe = The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays, Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus.
In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die.
When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld.
After finally capturing Sisyphus, the gods decided that his punishment would last for all eternity. He would have to push a rock up a mountain; upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again, leaving Sisyphus to start over.
Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death, and is condemned to a meaningless task.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه مارس سال 1972میلادی
عنوان: افسانه سیزیف؛ آلبر کامو؛ مترجمها خانمها و آقایان: «علی صدوقی»؛ «محمدعلی سپانلو»؛ «اکبر افسری»؛ «محمدصادق رئیسی»؛ «محمود سلطانیه»؛ «افسانه نجومی»؛ و «مهستی بحرینی»؛ «شهلا شریعتمداری»؛
نخستین بار مطبوعاتی فرخی در سال 1342هجری خورشیدی در 154ص، با ترجمه ی جنابان آقایان «محمدعلی سپانلو» و «علی صدوقی»؛
مترجم: شهلا شریعتمداری، تهران، ناشر: نامعلوم، 1350، در 174ص
مترجم: محمود سلطانیه؛ تهران، جامی، 1384؛ در 160ص؛ چاپ پنجم 1392؛
مترجم: مهستی بحرینی، تهران، نیلوفر؛ 1393، در 175ص
مترجم: محمدصادق رئیسی؛ تهران، روزگار نو، 1398، در 156ص؛
خدایان، «سیزیف» را محکوم کرده بودند، که دائما سنگی را به بالای کوهی بغلطاند، تا جاییکه سنگ بخاطر وزنش فرو افتد؛ آنها فکر میکردند تنبیهی وحشتناکتر از انجام کاری عبث و بیهوده، وجود ندارد؛ اما به گفته ی «هومر»، «سیزیف» خردمندترین و محتاط ترین موجود فانی بود؛ باز به گفته ی «هومر»، «سیزیف» مرگ را در زنجیر کرده بود، و این فرمانروایی، خدایان را خوش نمیآمد؛ پس «پلاتو»، خدای جنگ را فرستاد، تا مرگ را از دستان اشغالگر «سیزیف» آزاد سازد؛ ...؛
گروهی «اسطوره سیزیف» را، یکی از مهمترین آثار فلسفی «آلبر کامو» میدانند؛ به باور «کامو»، خودکشی جدیترین مسئله ی فلسفه است، و در واقع پاسخ به همین پرسش است که آیا زندگی ارزش زیستن را دارد؟ زندگی و خودکشی، درونمایه ی بخشی از آثار «کامو» هستند، که با عنوان «سه گانه ی پوچي» شناخته میشوند، کتابهای «بیگانه» یک رمان، «کالیگولا» در قالب نمایشنامه، و «اسطوره سیزیف» یک اثر فلسفی، که هر سه کتاب نشان دهنده ی باورهای «کامو» درباره ی «پوچی» هستند؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/06/199هجری خورشیدی؛ 11/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus.
In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die.
When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld.
After finally capturing Sisyphus, the gods decided that his punishment would last for all eternity. He would have to push a rock up a mountain; upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again, leaving Sisyphus to start over.
Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death, and is condemned to a meaningless task.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه مارس سال 1972میلادی
عنوان: افسانه سیزیف؛ آلبر کامو؛ مترجمها خانمها و آقایان: «علی صدوقی»؛ «محمدعلی سپانلو»؛ «اکبر افسری»؛ «محمدصادق رئیسی»؛ «محمود سلطانیه»؛ «افسانه نجومی»؛ و «مهستی بحرینی»؛ «شهلا شریعتمداری»؛
نخستین بار مطبوعاتی فرخی در سال 1342هجری خورشیدی در 154ص، با ترجمه ی جنابان آقایان «محمدعلی سپانلو» و «علی صدوقی»؛
مترجم: شهلا شریعتمداری، تهران، ناشر: نامعلوم، 1350، در 174ص
مترجم: محمود سلطانیه؛ تهران، جامی، 1384؛ در 160ص؛ چاپ پنجم 1392؛
مترجم: مهستی بحرینی، تهران، نیلوفر؛ 1393، در 175ص
مترجم: محمدصادق رئیسی؛ تهران، روزگار نو، 1398، در 156ص؛
خدایان، «سیزیف» را محکوم کرده بودند، که دائما سنگی را به بالای کوهی بغلطاند، تا جاییکه سنگ بخاطر وزنش فرو افتد؛ آنها فکر میکردند تنبیهی وحشتناکتر از انجام کاری عبث و بیهوده، وجود ندارد؛ اما به گفته ی «هومر»، «سیزیف» خردمندترین و محتاط ترین موجود فانی بود؛ باز به گفته ی «هومر»، «سیزیف» مرگ را در زنجیر کرده بود، و این فرمانروایی، خدایان را خوش نمیآمد؛ پس «پلاتو»، خدای جنگ را فرستاد، تا مرگ را از دستان اشغالگر «سیزیف» آزاد سازد؛ ...؛
گروهی «اسطوره سیزیف» را، یکی از مهمترین آثار فلسفی «آلبر کامو» میدانند؛ به باور «کامو»، خودکشی جدیترین مسئله ی فلسفه است، و در واقع پاسخ به همین پرسش است که آیا زندگی ارزش زیستن را دارد؟ زندگی و خودکشی، درونمایه ی بخشی از آثار «کامو» هستند، که با عنوان «سه گانه ی پوچي» شناخته میشوند، کتابهای «بیگانه» یک رمان، «کالیگولا» در قالب نمایشنامه، و «اسطوره سیزیف» یک اثر فلسفی، که هر سه کتاب نشان دهنده ی باورهای «کامو» درباره ی «پوچی» هستند؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 04/06/199هجری خورشیدی؛ 11/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
March 25, 2024
I was an antsy young teen when I noticed my student friend Anne’s green sweater.
Over her left side there was an inscription on it: “ours the Task Eternal.” It showed she was a member of Canadian Girls in Training - a Christian body, with a worldwide membership of teen girls devoted to selfless work for others.
Coincidentally. Sisyphus’ task in the Greek myth of the Hell of the Underworld is likewise eternal. But it is futile, Camus infers, insofar as he has not understood that he, Sisyphus, must always devote this work for his fellow inmates’ betterment.
To CGIT members, that work is now Heaven; to Sisyphus it is Hell. For Sisyphus misunderstands Eternity. And he has not even STARTED to consciously expiate his crimes.
For Camus, consciously selfless expiation is everything. The Game’s not over. No, it’s always BEGINNING ANEW. Paradise is always possible.
When I picked up this beloved old book this morning, after awakening from a painfully fitful sleep, the words in it seemed to be my own.
They are all that clearly familiar to me, after so many years away from them.
So it goes with life.
As we approach the years of our old age, the routine of our life falls into place without our even trying - if we have been paying attention to it.
That’s because the way we now live our life is something obvious, like the habits of a dear old friend. There are few surprises. Things are lucid.
We have become, as Auden says so well, like the etched strata of a limestone cliff - for we have become our Faults, friendly qualities with which we are now as familiar as with the back of our hand.
So it is with that apparition which Camus here calls the worm in our heart. For that is the very heart of the evil in our world.
The worm in the heart is self-interest. It suspends our disbelief in our personal stories. We start believing in a self who has continuity and is progressing over time. Towards what?
Nothing, really - but our pleasure in our life stories persuade us that they’re true. But Camus is saying that to see the truth, we have to come to grips with emptiness and face the end of our stories.
We have to wake up to a life emptied of frills and diversions. That is his counter-attack on the worm’s self-aggrandizing illusions.
Others have undertaken that same attack on their egos. Like in Ryan Holiday’s The Ego is the Enemy.
And I think of Bach, and his dour middle period of penitential music. I believe he successfully eliminated his Daemon of pride in his Pietist practises, as was reflected in this beautiful, mournful music.
How we choose the inevitable flight from that too-lucid apparition will decide our destiny. After that, our habits become something we can modify.
When I was a very young teen in the throes of coming of age, I - in my fear - chose the framework of a Christian mindset with which to judge my urges, and I’m glad I did. It has served me very ably.
Unfortunately, my young mind was too predisposed to dreaming, to interpret this mindset as anything other than mystical and dream-like.
As Gérard de Nerval sang so well:
J’ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l’Acheron
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d’Orphee
Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la fée.
In fact, it is the polar opposite of the dreamily affective, this conscious wide-awake awareness: for it’s intensely practical.
It is the very beginning of an annulment of emotional involvement in our stories, eventually resulting in a more natural and real love.
My sudden realization that I had always had a condition known as Asperger’s syndrome helped enormously here.
I can verify that fact now, in light of the habitual ease of my generally virtuous habits being slightly autistic in nature - however jarringly at odds with reality they may seem to my contemporaries.
My insight, and my meds, trimmed the accumulated fat from that goodness, thank heaven! And the love of my wife and friends helped a lot too.
All well and good so far. But there’s a problem here.
For though the Framework of my thoughts was useful and viable, my habitual responses to that worm in the heart had not been that.
I always chose A Dark FLIGHT from that Worm - Camus says we all do - when I could have chosen a Lucid Stand to be Perfectly Conscious of it. Avoidance is built into our modern way of life.
For if we answer the Lucidity of the Worm with the Lucidity of Conscious Awareness, we will still, like the rest of the human race, veer in our unguarded moments towards weakness and disaster.
But here’s the thing: by lucid awareness of the worm’s nonbeing we can make the whole scenario transparent to our own habitual subconscious thinking.
As Camus does by making the monsters of nothingness dissolve.
And what happens when the Worm is seen through?
Our life gains a New Quality: Peace.
THAT is what happens when, as Eliot says, “the Kingfisher’s wing answers Light to Light, and is Silent.”
Did you get that?
The King shines the Light of Heaven on our lucid struggle with a Very Lucid Enemy.
And His Silence thereafter is our Peace...
And a Sign of His Blessing:
For, as the psalmist says, “Ce goût du néant est (seulement) le goût du mensonge!”
And That’s how our old age can become transparent -
With a sense of humdrum tranquility.
And a return to daytime normalcy after the midnight nightmares of the worm.
Over her left side there was an inscription on it: “ours the Task Eternal.” It showed she was a member of Canadian Girls in Training - a Christian body, with a worldwide membership of teen girls devoted to selfless work for others.
Coincidentally. Sisyphus’ task in the Greek myth of the Hell of the Underworld is likewise eternal. But it is futile, Camus infers, insofar as he has not understood that he, Sisyphus, must always devote this work for his fellow inmates’ betterment.
To CGIT members, that work is now Heaven; to Sisyphus it is Hell. For Sisyphus misunderstands Eternity. And he has not even STARTED to consciously expiate his crimes.
For Camus, consciously selfless expiation is everything. The Game’s not over. No, it’s always BEGINNING ANEW. Paradise is always possible.
When I picked up this beloved old book this morning, after awakening from a painfully fitful sleep, the words in it seemed to be my own.
They are all that clearly familiar to me, after so many years away from them.
So it goes with life.
As we approach the years of our old age, the routine of our life falls into place without our even trying - if we have been paying attention to it.
That’s because the way we now live our life is something obvious, like the habits of a dear old friend. There are few surprises. Things are lucid.
We have become, as Auden says so well, like the etched strata of a limestone cliff - for we have become our Faults, friendly qualities with which we are now as familiar as with the back of our hand.
So it is with that apparition which Camus here calls the worm in our heart. For that is the very heart of the evil in our world.
The worm in the heart is self-interest. It suspends our disbelief in our personal stories. We start believing in a self who has continuity and is progressing over time. Towards what?
Nothing, really - but our pleasure in our life stories persuade us that they’re true. But Camus is saying that to see the truth, we have to come to grips with emptiness and face the end of our stories.
We have to wake up to a life emptied of frills and diversions. That is his counter-attack on the worm’s self-aggrandizing illusions.
Others have undertaken that same attack on their egos. Like in Ryan Holiday’s The Ego is the Enemy.
And I think of Bach, and his dour middle period of penitential music. I believe he successfully eliminated his Daemon of pride in his Pietist practises, as was reflected in this beautiful, mournful music.
How we choose the inevitable flight from that too-lucid apparition will decide our destiny. After that, our habits become something we can modify.
When I was a very young teen in the throes of coming of age, I - in my fear - chose the framework of a Christian mindset with which to judge my urges, and I’m glad I did. It has served me very ably.
Unfortunately, my young mind was too predisposed to dreaming, to interpret this mindset as anything other than mystical and dream-like.
As Gérard de Nerval sang so well:
J’ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l’Acheron
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d’Orphee
Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la fée.
In fact, it is the polar opposite of the dreamily affective, this conscious wide-awake awareness: for it’s intensely practical.
It is the very beginning of an annulment of emotional involvement in our stories, eventually resulting in a more natural and real love.
My sudden realization that I had always had a condition known as Asperger’s syndrome helped enormously here.
I can verify that fact now, in light of the habitual ease of my generally virtuous habits being slightly autistic in nature - however jarringly at odds with reality they may seem to my contemporaries.
My insight, and my meds, trimmed the accumulated fat from that goodness, thank heaven! And the love of my wife and friends helped a lot too.
All well and good so far. But there’s a problem here.
For though the Framework of my thoughts was useful and viable, my habitual responses to that worm in the heart had not been that.
I always chose A Dark FLIGHT from that Worm - Camus says we all do - when I could have chosen a Lucid Stand to be Perfectly Conscious of it. Avoidance is built into our modern way of life.
For if we answer the Lucidity of the Worm with the Lucidity of Conscious Awareness, we will still, like the rest of the human race, veer in our unguarded moments towards weakness and disaster.
But here’s the thing: by lucid awareness of the worm’s nonbeing we can make the whole scenario transparent to our own habitual subconscious thinking.
As Camus does by making the monsters of nothingness dissolve.
And what happens when the Worm is seen through?
Our life gains a New Quality: Peace.
THAT is what happens when, as Eliot says, “the Kingfisher’s wing answers Light to Light, and is Silent.”
Did you get that?
The King shines the Light of Heaven on our lucid struggle with a Very Lucid Enemy.
And His Silence thereafter is our Peace...
And a Sign of His Blessing:
For, as the psalmist says, “Ce goût du néant est (seulement) le goût du mensonge!”
And That’s how our old age can become transparent -
With a sense of humdrum tranquility.
And a return to daytime normalcy after the midnight nightmares of the worm.
August 25, 2016
چگونه میتوان از پوچی لذت برد؟ تا زمانیکه کسی فالودهی شیرازی میخورد، این مساله وجود دارد.
پوچی از نظر کامو چیست؟ یک زندگی کاملا یکنواخت، بدون هدف و مقصود، بدون معنا، بدون خلاقیت و تغییر، بدون پیشرفت و توام با یاس و ناامیدی.
سوال اصلی این کتاب چ��ست؟ این است که آیا بعد از درک این پوچی باید خودکشی کنیم؟
پاسخ کامو چیست؟ او میگوید پوچی نباید انسان را به خودکشی سوق دهد. پوچی نقطهی آغاز است نه پایان. انسان بعد از درک پوچی، باید با اشتیاق، دست به عصیان بزند. اشتیاق چیست؟ همان میل وافر به تجربه. منظور از عصیان چیست؟ کامو میگوید عصیان، یعنی عدم سازشپذیری، یعنی شوریدن علیه فریبهای اجتماعی. پوچی، انسان را به آگاهی از این نکته میرساند که خود، خدای خویش است.
کامو چه میگوید؟میگوید نه انسان، پوچ است و نه جهان، بلکه پوچی مربوط به رابطهی انسان با جهان است. او میخواهد انسان را با نادانی مخصوص به خودش، در یک مواجههی دائمی قرار دهد و اندیشه را به مرزهایش برساند. این تلقین، مقدمهی یک عصیان است که به آزادی در معنای ناب خود منجر میشود.
پوچی از نظر کامو چیست؟ یک زندگی کاملا یکنواخت، بدون هدف و مقصود، بدون معنا، بدون خلاقیت و تغییر، بدون پیشرفت و توام با یاس و ناامیدی.
سوال اصلی این کتاب چ��ست؟ این است که آیا بعد از درک این پوچی باید خودکشی کنیم؟
پاسخ کامو چیست؟ او میگوید پوچی نباید انسان را به خودکشی سوق دهد. پوچی نقطهی آغاز است نه پایان. انسان بعد از درک پوچی، باید با اشتیاق، دست به عصیان بزند. اشتیاق چیست؟ همان میل وافر به تجربه. منظور از عصیان چیست؟ کامو میگوید عصیان، یعنی عدم سازشپذیری، یعنی شوریدن علیه فریبهای اجتماعی. پوچی، انسان را به آگاهی از این نکته میرساند که خود، خدای خویش است.
کامو چه میگوید؟میگوید نه انسان، پوچ است و نه جهان، بلکه پوچی مربوط به رابطهی انسان با جهان است. او میخواهد انسان را با نادانی مخصوص به خودش، در یک مواجههی دائمی قرار دهد و اندیشه را به مرزهایش برساند. این تلقین، مقدمهی یک عصیان است که به آزادی در معنای ناب خود منجر میشود.
April 2, 2023
link: source
All those who are struggling for freedom today are ultimately fighting for beauty.
There is only one philosophical problem and that’s suicide, our philosophical inquiry of absurdism starts with the quote by Albert Camus. We need to understand what is absurd, firstly. Before that, we need to get familiar with the reasoning of the absurd. Absurd is supposed to be the starting point, not a conclusion. We know that a great reason for living could also be a great reason for dying so the meaning of life could be of paramount importance, or is it so. Suicide may also imply that one has realized the ridiculous nature of existence, the absence of any profound reason for living; suicide may also be related to honorable considerations- such as political suicides in protest and it reminds me of Sepukku, a ritual suicide in Japan. All these considerations raise the most important question haunting mankind since the dawn of civilization- is life really worth living?
The absurd lies in the contradiction between the basic human need to seek the meaning of life and the eternal silence of the universe to it. Absurd could be said to be the starting point and not a conclusion but if absurd is the starting point, then what is the end. The divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. We would explore here the relationship between absurd and suicide, to what extent suicide could be said to be the solution of absurd, or is it the solution in the first place? We know that almost every religion gives us hope of another life, the heavenly world which we are supposed to abode after this nether world. As per Camus, people often assume that refusing to give any meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that life is not worth living, however, there is no necessary correlation between these two judgments. As per him, if there is any logic to the point of death, one cannot know it unless one pursues it without reckless passion, in the sole light of the evidence, the reasoning of which could be the source, that is what is called absurd reasoning.
Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?
Either hope or suicide, do we need any more of those to escape the absurdity of life? Man dies by their own hands by following their emotional inclination to the end. As Heidegger said that anxiety is the source of everything so one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. Suddenly the world loses its meaning for us as the images and designs we attributed to it fall apart, the discomfort in the face of man’s own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this ‘nausea’ as a writer of today calls it, is also absurd. The hiatus between what we fancy we know and what we really know, which allow us to live with fancy ideas which we put to test, upset our whole life. We see that the world itself is not reasonable but the absurd is the confrontation of irrational and wild longing for clarity. According to phenomenologists, such as Heidegger world can no longer offer anything to the man filled with anguish. Camus says that if one could say clearly that the world itself is vast irrational then all would be saved, though the man may long for happiness and reason but absurd is born of the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.
link: source
The feeling of absurd upsurges from the comparison between an action and the world transcends it. Camus says that all existential philosophies suggest escape, they deify what crushes them and find a reason to hope in what impoverishes them, the forced hope is religious in nature. Chestov says that the only true solution is precisely when human judgment sees on solution otherwise what need would we have of God, we turn towards God only to obtain the impossible, as for possible, man suffice. There have been quite a few thinkers like Chestov who presuppose the absurd but prove it only to dispel it. To an absurd mind reason is useless and there is nothing beyond reason. One must know that in alert awareness of absurd there is no place for hope, one has to live with absurd rather than curl it in other words, one must live with one ailment rather than cure them. According to Camus there had been quite a few philosophers and thinkers who started with absurd but later wanted to be cured, such as Kierkegaard, who says If there were no eternal consciousness in a man if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?; but it can not stop an absurd man since seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable and hence absurd man accepts ‘despair’ rather than surrendering to falsehood.
The absurd man thrives on the knowledge it may not be certain that this world has a meaning that transcends it but it is impossible for him to know that meaning and that realization is the onset of his true existence, for him the world is not rational or irrational, it is unreasonable and only that. Suicide, like the leap, is acceptance at its extreme, it engulfs the absurd in the same death which is undesirable, absurd escapes suicide as it is simultaneously awareness and rejection of the death. Camus rejects the idea of freedom which is proposed by existentialists and phenomenologists, as per him if an individual worry about a truth which is individual to him, about a way of being or creating, to which he arranges his life and thereby accept that life has a meaning, he creates a barrier for himself between which his life would be confined. It is often observed that existentialism is associated with Camus and absurdism with Sartre but both philosophies are different as one could ascertain from the discussion.
The absurd man thus catches sight of a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given, and beyond which all is collapse and nothingness.
Being absurd doesn’t mean striving to be better, rather it is to be consistent, which means that living on what one has without speculating on what one does not have. The absurd world is godless and has men who think clearly and have ceased to hope. Camus explores that art and drama could be absurd phenomena themselves rather than refuges of absurd, he further explains that how could a novel be an absurd creation as it carries its own universe. We know that the great greatness of a work lies in offering everything and confirm nothing. The absurd work of art is the outcome of an often-unexpressed philosophy but it realizes itself through the implications of that philosophy. He considers Balzac, Sade, Melville, Stendhal, Dostoyevsky, Proust and Kafka as absurd creators. In fact, the book has an appendix wherein Camus discusses the ‘hope’ and ‘absurd’ in Kafka’s works, especially in The Trial and The Castle. He maintains that Kafka’s characters provide us a precise image of what we should be if we were deprived of our distractions.
It is strange in any case that works of related inspiration like those of Kafka, Kierkegaard or Chestov, those in short existential novelists and philosophers completely oriented towards the absurd and its consequences, should in the log run lead to the tremendous city of hope.
link: source
The Myth of Sisyphus represents the situation in the life of Sisyphus, a figure from Greek mythology, Sisyphus is condemned to repeat the meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. Camus uses the myth in the final chapter to explain the absurd situation of man, whose passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted towards accomplishing nothing. Sisyphus teaches us the consistency that negates the god and pushes the rock upwards therefore, our absurd universe without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Camus says that happiness and absurd are inseparable and it would not be correct to see them in a causal relationship, the absurd man when contemplates his torments, silences all the gods. Therefore we could be sure that whatever is human, has wholly human origins, the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart, therefore Sisyphus should be happy.
I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.
November 22, 2023
Assisted Living
It was that Jewish heretic Paul of Tarsus who gave us the idea that we are not in charge of our lives but are merely responsible for them to God who owns us. It was the English philosopher John Locke, a heretic to Pauline Calvinism, who casually pointed out that in fact our lives are the only thing we do have complete charge over, the only thing every one of us owns and can dispose of. And it was Albert Camus, a heretic to any and all sources of power, who took Locke entirely seriously by pointing out that how we dispose of life is the central issue of not just life but philosophy. The result is Sisyphus.
The followers of previous heretics - evangelical Christians, PC and wet liberals - don't like Camus. But they can't fault his conclusions. They may not approve of his marketing of suicide as a universally available option for disposing of life, but these are the same people who don't approve of gay sex or the discussion of religion in public. So hardly credible. Clearly Camus's analysis includes both Paul's and Locke's as special cases, and is therefore superior to them both.
Camus doesn't advocate suicide; he does advocate its importance to life and thought. Without it we are dead, as it were, all but physically. Habit and chance rule. Life is not inherently absurd but becomes so when death, specifically self-inflicted death, is not on the table. Evasions - illusion, after-life, hope, consuming, power, sex, reputation - become the norm that is socially enforced. Eliminating evasions is what Camus is trying to do.
There is rarely a page in Sisyphus without a phrase to savour and as memorable as anything in Montaigne. Just for openers:
p2: "I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument."
p3: "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined."
p4: "A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world."
So even if the logic gets you down, you have some rather sustaining prose to exchange with the spouse or functional equivalent over breakfast.
It was that Jewish heretic Paul of Tarsus who gave us the idea that we are not in charge of our lives but are merely responsible for them to God who owns us. It was the English philosopher John Locke, a heretic to Pauline Calvinism, who casually pointed out that in fact our lives are the only thing we do have complete charge over, the only thing every one of us owns and can dispose of. And it was Albert Camus, a heretic to any and all sources of power, who took Locke entirely seriously by pointing out that how we dispose of life is the central issue of not just life but philosophy. The result is Sisyphus.
The followers of previous heretics - evangelical Christians, PC and wet liberals - don't like Camus. But they can't fault his conclusions. They may not approve of his marketing of suicide as a universally available option for disposing of life, but these are the same people who don't approve of gay sex or the discussion of religion in public. So hardly credible. Clearly Camus's analysis includes both Paul's and Locke's as special cases, and is therefore superior to them both.
Camus doesn't advocate suicide; he does advocate its importance to life and thought. Without it we are dead, as it were, all but physically. Habit and chance rule. Life is not inherently absurd but becomes so when death, specifically self-inflicted death, is not on the table. Evasions - illusion, after-life, hope, consuming, power, sex, reputation - become the norm that is socially enforced. Eliminating evasions is what Camus is trying to do.
There is rarely a page in Sisyphus without a phrase to savour and as memorable as anything in Montaigne. Just for openers:
p2: "I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument."
p3: "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined."
p4: "A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world."
So even if the logic gets you down, you have some rather sustaining prose to exchange with the spouse or functional equivalent over breakfast.
June 5, 2019
No matter in what farthest corner of the world you live, which color is of your skin, what kind of habits you’ve grown over the time for you to be known as a busy person, what are the erogenous fantasies your mind weave in the moments of quiet to make you tremble with pleasure, which, from many doctrines you chose to scale the things as “right” and “wrong” which one from countless delusions you’ve opted as religion, or you weren’t the one to opt it, you inherited it like other concrete property, to which fairy god you sold your reason in exchange of a fabricated assurance of hereafter and a hoax of a succor for your inner void, it is absurd to find meaning in the meaninglessness of life, to keep asking questions for which there’s no answer, because life doesn’t offer any, there’s nothing like “truth” in this senseless world Camus puts it as: “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh” (MS, 21).
So, one is inclined to ask, is life worth living? If not, why don’t we cease to exist, as there’s no meaning to keep going on a path which leads to nowhere but right at the point we started our journey from, if there’s no hope of life after this one, why to live this one to begin with, and this leads us to ‘existential anxiety’, for Camus, it is only when one abandons hope, one can live to one’s fullest, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here' and live because we are our fate, and our frustration is our very life: we can never escape it, and consequently, the truly one philosophical question “suicide” must be out of question, simply not an option, because if life’s not worth living for someone who strives to have a meaning, so is death, there’s no point in committing suicide, because it entails that one is quitting to something he couldn’t grasp, let we be indifferent to what that simply doesn’t make a difference.
So did our absurd hero, Sisyphus, who was punished by gods for airing secrecy, he was to lift a boulder heaviest than skies on his shoulders, and climb the mountain, by reaching up, the boulder will roll down with Godspeed and Sisyphus had to watch it all the while, lift the boulder, ascent the mountain, watch it rolling down, for eternity. But the pleasure lies in knowing, Sisyphus knew the meaninglessness of his act, the absurdity of doing it again and again, with no hope in way, with more passion every time he goes down to lift the boulder, with new intensity, never resigning himself to despair, because despair roots out from presence of hope, if there’s no hope otherwise, certainly never is there despair. And for Camus, Sisyphus' triumph is his act of this absurdity “His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing” (MS, 120)..
So, one is inclined to ask, is life worth living? If not, why don’t we cease to exist, as there’s no meaning to keep going on a path which leads to nowhere but right at the point we started our journey from, if there’s no hope of life after this one, why to live this one to begin with, and this leads us to ‘existential anxiety’, for Camus, it is only when one abandons hope, one can live to one’s fullest, 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here' and live because we are our fate, and our frustration is our very life: we can never escape it, and consequently, the truly one philosophical question “suicide” must be out of question, simply not an option, because if life’s not worth living for someone who strives to have a meaning, so is death, there’s no point in committing suicide, because it entails that one is quitting to something he couldn’t grasp, let we be indifferent to what that simply doesn’t make a difference.
So did our absurd hero, Sisyphus, who was punished by gods for airing secrecy, he was to lift a boulder heaviest than skies on his shoulders, and climb the mountain, by reaching up, the boulder will roll down with Godspeed and Sisyphus had to watch it all the while, lift the boulder, ascent the mountain, watch it rolling down, for eternity. But the pleasure lies in knowing, Sisyphus knew the meaninglessness of his act, the absurdity of doing it again and again, with no hope in way, with more passion every time he goes down to lift the boulder, with new intensity, never resigning himself to despair, because despair roots out from presence of hope, if there’s no hope otherwise, certainly never is there despair. And for Camus, Sisyphus' triumph is his act of this absurdity “His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing” (MS, 120)..
February 25, 2024
"There is no more beautiful spectacle than the intelligence grappling with a reality which exceeds it." This quote from his book, The Myth of Sysiph, applies wonderfully to its author.
Reality is beyond us all, and the meaning of life is foreign to us. However, we do not all have the same relationship with it, the same way of doing or including ourselves.
Those who believe in God and have chosen religion to honor Him have chosen the easy way. Everything is explained by Him and in Him. Death is only an opening to eternity in His kingdom.
For those who do not believe, the problem remains among the simple-minded. These do not express torments or questions. And in the end, happy the simple-minded, the kingdom of heaven is theirs. The famous parable connects them to the previous ones.
Albert Camus, neither simple-minded, excuse a little, nor believer, but contemptuous of the grand philosophical theories he knows well, especially in their contradiction, wants a human response to his state of mortal in need of being able to give meaning to the life. His answer to him is the absurd man. Sysiph is condemned to push his rock towards the top of the mountain and start over eternally each time he comes down again in the valley.
"Great novelists are philosophical novelists." Albert Camus proves to us with the myth of Sysiph that we will always read too quickly and too lightly as these pages are heavy with reflection.
If I meant an enormity, I would say that reading this book is essential for anyone who is passionate about the man and his work and wants to deepen his knowledge. However, you still have to be ready to walk a difficult path. Camus, novelist-philosopher or philosopher-novelist, the myth of Sysiph obliges us to the second formula. A concerned man, tortured by the meaning of life, gifted with courage and the talent to express it.
So, the death of Camus against a tree in 1960: accident, assassination, or logical continuation of the absurd man's reasoning and conclusion. This reading widens the range of possibilities.
Reality is beyond us all, and the meaning of life is foreign to us. However, we do not all have the same relationship with it, the same way of doing or including ourselves.
Those who believe in God and have chosen religion to honor Him have chosen the easy way. Everything is explained by Him and in Him. Death is only an opening to eternity in His kingdom.
For those who do not believe, the problem remains among the simple-minded. These do not express torments or questions. And in the end, happy the simple-minded, the kingdom of heaven is theirs. The famous parable connects them to the previous ones.
Albert Camus, neither simple-minded, excuse a little, nor believer, but contemptuous of the grand philosophical theories he knows well, especially in their contradiction, wants a human response to his state of mortal in need of being able to give meaning to the life. His answer to him is the absurd man. Sysiph is condemned to push his rock towards the top of the mountain and start over eternally each time he comes down again in the valley.
"Great novelists are philosophical novelists." Albert Camus proves to us with the myth of Sysiph that we will always read too quickly and too lightly as these pages are heavy with reflection.
If I meant an enormity, I would say that reading this book is essential for anyone who is passionate about the man and his work and wants to deepen his knowledge. However, you still have to be ready to walk a difficult path. Camus, novelist-philosopher or philosopher-novelist, the myth of Sysiph obliges us to the second formula. A concerned man, tortured by the meaning of life, gifted with courage and the talent to express it.
So, the death of Camus against a tree in 1960: accident, assassination, or logical continuation of the absurd man's reasoning and conclusion. This reading widens the range of possibilities.
January 10, 2019
A good friend introduced me to Nietzsche in my early teens, and Nietzsche and I have had a turbulent relationship ever since. One of the first adult books I read was Kafka's The Trial and Nietzsche was there too, inviting me to step off the city on poles into the bottomless swamp.
Oh baby hold my hand
we're gonna walk on water
Nietzsche said there are no facts, no truth. After he said this, some philosophers stopped writing like Kant and wrote like poets. Camus says here that 'there is no truth, merely truths. From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder.' Consciousness creates a 'shimmer' of truths.
If there is no god and we are all condemned to death and I am conscious then my life is absurd. Existentialists arrived here and made their leaps of faith to gods. Karl Popper made the leap of faith to reason (reason is Popper's god. There is no a priori argument for reason), but Camus does not want to leap, he asks if we can live with what we have, this absurd life, and not kill ourselves. Nietzsche said we make art in order not to commit suicide. Camus tells us that Dostoyevsky found his 'leap' here - if we cannot bear to live without belief in an immortal soul, then the immortal soul must be!
Camus will not leap and he will not choose suicide: he decides we can live with what we have if we remain lucid and conscious and don't succumb to illusion. After Camus, some artists created in order to provoke and maintain the absurd consciousness. This is the effect Beckett gets, I think, in Waiting for Godot. The sleeplessness, the watchfulness, the silliness of Camus' absurdity.
I have myself been tempted by the leap, to reason or the immortal soul. But in the main I have lived after Nietzsche, without much anguish. I do not find it so hard to 'imagine Sisyphus happy', to watch with Camus as he walks down to the valley of hell after his rock to start over, stronger than the rock then, striding unencumbered. I've been busy and the birds have sung and food has tasted good and love has touched me. (These White men who had so little to do that they were overwhelmed by grief for lost illusions might have felt better after baking a loaf or sweeping out the house. In all seriousness.)
Camus gives three sketches of 'absurd men'. Don Juan and the conqueror I have no use for, as with much of this book, I discard them as too mired in patriarchy to use without starting again. But the sketch of the actor sings out to me.
Oh baby hold my hand
we're gonna walk on water
Nietzsche said there are no facts, no truth. After he said this, some philosophers stopped writing like Kant and wrote like poets. Camus says here that 'there is no truth, merely truths. From the evening breeze to this hand on my shoulder.' Consciousness creates a 'shimmer' of truths.
If there is no god and we are all condemned to death and I am conscious then my life is absurd. Existentialists arrived here and made their leaps of faith to gods. Karl Popper made the leap of faith to reason (reason is Popper's god. There is no a priori argument for reason), but Camus does not want to leap, he asks if we can live with what we have, this absurd life, and not kill ourselves. Nietzsche said we make art in order not to commit suicide. Camus tells us that Dostoyevsky found his 'leap' here - if we cannot bear to live without belief in an immortal soul, then the immortal soul must be!
Camus will not leap and he will not choose suicide: he decides we can live with what we have if we remain lucid and conscious and don't succumb to illusion. After Camus, some artists created in order to provoke and maintain the absurd consciousness. This is the effect Beckett gets, I think, in Waiting for Godot. The sleeplessness, the watchfulness, the silliness of Camus' absurdity.
I have myself been tempted by the leap, to reason or the immortal soul. But in the main I have lived after Nietzsche, without much anguish. I do not find it so hard to 'imagine Sisyphus happy', to watch with Camus as he walks down to the valley of hell after his rock to start over, stronger than the rock then, striding unencumbered. I've been busy and the birds have sung and food has tasted good and love has touched me. (These White men who had so little to do that they were overwhelmed by grief for lost illusions might have felt better after baking a loaf or sweeping out the house. In all seriousness.)
Camus gives three sketches of 'absurd men'. Don Juan and the conqueror I have no use for, as with much of this book, I discard them as too mired in patriarchy to use without starting again. But the sketch of the actor sings out to me.
'What matters,' said Nietzsche, 'is not eternal life but eternal vivacity.' All drama is, in fact, in this choice.Not because we should live as though in the limelight, or even because there is no rehearsal (no eternal return) but because in drama the shimmer of truth is shared. Camus does not seem to have thought of this: his absurd man is oh tragically alone (again I advise him: bath the baby, wash the linen). But in the theatre we are not alone, we are fish in the water of each other's truths, we can live them in these mirrors. As another philosopher said, there has never been one person
March 23, 2021
Una maravilla de libro que me permite seguir descubriendo a este genio de la literatura mundial. Albert Camus desarrolla un ensayo de alto vuelo filosófico y estético sobre el absurdo a partir de una galería de personajes literarios, pensadores y escritores, entre ellos Sísifo, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, y el personaje Kirilov de la novela “Los Demonios” de Fiódor Dostoievski, así también como un enfoque sobre el personaje Don Juan, la comedia y la conquista como hechos que conectan con lo absurdo; uniendo literatura con filosofía, ahondando en la temática del suicidio y mostrándonos su particular visión existencialista sobre estos temas que son parte inherente del ser humano.
Por último es impecable su acercamiento a la obra de Franz Kafka, a quien le dedica un capítulo especial, el último. Todo lo expuesto en ese mínimo ensayo es superlativo y arroja cierta luz sobre las tantas dudas que a los lectores les suscita la obra del gigante checo.
En cierta manera, es indispensable leer este apartado del libro para encontrar conclusiones valederas a la hora de enfrentar la obra kafkiana.
Si bien, por momentos el libro supera mi limitado nivel de entendimiento, siempre es un placer leer a Albert Camus.
Por último es impecable su acercamiento a la obra de Franz Kafka, a quien le dedica un capítulo especial, el último. Todo lo expuesto en ese mínimo ensayo es superlativo y arroja cierta luz sobre las tantas dudas que a los lectores les suscita la obra del gigante checo.
En cierta manera, es indispensable leer este apartado del libro para encontrar conclusiones valederas a la hora de enfrentar la obra kafkiana.
Si bien, por momentos el libro supera mi limitado nivel de entendimiento, siempre es un placer leer a Albert Camus.
April 5, 2020
گاهی کتابی رو که میخونی از همون خط اول حس میکنی که آنچه نویسنده به نگارش اورده صدای افکار توست که بهش زندگی بخشیده شده,جملات این کتاب رو دو سه سال اخیر هر روز عمیقا حس کردم در زندگیم و دید و نظر البرکامو رو بی نهایت دوست دارم و میپسندم..
وقتی میخوام قسمتی از این کتاب را که دوست داشتم در ریویو بیارم,ناگزیر تمام کتاب رو باید اورد,اگر این کتاب را خواندید دوباره بخوانید و اگر نه,در خواندن ان تعلل نکنید..
قسمت اخر این کتاب رو در باران سیل اسای این روز های خوزستان میخوانم..
هر جمله از این کتاب رو بسیار دوست دارم..مثل یک نوشیدنی خوب..
وقتی میخوام قسمتی از این کتاب را که دوست داشتم در ریویو بیارم,ناگزیر تمام کتاب رو باید اورد,اگر این کتاب را خواندید دوباره بخوانید و اگر نه,در خواندن ان تعلل نکنید..
قسمت اخر این کتاب رو در باران سیل اسای این روز های خوزستان میخوانم..
هر جمله از این کتاب رو بسیار دوست دارم..مثل یک نوشیدنی خوب..
September 17, 2016
This was a fascinating insight into a thought provoking question, Albert Camus suggests that suicide amounts to a confession that life is not worth living. He links this confession to what he calls the "feeling of absurdity", that on the whole, we go through life with meaning and purpose, with a sense that we do things for good and profound reasons. Occasionally, however for some at least, we might come to see our daily lives dictated primarily by the forces of habit, thus bringing into question the following, if one feels that the embodiment of freedom is lost to a drone-like existence, all of our actions and reasons for them to a degree become pointless, with a feeling of absurdity linked to meaningless, meaningless to death by ones own hand. Camus in basic terms simply implies that we start to live before the habit of thinking on a deep level takes hold, thus avoiding the consequences of the meaningless nature of life, through what Camus calls an "act of eluding.", we choose not to think about the absurd because our nature is built on that of hopes and dreams for a meaningful life rather than face the consequences of staring into the void.
One the main attributes used throughout his fiction, that of "exile" is also included heavily as a comparative for this essay. No one else but Camus could have wrote this work, as soon as you enter his world, the world around you becomes less apparent.
One the main attributes used throughout his fiction, that of "exile" is also included heavily as a comparative for this essay. No one else but Camus could have wrote this work, as soon as you enter his world, the world around you becomes less apparent.
May 31, 2023
This essay is an in-depth discussion of Camus's view on absurdism and how man continues his existence on the face of it. Is he to go on living or to commit suicide and make an exit from life? If he continues his existence, then, how to face life, being conscious of its absurdity? The Myth of Sisyphus clears this dilemma.
In the preface, Camus says, "The fundamental subject of The Myth of Sisyphus is this; it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate". Camus rules out suicide as a solution from the outset. The purpose of this essay then is to explain how man must go on living in the understanding that this world is a meaningless and absurd one.
Before he comes to that, he first addresses the question of why men contemplate suicide as a possible solution? "Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of the habit (mechanically going through daily routine), the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering". Men become weary of the mechanical existence. But so long as they are unconscious of it, they'll go on existing. A moment comes, however, that awakens the consciousness of these weary men, and when that happens, there are only two paths to choose from: committing suicide or treading on the path of recovery. Camus advocates the latter.
What then is his theory? How is the man to walk on the path of recovery with his knowledge that the world is an absurd and meaningless place? To Camus, "accepting a life without appeal" is the solution: face life with no hope and with indifference. It is not an easy solution, especially to continue existing without hope! But Camus says that is necessary if we are to confront this absurd world. There should be no reconciliation but only a consciousness of absurdism (which he called "revolt"), and certainly no falling back on the divine authority. If so, only freedom and passion should govern the existence of man. When a man is conscious of absurdism, he lives in a perpetual conflict. He knows only of one certainty, and that is death. So, he must choose a life of freedom for that short period and indulge in his passions with careless indifference.
This is where the myth of Sisyphus comes in. Sisyphus's "scorn of the Gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted towards accomplishing nothing", for he was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up to a mountain top knowing very well that it'll come down and that he'll have to do it repeatedly. The life of an absurd man is similar to that of Sisyphus. He rolls his rock of passion over and over up to the mountain top fully knowing its futility. Camus says that it is "the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth".
The essay lucidly expounds on Camus's own interpretation of existentialism in the face of absurdism. It is deep and thought-provoking. Even if one doesn't fully agree with his philosophy, one cannot disregard certain truths of it. As for me, Camus always caters to my thirst for intellectually challenging reading. The brain needs a full dose of a stimulant now and then. :)
In the preface, Camus says, "The fundamental subject of The Myth of Sisyphus is this; it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate". Camus rules out suicide as a solution from the outset. The purpose of this essay then is to explain how man must go on living in the understanding that this world is a meaningless and absurd one.
Before he comes to that, he first addresses the question of why men contemplate suicide as a possible solution? "Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of the habit (mechanically going through daily routine), the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering". Men become weary of the mechanical existence. But so long as they are unconscious of it, they'll go on existing. A moment comes, however, that awakens the consciousness of these weary men, and when that happens, there are only two paths to choose from: committing suicide or treading on the path of recovery. Camus advocates the latter.
What then is his theory? How is the man to walk on the path of recovery with his knowledge that the world is an absurd and meaningless place? To Camus, "accepting a life without appeal" is the solution: face life with no hope and with indifference. It is not an easy solution, especially to continue existing without hope! But Camus says that is necessary if we are to confront this absurd world. There should be no reconciliation but only a consciousness of absurdism (which he called "revolt"), and certainly no falling back on the divine authority. If so, only freedom and passion should govern the existence of man. When a man is conscious of absurdism, he lives in a perpetual conflict. He knows only of one certainty, and that is death. So, he must choose a life of freedom for that short period and indulge in his passions with careless indifference.
This is where the myth of Sisyphus comes in. Sisyphus's "scorn of the Gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted towards accomplishing nothing", for he was condemned for eternity to roll a rock up to a mountain top knowing very well that it'll come down and that he'll have to do it repeatedly. The life of an absurd man is similar to that of Sisyphus. He rolls his rock of passion over and over up to the mountain top fully knowing its futility. Camus says that it is "the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth".
The essay lucidly expounds on Camus's own interpretation of existentialism in the face of absurdism. It is deep and thought-provoking. Even if one doesn't fully agree with his philosophy, one cannot disregard certain truths of it. As for me, Camus always caters to my thirst for intellectually challenging reading. The brain needs a full dose of a stimulant now and then. :)
October 13, 2018
عنوان الكتاب هو أسطورة سيزيف
وسيزيف هو الشاب اليوناني الذي حكمت عليه آلهة اليونان بعقاب غريب ومؤلم للغاية، وهو أن يدفع حجراً إلي أعلي جبل، وكلما كان يبلغ القمة انحدر الحجر إلي السفح، فيعود الشاب ليرفعه إلي قمة الجبل مرة أخري، ثم يسقط الحجر، وهكذا إلي ما لا نهاية
وقد اختار ألبير كامي هذا العنوان ليعبر عن الفكرة التي يؤمن بها وهي فكرة العبثية
فكل شئ في نظره عب�� × عبث ولا غاية منه ، كما كان عقاب الآلهة لهذا الشاب عبث ولا غاية منه
ويري كامي أن كلنا في الحياة سيزيف
فكلنا يعاني ..
والحياة تعب × تعب ولا غاية منها ولا إليها .. فالعالم يحيا وسط اللاجدوي، واللامعقولية، وعلي العقل البشري أن يتعامل مع هذا الفكرة العبثية
ولكني طبعا لا أتفق مع حديثه عن فكرة الانتحار الفلسفي والتي لا تتفق علي الإطلاق مع الأديان السماوية
وليست حلاً علي الإطلاق ، بل هي هروب ويأس وعبث .. ولا يمكن ان تُقام حياة وتُبني حضارة، أو تبني حياتك أنت الشخصية بناء علي هذه الفكرة العبثية
ولو نظرنا للطريقة التي مات بها البير كامي نفسه لوجدنا أنها لا تتفق إطلاقا مع فكرة العبثية .. فلقد كان مضطراً للسفر ، وحجز بالفعل تذكرتين للقطار له ولصديقه الذي سيسافر معه .. ولكن صديقه أراد أن يسافرا بالسيارة ، وفعلا سافرا بالسيارة، وتعرضا لحادث أودي بحياتهما معا، ووجدا التذكرتين في جيبه ..
من سخرية الاقدار انه كان قد علق في اوائل حياته الادبية ، ان اكثر موتا عبثيا يمكن تخيله هو الموت في حادث سيارة
ولكن
كل شئ له سبب، وله غاية ..
يقول الله تعالي :
{ أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ }
سورة المؤمنون الأية / 115
قد قيمته بــ 5 نجمات لعمق الفكر الفلسفي فيه ، وليس لانني أتفق مع أفكاره
جدير بالذكر أن كامي الفيلسوف الفرنسي الشهير قد ولد في الجزائر، وكان طالبا في جامعة الجزائر، ثم لاعبا لكرة القدم في الجامعة ، ثم التحق بالمقاومة الفرنسية ضد الاحتلال النازي أثناء إقامته متخفياً في باريس ، ثم التقي بسارتر عام 1943 ، وحصل علي جائزة نوبل في الأدب 1657 وتوفي عام 1960
كامي مع سارتر
وسيزيف هو الشاب اليوناني الذي حكمت عليه آلهة اليونان بعقاب غريب ومؤلم للغاية، وهو أن يدفع حجراً إلي أعلي جبل، وكلما كان يبلغ القمة انحدر الحجر إلي السفح، فيعود الشاب ليرفعه إلي قمة الجبل مرة أخري، ثم يسقط الحجر، وهكذا إلي ما لا نهاية
وقد اختار ألبير كامي هذا العنوان ليعبر عن الفكرة التي يؤمن بها وهي فكرة العبثية
فكل شئ في نظره عب�� × عبث ولا غاية منه ، كما كان عقاب الآلهة لهذا الشاب عبث ولا غاية منه
ويري كامي أن كلنا في الحياة سيزيف
فكلنا يعاني ..
والحياة تعب × تعب ولا غاية منها ولا إليها .. فالعالم يحيا وسط اللاجدوي، واللامعقولية، وعلي العقل البشري أن يتعامل مع هذا الفكرة العبثية
ولكني طبعا لا أتفق مع حديثه عن فكرة الانتحار الفلسفي والتي لا تتفق علي الإطلاق مع الأديان السماوية
وليست حلاً علي الإطلاق ، بل هي هروب ويأس وعبث .. ولا يمكن ان تُقام حياة وتُبني حضارة، أو تبني حياتك أنت الشخصية بناء علي هذه الفكرة العبثية
ولو نظرنا للطريقة التي مات بها البير كامي نفسه لوجدنا أنها لا تتفق إطلاقا مع فكرة العبثية .. فلقد كان مضطراً للسفر ، وحجز بالفعل تذكرتين للقطار له ولصديقه الذي سيسافر معه .. ولكن صديقه أراد أن يسافرا بالسيارة ، وفعلا سافرا بالسيارة، وتعرضا لحادث أودي بحياتهما معا، ووجدا التذكرتين في جيبه ..
من سخرية الاقدار انه كان قد علق في اوائل حياته الادبية ، ان اكثر موتا عبثيا يمكن تخيله هو الموت في حادث سيارة
ولكن
كل شئ له سبب، وله غاية ..
يقول الله تعالي :
{ أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ }
سورة المؤمنون الأية / 115
قد قيمته بــ 5 نجمات لعمق الفكر الفلسفي فيه ، وليس لانني أتفق مع أفكاره
جدير بالذكر أن كامي الفيلسوف الفرنسي الشهير قد ولد في الجزائر، وكان طالبا في جامعة الجزائر، ثم لاعبا لكرة القدم في الجامعة ، ثم التحق بالمقاومة الفرنسية ضد الاحتلال النازي أثناء إقامته متخفياً في باريس ، ثم التقي بسارتر عام 1943 ، وحصل علي جائزة نوبل في الأدب 1657 وتوفي عام 1960
كامي مع سارتر
August 6, 2020
بعضی از بخشهای کتاب را نفهمیدم. سخت بودند. شاید پیش نیازی میخواسته یا کتاب باید دوباره خوانده شود
پس از مشکل با این کتاب به مطالعهی کتاب «فلسفهی کامو» اثر «ریچارد کمبر» و ترجمهی «خشایار دیهیمی» پرداختم. این کتاب خیلی عالی بود. اگر شما هم دوست داشتید سراغش بروید. از طرفی من ترجمهی خانم مهستی بحرینی را خواندم و البته ترجمهی دکتر محمود سلطانیه را هم داشتم (اسطورهی سیزیف). دربارهی ترجمه اصلا اظهار نظری نمیکنم. ولی برایم جالب بود که چرا کتاب ترجمهی دکتر سلطانیه یک فصل و یا در واقع بخش ضمیمهای را که در آخر ترجمهی خانم بحرینی تحت عنوان «امید و پوچی در آثار کافکا» بود، نداشت. با مطالعهی کتاب «کمبر» جوابم را گرفتم که برای شما هم نقل قول میکنم:
اسطورهی سیسوفوس رسالهای است در چهار بخش که بار نخست در اواخر 1942 در فرانسهی اشغال شده منتشر شد. ناشر کامو، گالیمار، چهارده صفحه از کتاب را حذف کرد چون به کافکا میپرداختند. کافکا یهودی بود و مقامات آلمانی در فرانسهی اشغال شده نمیخواستند بگذارند که ارزیابی مثبتی از نویسندگان یهودی به مردم عرضه شود. اما عجیب اینجاست که قطعههای طولانی دربارهی فیلسوفانی چون ادموند هوسرل و لئو شستوف حذف نشدهاند، اگرچه هوسرل و شستوف هم یهودی بودند. پس از آزادی فرانسه، صفحات حذف شده در مورد کافکا به صورت یک ضمیمه به کتاب بازگردانده شدند. «کتاب فلسفهی کامو. ریچارد کمبر. خشایار دیهیمی. نشر نو.» صفحات 85 و 86 کتاب
پس از مشکل با این کتاب به مطالعهی کتاب «فلسفهی کامو» اثر «ریچارد کمبر» و ترجمهی «خشایار دیهیمی» پرداختم. این کتاب خیلی عالی بود. اگر شما هم دوست داشتید سراغش بروید. از طرفی من ترجمهی خانم مهستی بحرینی را خواندم و البته ترجمهی دکتر محمود سلطانیه را هم داشتم (اسطورهی سیزیف). دربارهی ترجمه اصلا اظهار نظری نمیکنم. ولی برایم جالب بود که چرا کتاب ترجمهی دکتر سلطانیه یک فصل و یا در واقع بخش ضمیمهای را که در آخر ترجمهی خانم بحرینی تحت عنوان «امید و پوچی در آثار کافکا» بود، نداشت. با مطالعهی کتاب «کمبر» جوابم را گرفتم که برای شما هم نقل قول میکنم:
اسطورهی سیسوفوس رسالهای است در چهار بخش که بار نخست در اواخر 1942 در فرانسهی اشغال شده منتشر شد. ناشر کامو، گالیمار، چهارده صفحه از کتاب را حذف کرد چون به کافکا میپرداختند. کافکا یهودی بود و مقامات آلمانی در فرانسهی اشغال شده نمیخواستند بگذارند که ارزیابی مثبتی از نویسندگان یهودی به مردم عرضه شود. اما عجیب اینجاست که قطعههای طولانی دربارهی فیلسوفانی چون ادموند هوسرل و لئو شستوف حذف نشدهاند، اگرچه هوسرل و شستوف هم یهودی بودند. پس از آزادی فرانسه، صفحات حذف شده در مورد کافکا به صورت یک ضمیمه به کتاب بازگردانده شدند. «کتاب فلسفهی کامو. ریچارد کمبر. خشایار دیهیمی. نشر نو.» صفحات 85 و 86 کتاب
August 23, 2015
The One True Philosophical Problem
"The Myth of Sisyphus" purports to be about the "one truly philosophical problem [of] suicide".
Perhaps, it's a little sensationalist to define the problem in these terms, at least in the 21st century. Even Camus himself immediately restated the problem as "judging whether life is or is not worth living".
Maybe another way is to ask whether, if life is not worth living, does it follow that we should cease to live, e.g., by committing suicide? (It's interesting how we commit four things: errors, crimes, sins, suicide.)
Camus tends to assume that, in the absence of God, there is no meaning of life, at least no superimposed, objective meaning of life.
Thus, for him, the resulting absurdity is the starting point, not the result of a deductive process.
If life is truly meaningless, the question is how to respond?
Do we revert to the meaning of life posited by religion and a supernatural being (an irrational response)? Do we commit suicide in order to escape the absence of meaning (the result of despair)? Or do we embrace the absurdity implicit in an absence of meaning without accepting it (revolt)?
Franz von Stuck's "Sisyphus" (1920)
The Confrontation
For Camus, we long for meaning. Yet, we don't readily find it. Partly because it isn't there. The absurd is born of "the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world". (29)
The absurd is a divorce: "It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation."
And what is the confrontation between? In effect, "the Absurd is not in man...nor in the world, but in their presence together." (30) Absurdity describes a relationship between the two.
Not just is the Absurd a confrontation, but it is also an "unceasing struggle", which struggle "implies a total absence of hope, a continual rejection and a conscious dissatisfaction...A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future." (31)
Arguably, a man with no hope has no reason to continue living into the future. Without hope, what awaits us is inevitable death (which awaits us anyway, with or without hope).
The Escape
Camus considers that all existentialist attempts to deal with the Absurd "suggest escape...they deify what crushes them and find reason to hope in what impoverishes them."
He maintains that "nothing logically prepares this reason. I can call it a leap." Paradoxically, it shares something with a religious leap of faith: "we turn towards God only to obtain the impossible. As for the possible, men suffice." (33)
Nevertheless, the leap is an escape. By it, we seek to elude the Absurd.
Endurance
In contrast, Camus argues that "living is keeping the absurd alive." (47)
We must keep it alive so that we can confront and endure it. To do so, we must revolt against it:
"It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency...metaphysical revolt extends awareness to the whole of experience...Revolt gives life its value. Spread out over the whole of a life, it restores its majesty to that life. To a man devoid of blinkers, there is no finer sight than that of the intelligence at grips with a reality that transcends it."(47)
Camus' solution therefore is consciousness and revolt. (48)
Suicide is an illusory solution:
"It is essential to die unreconciled [to the Absurd] and not of one's own free will." (49)
The Revolt
According to Camus, man must never surrender or give in. We must live "without appeal" to some greater natural or supernatural authority. Only then are we truly free and responsible. (52)
Camus sees the future, inevitably, as an invitation to death. However, he converts the revolt, the refusal to commit suicide, into a rule of life.
The Absurd therefore gives us three qualities: our revolt, our freedom, and our passion (for life over death). (55)
Camus distinguishes between "renunciation" and "revolt".
"Renunciation" is an irrational denial of the absurd, e.g., like religion. Camus writes "consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation." Rejection doesn't deny the existence of the absurd, whereas renunciation does.
"The Point is to Live"
These arguments define a metaphysical process, a way of thinking. However, Camus concludes, "The point is to live." (56) We must live without appeal, but informed of our limits. (57)
It is "essential to elude nothing. There is thus a metaphysical honour in enduring the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance." (77)
There is honour in battle, honour in confrontation, honour in revolt.
Metaphysical Art and Literature
Camus finds sustenance in art:
"The great novelists are philosophical novelists...what distinguishes modern sensibility from classical sensibility is that the latter thrives on moral problems and the former on metaphysical problems." (85)
For me, the focus on the metaphysical points to a bridge between modernism and post-modernism. Both are separate from the realist focus on morality, on problems of good and evil.
Art is fundamental to our pursuit of freedom in the short time we have on earth. In art, we find "not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion." (95)
Art captures the ephemeral flame that burns passionate and bright for the duration of our short sojourn.
The Myth of Sisyphus
It's here that Camus introduces the myth of Sisyphus. The burden of Sisyphus is his fate. Perhaps it is a futile and hopeless labour. However, "all Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing." (98)
In the same way, "the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols," the illusions that encourage him to elude Absurdity:
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."
He who recognises this will be the master of his days:
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (99)
So too, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, if we are to be happy, because ultimately our burden is the same.
SOUNDTRAK:
Soul II Soul - "Get a Life"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EezvP8P...
Soul II Soul - "Keep On Movin'"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1iQl46-...
"The Myth of Sisyphus" purports to be about the "one truly philosophical problem [of] suicide".
Perhaps, it's a little sensationalist to define the problem in these terms, at least in the 21st century. Even Camus himself immediately restated the problem as "judging whether life is or is not worth living".
Maybe another way is to ask whether, if life is not worth living, does it follow that we should cease to live, e.g., by committing suicide? (It's interesting how we commit four things: errors, crimes, sins, suicide.)
Camus tends to assume that, in the absence of God, there is no meaning of life, at least no superimposed, objective meaning of life.
Thus, for him, the resulting absurdity is the starting point, not the result of a deductive process.
If life is truly meaningless, the question is how to respond?
Do we revert to the meaning of life posited by religion and a supernatural being (an irrational response)? Do we commit suicide in order to escape the absence of meaning (the result of despair)? Or do we embrace the absurdity implicit in an absence of meaning without accepting it (revolt)?
Franz von Stuck's "Sisyphus" (1920)
The Confrontation
For Camus, we long for meaning. Yet, we don't readily find it. Partly because it isn't there. The absurd is born of "the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world". (29)
The absurd is a divorce: "It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation."
And what is the confrontation between? In effect, "the Absurd is not in man...nor in the world, but in their presence together." (30) Absurdity describes a relationship between the two.
Not just is the Absurd a confrontation, but it is also an "unceasing struggle", which struggle "implies a total absence of hope, a continual rejection and a conscious dissatisfaction...A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future." (31)
Arguably, a man with no hope has no reason to continue living into the future. Without hope, what awaits us is inevitable death (which awaits us anyway, with or without hope).
The Escape
Camus considers that all existentialist attempts to deal with the Absurd "suggest escape...they deify what crushes them and find reason to hope in what impoverishes them."
He maintains that "nothing logically prepares this reason. I can call it a leap." Paradoxically, it shares something with a religious leap of faith: "we turn towards God only to obtain the impossible. As for the possible, men suffice." (33)
Nevertheless, the leap is an escape. By it, we seek to elude the Absurd.
Endurance
In contrast, Camus argues that "living is keeping the absurd alive." (47)
We must keep it alive so that we can confront and endure it. To do so, we must revolt against it:
"It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency...metaphysical revolt extends awareness to the whole of experience...Revolt gives life its value. Spread out over the whole of a life, it restores its majesty to that life. To a man devoid of blinkers, there is no finer sight than that of the intelligence at grips with a reality that transcends it."(47)
Camus' solution therefore is consciousness and revolt. (48)
Suicide is an illusory solution:
"It is essential to die unreconciled [to the Absurd] and not of one's own free will." (49)
The Revolt
According to Camus, man must never surrender or give in. We must live "without appeal" to some greater natural or supernatural authority. Only then are we truly free and responsible. (52)
Camus sees the future, inevitably, as an invitation to death. However, he converts the revolt, the refusal to commit suicide, into a rule of life.
The Absurd therefore gives us three qualities: our revolt, our freedom, and our passion (for life over death). (55)
Camus distinguishes between "renunciation" and "revolt".
"Renunciation" is an irrational denial of the absurd, e.g., like religion. Camus writes "consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation." Rejection doesn't deny the existence of the absurd, whereas renunciation does.
"The Point is to Live"
These arguments define a metaphysical process, a way of thinking. However, Camus concludes, "The point is to live." (56) We must live without appeal, but informed of our limits. (57)
It is "essential to elude nothing. There is thus a metaphysical honour in enduring the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance." (77)
There is honour in battle, honour in confrontation, honour in revolt.
Metaphysical Art and Literature
Camus finds sustenance in art:
"The great novelists are philosophical novelists...what distinguishes modern sensibility from classical sensibility is that the latter thrives on moral problems and the former on metaphysical problems." (85)
For me, the focus on the metaphysical points to a bridge between modernism and post-modernism. Both are separate from the realist focus on morality, on problems of good and evil.
Art is fundamental to our pursuit of freedom in the short time we have on earth. In art, we find "not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion." (95)
Art captures the ephemeral flame that burns passionate and bright for the duration of our short sojourn.
The Myth of Sisyphus
It's here that Camus introduces the myth of Sisyphus. The burden of Sisyphus is his fate. Perhaps it is a futile and hopeless labour. However, "all Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing." (98)
In the same way, "the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols," the illusions that encourage him to elude Absurdity:
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."
He who recognises this will be the master of his days:
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (99)
So too, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, if we are to be happy, because ultimately our burden is the same.
SOUNDTRAK:
Soul II Soul - "Get a Life"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EezvP8P...
Soul II Soul - "Keep On Movin'"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1iQl46-...
May 23, 2021
YouTube kitap kanalımda Albert Camus'nün hayatı, bütün kitapları ve kronolojik okuma sırası hakkında bilgi edinebilirsiniz: https://youtu.be/-_X3xWwwAoA
Fransız fırınlarından aldıkları bagetleri koltuk altlarında taşıyan şık giyimli Batılı kadınlar ile Selefi-İslami hareketi savunan adamların Casablanca filminin etnik çeşitliliğiyle bir araya getirilmişcesine yaşadığı Cezayir'de doğmuş bir adam, neden Yunan mitolojisindeki bir başka adamla ilgileniyordu?
Hızlı bir inceleme olacak. Alıntılarla Yaşıyorum Okuma Grubu'nun ilk ayında bu kitabı okuduk ve Camus, 1913'te Fransız sömürgesi Cezayir'de doğdu. Gençliği I. Dünya Savaşı ve II. Dünya Savaşı arasında geçti. Bu iki savaşın arasının çocuğu faşizm. Faşizm geldiyse hümanizm, ahlaki, dini, kültürel, entelektüel değerler gider, yerine militarizm, seçicilik, ataerkillik, güçlülerin hakimiyeti gelir. Belki de Camus, Sisifos'un sadece kendi kayasına odaklanmış olup Tanrılara meydan okumasını dönemin faşizm zihniyetinden etkilenerek yaptı. Sonra Sartre ona diss atı. Ortalık Şener Şen ile İlyas Salman'ın "Aşıksan vur saza, şoförsen bas gaza" ile başlayan kahvehanedeki atışmasına döndü. Sartre dedi: "Ya biraderim, iyi güzel de sen hem Tanrısızlığı savunuyorsun hem de bütün absürt ve saçma felsefeni çok Tanrılı bir inançtan baz alıp Tanrıları suçluyorsun" dedi. Tabii, Camus şok. Sonra Camus, varoluşçu filozoflardan olmadığını ve Sisifos Söyleni kitabının da sözde varoluşçu filozoflara doğrultulduğunu söyleyince Sartre, Hande Ataizi'ne tokat atan Sevda Demirel gibi "Ne dedin sen?" deyip ayağa kalktı.
Absürt kelimesinin etimolojisindeki "surdus" kelimesi, sağır, duyusuz, hissiz, tepkisiz, silik demekse Camus fiziksel bir sağırdan daha sağırdı. Matematikte + ve - sayıların arasında anlam ve eşitlik arayanlardansa Camus irrasyonel sayılardı. Ponçik ponçik filmlerdense Camus, Ingmar Bergman'ın Yedinci Mühür filminde ölümle satranç oynayan, Tanrı'ya karşı çıkan o adamdı. Ölümsüzlük iksirinden içmek isteyen Sisifos'un cezasının sonsuz olması gibi Camus de sonsuz bir saçmaydı. Hatta Sisifos'un öbür yaşamın içerisinde bulunan ölüler diyarında bu kaya cezasına çarptırılmış olması Sartre'ın yine komiğine gitti: "Ya biraderim, sen hem öbür yaşama inanmıyorsun ve ölümün insan yaşamının noktası olduğunu düşünüyorsun, hem de Sisifos miti gibi öbür yaşamda ceza çeken bir adamın varlığına inanıp onun yaptığını felsefe ediniyorsun" dedi ve Norm Ender'in Mekanın Sahibi şarkısını yayınlaması gibi masaya yumruğunu vurdu. Tabii, Camus yine şok.
Sonra Camus yabancılaştı, çok yabancılaştı, dünyalarca yabancılaştı. Zaten insan önce toplumuna, sonra kendisine, sonra da kendisine yabancılaştığı kendisine bile yabancılaşırdı. Varoluş ile ilgili sorularında kendisine göre aklın yetersiz kalışıyla bir logos karşıtlığı arzulayan Camus, bir de gidip Husserl'ın fenomenolojisindeki bilinç kavramını felsefesinin merkezine koydu. Hem logos'u reddetti, hem de sadece bilinçle saçmanın algılanabileceğini söyledi. Adam o kadar özgüvenliydi ki, bir araba kazasında ölmenin en absürt ölüm olacağını söyledi, bir araba kazasında öldü, en absürt öldü.
Kierkegaard'a diss attı. Tabii ölüler konuşamazdı, Sartre'a diss atsaydı ya kolaysa. Zavallı Kierkegaard mezarda olduğu için Camus'ye "cevab veremedi" Kierkegaard'ın varoluşçu felsefesini dinsel bir boşluk kalmaması gerektiğine bağlaması Camus'nün hoşuna gitmedi: "Ya biraderim, iyi güzel de, varoluşun dinle ne alakası var" dedi. Hatta bir Tanrı olmasa bile intihar etmemeliyiz, dedi. Guguk Kuşu filmindeki McMurphy'ye dönüştü. O da "Hepiniz buranın dayanılmazlığından yakındığınız halde dışarı çıkacak kadar yüreğiniz yok" demişti. Camus'nün de dışarı çıkmaya yüreği yoktu, onun Sisifos kayası kendi yaşamıydı.
Alıntılarla Yaşıyorum'un size tavsiyesi, bir amacınız olsun be kardeşim. Herhangi bir amaç bile olabilir. Mesela ben hiçbir zaman sonuçlanmayacağını bilsem bile ülkede kitapsız köy okulu bırakmamayı hedefliyorum. Hediye etkinliği düzenlediğim her seferde Sisifos gibi kayayı yukarıya taşıyorum ve hediyeden sonra kaya aşağı yuvarlanıyor ve yine en başta olduğumu anlıyorum. Ama olsundu be kanka, hayat bunun için güzel ya işte.
Dante'nin İlahi Komedya eserinde Araf'ta kalmış ve hayatlarında kendilerine bir amaç belirlememiş insanların peşinden koştuğu hayali bir bayrağın peşinden mi koşmak istersiniz? Frank Capra'nın Şahane Hayat filmindeki George'un dediği gibi "Keşke hiç doğmasaydım" diyenlerden misiniz? O zaman hizmet edeceğiniz bir dava olsun. Çünkü hizmet edeceğiniz bir dava ya da seveceğiniz bir insan bulup da kendinizi ne kadar çok unutursanız, kendinizi de o kadar gerçekleştirmiş olursunuz. Dostoyevski, bir amaç ve bu amaca ulaşma isteği olmadan kimse yaşayamaz dedi. Hepimiz gibi Sisifos'un da en azından bir amacı vardı, kayası. Benim kayam, köy okulları. Başkasının kayası, hayvanları mutlu etmek. Bir başkasının kayası, kayaların şekilleriyle ilgilenmek. Bir başkasının kayası, bir başkasının kayasının taşınmasına yardım etmek. Bir başkasının kayası, kitap okumak. Bir başkasının kayası, mühendis olup ülkenin refah düzeyini yükseltmek. Bir başkasının kayası, asgari ücretle geçinip gitmek. Bir başkasının kayası, avukat olup ülkede çözülmemiş dava bırakmamak. Bir başkasının kayası, gazeteci olup ülkesini habersiz bırakmamak. Bir başkasının kayası, öğretmen olup öğretmeyi öğretmek. Bir başkasının kayası, mimar olup binaların psikolojisini öğrenmek. Bir başkasının kayası, video çekip genç kitleye hitap ettikçe onları bilinçli bir okur yapabilmek. Bir başkasının kayası...
Hepimizin kendine göre kayaları var.
Fransız fırınlarından aldıkları bagetleri koltuk altlarında taşıyan şık giyimli Batılı kadınlar ile Selefi-İslami hareketi savunan adamların Casablanca filminin etnik çeşitliliğiyle bir araya getirilmişcesine yaşadığı Cezayir'de doğmuş bir adam, neden Yunan mitolojisindeki bir başka adamla ilgileniyordu?
Hızlı bir inceleme olacak. Alıntılarla Yaşıyorum Okuma Grubu'nun ilk ayında bu kitabı okuduk ve Camus, 1913'te Fransız sömürgesi Cezayir'de doğdu. Gençliği I. Dünya Savaşı ve II. Dünya Savaşı arasında geçti. Bu iki savaşın arasının çocuğu faşizm. Faşizm geldiyse hümanizm, ahlaki, dini, kültürel, entelektüel değerler gider, yerine militarizm, seçicilik, ataerkillik, güçlülerin hakimiyeti gelir. Belki de Camus, Sisifos'un sadece kendi kayasına odaklanmış olup Tanrılara meydan okumasını dönemin faşizm zihniyetinden etkilenerek yaptı. Sonra Sartre ona diss atı. Ortalık Şener Şen ile İlyas Salman'ın "Aşıksan vur saza, şoförsen bas gaza" ile başlayan kahvehanedeki atışmasına döndü. Sartre dedi: "Ya biraderim, iyi güzel de sen hem Tanrısızlığı savunuyorsun hem de bütün absürt ve saçma felsefeni çok Tanrılı bir inançtan baz alıp Tanrıları suçluyorsun" dedi. Tabii, Camus şok. Sonra Camus, varoluşçu filozoflardan olmadığını ve Sisifos Söyleni kitabının da sözde varoluşçu filozoflara doğrultulduğunu söyleyince Sartre, Hande Ataizi'ne tokat atan Sevda Demirel gibi "Ne dedin sen?" deyip ayağa kalktı.
Absürt kelimesinin etimolojisindeki "surdus" kelimesi, sağır, duyusuz, hissiz, tepkisiz, silik demekse Camus fiziksel bir sağırdan daha sağırdı. Matematikte + ve - sayıların arasında anlam ve eşitlik arayanlardansa Camus irrasyonel sayılardı. Ponçik ponçik filmlerdense Camus, Ingmar Bergman'ın Yedinci Mühür filminde ölümle satranç oynayan, Tanrı'ya karşı çıkan o adamdı. Ölümsüzlük iksirinden içmek isteyen Sisifos'un cezasının sonsuz olması gibi Camus de sonsuz bir saçmaydı. Hatta Sisifos'un öbür yaşamın içerisinde bulunan ölüler diyarında bu kaya cezasına çarptırılmış olması Sartre'ın yine komiğine gitti: "Ya biraderim, sen hem öbür yaşama inanmıyorsun ve ölümün insan yaşamının noktası olduğunu düşünüyorsun, hem de Sisifos miti gibi öbür yaşamda ceza çeken bir adamın varlığına inanıp onun yaptığını felsefe ediniyorsun" dedi ve Norm Ender'in Mekanın Sahibi şarkısını yayınlaması gibi masaya yumruğunu vurdu. Tabii, Camus yine şok.
Sonra Camus yabancılaştı, çok yabancılaştı, dünyalarca yabancılaştı. Zaten insan önce toplumuna, sonra kendisine, sonra da kendisine yabancılaştığı kendisine bile yabancılaşırdı. Varoluş ile ilgili sorularında kendisine göre aklın yetersiz kalışıyla bir logos karşıtlığı arzulayan Camus, bir de gidip Husserl'ın fenomenolojisindeki bilinç kavramını felsefesinin merkezine koydu. Hem logos'u reddetti, hem de sadece bilinçle saçmanın algılanabileceğini söyledi. Adam o kadar özgüvenliydi ki, bir araba kazasında ölmenin en absürt ölüm olacağını söyledi, bir araba kazasında öldü, en absürt öldü.
Kierkegaard'a diss attı. Tabii ölüler konuşamazdı, Sartre'a diss atsaydı ya kolaysa. Zavallı Kierkegaard mezarda olduğu için Camus'ye "cevab veremedi" Kierkegaard'ın varoluşçu felsefesini dinsel bir boşluk kalmaması gerektiğine bağlaması Camus'nün hoşuna gitmedi: "Ya biraderim, iyi güzel de, varoluşun dinle ne alakası var" dedi. Hatta bir Tanrı olmasa bile intihar etmemeliyiz, dedi. Guguk Kuşu filmindeki McMurphy'ye dönüştü. O da "Hepiniz buranın dayanılmazlığından yakındığınız halde dışarı çıkacak kadar yüreğiniz yok" demişti. Camus'nün de dışarı çıkmaya yüreği yoktu, onun Sisifos kayası kendi yaşamıydı.
Alıntılarla Yaşıyorum'un size tavsiyesi, bir amacınız olsun be kardeşim. Herhangi bir amaç bile olabilir. Mesela ben hiçbir zaman sonuçlanmayacağını bilsem bile ülkede kitapsız köy okulu bırakmamayı hedefliyorum. Hediye etkinliği düzenlediğim her seferde Sisifos gibi kayayı yukarıya taşıyorum ve hediyeden sonra kaya aşağı yuvarlanıyor ve yine en başta olduğumu anlıyorum. Ama olsundu be kanka, hayat bunun için güzel ya işte.
Dante'nin İlahi Komedya eserinde Araf'ta kalmış ve hayatlarında kendilerine bir amaç belirlememiş insanların peşinden koştuğu hayali bir bayrağın peşinden mi koşmak istersiniz? Frank Capra'nın Şahane Hayat filmindeki George'un dediği gibi "Keşke hiç doğmasaydım" diyenlerden misiniz? O zaman hizmet edeceğiniz bir dava olsun. Çünkü hizmet edeceğiniz bir dava ya da seveceğiniz bir insan bulup da kendinizi ne kadar çok unutursanız, kendinizi de o kadar gerçekleştirmiş olursunuz. Dostoyevski, bir amaç ve bu amaca ulaşma isteği olmadan kimse yaşayamaz dedi. Hepimiz gibi Sisifos'un da en azından bir amacı vardı, kayası. Benim kayam, köy okulları. Başkasının kayası, hayvanları mutlu etmek. Bir başkasının kayası, kayaların şekilleriyle ilgilenmek. Bir başkasının kayası, bir başkasının kayasının taşınmasına yardım etmek. Bir başkasının kayası, kitap okumak. Bir başkasının kayası, mühendis olup ülkenin refah düzeyini yükseltmek. Bir başkasının kayası, asgari ücretle geçinip gitmek. Bir başkasının kayası, avukat olup ülkede çözülmemiş dava bırakmamak. Bir başkasının kayası, gazeteci olup ülkesini habersiz bırakmamak. Bir başkasının kayası, öğretmen olup öğretmeyi öğretmek. Bir başkasının kayası, mimar olup binaların psikolojisini öğrenmek. Bir başkasının kayası, video çekip genç kitleye hitap ettikçe onları bilinçli bir okur yapabilmek. Bir başkasının kayası...
Hepimizin kendine göre kayaları var.
June 13, 2019
دوستانِ گرانقدر، در این کتابِ 200 صفحه ای، «آلبر کامو» به مسائلی چون یک تعقلِ پوچ - انسانِ پوچ - خلقتِ پوچ و در پایان به افسانۀ «سیزیف» پرداخته است و البته آلبر کامو، هدف از نوشتنِ این کتاب را رابطۀ میانِ "پوچی" و "خودکشی" میداند و اینکه خودکشی راه حلی مناسب است برایِ پوچی
-----------------------------------------------
عزیزانم، افسانۀ سیزیف در موردِ مردی است که خدایان او را محکوم کرده بودند که پیوسته تخته سنگی را تا قلۀ کوهی بالا ببرد و از آنجا آن تخته سنگ با تمامی وزنش به پایین رها شود و او دوباره به پایین رود و سنگ را به بالا بیاورد... و باید همیشه این کارِ تکراری و بیهوده را انجام میداد.. خدایان فهمیده بودند که چیزی عذاب آورتر از زندگیِ بیهوده نیست و آلبر کامو به نوعی زندگیِ انسانها را همچون مجازاتی که برایِ سیزیف در نظر گرفته شده بود، پوچ و بیهوده میداند... کارِ کارگرانِ امروزی را که هر روز باید عملی تکراری برای گذرانِ زندگی انجام دهند، سرنوشتی پوچ میداند و میگوید تا زمانی که انسانها پی به این موضوع نبرند، انجامِ این زندگیِ بیهوده برایِ آنها غم انگیز نمیباشد.. این انسانِ پوچ همچون سیزیف شکنجۀ خویش را نظاره میکند و تمامیِ اشخاصِ موردِ پرستش خود را خاموش میکند... کامو باور دارد که هیچ سرنوشتِ خوب و برتری برایِ انسان در نظر گرفته نشده است و اگر چنین سرنوشتی نیز باشد جبری است و قابلِ تحقیر میباشد
در حقیقت، کامو با این افسانه، خویش را آرام کرده است.. برایِ کامو پذیرفتنِ این وظیفۀ بیهوده و تکراری که برایِ سیزیف در نظر گرفته شده و تسلیم نشدنِ سیزیف، یک ارزش میباشد.. کامو از این آرامش میگیرد که سیزیف با بالا و پایین بردنِ تخته سنگ، حداقل یک کاری انجام میدهد
ولی عزیزانم، آیا ما میتوانیم در یک کارِ بیهوده و پوچ، معنا پیدا کنیم؟؟ آیا باید همچون سیزیف خودمان را تسلیمِ بی عدالتی ها کنیم؟؟ و یا اسیرِ کارهایِ بیهوده شویم و آن را سرنوشتِ خودمان قلمداد کنیم؟؟ این از خردِ انسانی به دور است، این که زندگی و کارهایِ روزمره تبدیل به عادت برایِ ما شود، از خردِ انسانی واقعاً به دور است
دوستانِ خردگرا و نورِ چشمانم... در پشتِ عاداتِ ما، انگیزه هایی نهفته است که برایِ خودِ ما نیز، غیر قابلِ تحلیل و فهم میباشد... پس آگاه باشید... بسیار مراقبِ عاداتِ خویش باشید، تا زندانی و قربانیِ اوقاتِ بیهوده ای که در شما کاشته اند نگردید... تا میتوانید عادت کنید، که عادت نکنید
به عنوانِ مثال باید بگویم که دین و مذاهبِ گوناگون، اصلاً برای این آمده اند، تا شما را به عادت کردن، عادت دهند... وقتی آموختید که هر لحظه و هر روزِ زندگیتان را، خرجِ عادتهایِ دینیِ خود کنید، دیگر مجالی برای پرورشِ شعور، و توسعۀ خرد، در شما نخواهد ماند. دین برای این نیامده است تا شما را خردمند کند، و توسعۀ شعورِ انسانیِ شما را تضمین نماید.. دین آمده است، تا خِردِ شما را، برای مهملاتِ خود کرایه کند... مراقبِ جان یکبار مصرفِ خود باشید که با کرایه دادنِ خردتان به دین، در کمترین زمان برای همیشه، قربانیِ متولیان دینی و دینفروشانِ دروغپرداز، خواهید شد
دین تنها چاله و خندقی است، که اگر در آن سقوط کردید، مجالِ رهایی شما از آن برایِ همیشه غیرممکن خواهد بود و سرنوشتتان میشود همچون سرنوشتِ سیزیف که باید مدام یک کارِ تکراری و بیهوده را تا آخرِ عمر انجام دهد
*****************
من میخواهم همه چیز برایِ من توضیح داده شود یا هیچ.... ذهنی که چنین اصرار میورزد، در تکاپویِ خود چیزی جز تناقضات و امورِ غیرِ عقلانی نمی یابد.. ولی آنچه را که نمیتوانم درک کنم، همین امورِ غیرعقلانی است.. جهان آکنده از امورِ غیرِ عقلانی است.. خودِ جهان نیز که کوچکترین معنایِ آن را نمیفهمم، چیزی نیست جز یک امرِ بسیطِ غیرعقلانی.. اگر تنها یکبار میتوانستم بگویم: این امر واضح و روشن است، نجات می یافتم
---------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو برای شما خردگرایان و در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
-----------------------------------------------
عزیزانم، افسانۀ سیزیف در موردِ مردی است که خدایان او را محکوم کرده بودند که پیوسته تخته سنگی را تا قلۀ کوهی بالا ببرد و از آنجا آن تخته سنگ با تمامی وزنش به پایین رها شود و او دوباره به پایین رود و سنگ را به بالا بیاورد... و باید همیشه این کارِ تکراری و بیهوده را انجام میداد.. خدایان فهمیده بودند که چیزی عذاب آورتر از زندگیِ بیهوده نیست و آلبر کامو به نوعی زندگیِ انسانها را همچون مجازاتی که برایِ سیزیف در نظر گرفته شده بود، پوچ و بیهوده میداند... کارِ کارگرانِ امروزی را که هر روز باید عملی تکراری برای گذرانِ زندگی انجام دهند، سرنوشتی پوچ میداند و میگوید تا زمانی که انسانها پی به این موضوع نبرند، انجامِ این زندگیِ بیهوده برایِ آنها غم انگیز نمیباشد.. این انسانِ پوچ همچون سیزیف شکنجۀ خویش را نظاره میکند و تمامیِ اشخاصِ موردِ پرستش خود را خاموش میکند... کامو باور دارد که هیچ سرنوشتِ خوب و برتری برایِ انسان در نظر گرفته نشده است و اگر چنین سرنوشتی نیز باشد جبری است و قابلِ تحقیر میباشد
در حقیقت، کامو با این افسانه، خویش را آرام کرده است.. برایِ کامو پذیرفتنِ این وظیفۀ بیهوده و تکراری که برایِ سیزیف در نظر گرفته شده و تسلیم نشدنِ سیزیف، یک ارزش میباشد.. کامو از این آرامش میگیرد که سیزیف با بالا و پایین بردنِ تخته سنگ، حداقل یک کاری انجام میدهد
ولی عزیزانم، آیا ما میتوانیم در یک کارِ بیهوده و پوچ، معنا پیدا کنیم؟؟ آیا باید همچون سیزیف خودمان را تسلیمِ بی عدالتی ها کنیم؟؟ و یا اسیرِ کارهایِ بیهوده شویم و آن را سرنوشتِ خودمان قلمداد کنیم؟؟ این از خردِ انسانی به دور است، این که زندگی و کارهایِ روزمره تبدیل به عادت برایِ ما شود، از خردِ انسانی واقعاً به دور است
دوستانِ خردگرا و نورِ چشمانم... در پشتِ عاداتِ ما، انگیزه هایی نهفته است که برایِ خودِ ما نیز، غیر قابلِ تحلیل و فهم میباشد... پس آگاه باشید... بسیار مراقبِ عاداتِ خویش باشید، تا زندانی و قربانیِ اوقاتِ بیهوده ای که در شما کاشته اند نگردید... تا میتوانید عادت کنید، که عادت نکنید
به عنوانِ مثال باید بگویم که دین و مذاهبِ گوناگون، اصلاً برای این آمده اند، تا شما را به عادت کردن، عادت دهند... وقتی آموختید که هر لحظه و هر روزِ زندگیتان را، خرجِ عادتهایِ دینیِ خود کنید، دیگر مجالی برای پرورشِ شعور، و توسعۀ خرد، در شما نخواهد ماند. دین برای این نیامده است تا شما را خردمند کند، و توسعۀ شعورِ انسانیِ شما را تضمین نماید.. دین آمده است، تا خِردِ شما را، برای مهملاتِ خود کرایه کند... مراقبِ جان یکبار مصرفِ خود باشید که با کرایه دادنِ خردتان به دین، در کمترین زمان برای همیشه، قربانیِ متولیان دینی و دینفروشانِ دروغپرداز، خواهید شد
دین تنها چاله و خندقی است، که اگر در آن سقوط کردید، مجالِ رهایی شما از آن برایِ همیشه غیرممکن خواهد بود و سرنوشتتان میشود همچون سرنوشتِ سیزیف که باید مدام یک کارِ تکراری و بیهوده را تا آخرِ عمر انجام دهد
*****************
من میخواهم همه چیز برایِ من توضیح داده شود یا هیچ.... ذهنی که چنین اصرار میورزد، در تکاپویِ خود چیزی جز تناقضات و امورِ غیرِ عقلانی نمی یابد.. ولی آنچه را که نمیتوانم درک کنم، همین امورِ غیرعقلانی است.. جهان آکنده از امورِ غیرِ عقلانی است.. خودِ جهان نیز که کوچکترین معنایِ آن را نمیفهمم، چیزی نیست جز یک امرِ بسیطِ غیرعقلانی.. اگر تنها یکبار میتوانستم بگویم: این امر واضح و روشن است، نجات می یافتم
---------------------------------------------
امیدوارم این ریویو برای شما خردگرایان و در جهتِ آشنایی با این کتاب، کافی و مفید بوده باشه
«پیروز باشید و ایرانی»
December 13, 2018
"Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee"
the book in one sentence more or less.
Definitely one of those books you must reread..
November 28, 2020
ما من غرابة في أن يكون العالم غير مفهوم. وما من غرابة أيضًا في أن يكون الإنسان راغبًا بالفهم، مسكونًا بالمعنى. يبحث كامو هنا سؤال "اللا جدوى" الناجم من تقاطع الاثنين؛ عالم غير مفهوم، وإنسان راغب بالفهم.
ويجادل بأن الطريق من لحظة إدراك اللا جدوى تتفرع إلى احتمالين؛ الأول هو الانتحار، والثاني هو قبول اللاجدوى كمكوّن عضوي للتجربة البشرية، والعيش معها باكتراثٍ أقل. بحسب كامو حتى لو كانت الحياة بلا معنى، وكانت جميع المساعي غير مجدية، فهذا لا يجعلها غير جديرة بالتجربة.
يكتب كامو أطروحته الفلسفية (أسطورة سيزيف) بالاتساق مع روايتيّ (الغريب) و(الطاعون). وبالنسبة لي كان الكتاب ثقيلًا في أكثره، لكن بعض أسطره امتلكت قدرة غنائية مبهجة، أحيانًا بفعل اكتناز اللغة، وأحيانًا بفعل تعدد الأصوات في الفكرة الواحدة. يتمتع كامو برشاقة في الاستدراك والاستطراد والنقض فيمَ يشتبك مع أسئلته الخاصة. وأعتقدُ بأنه مثل نيتشه، يكتب الفلسفة بحرارة، وربما بوسعنا القول، أنه يكتب الفلسفة - هذا الصرح المجرد المؤلف من مفاهيم - بالجسد.
يمثل الكتاب، بحسب كامو: "دعوة للعيش حتى وسط الصحراء". فيما يشكل هجمة مرتدة ضد العدمية - النتيجة الطبيعة لتحوّل القيم إلى هشيم في أوروبا بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية. وأتفق مع كامو، حتى في دراما عبثية مثل هذه، ينبغيعلى المرء أن يتخيّل سيزيف سعيدًا.
ويجادل بأن الطريق من لحظة إدراك اللا جدوى تتفرع إلى احتمالين؛ الأول هو الانتحار، والثاني هو قبول اللاجدوى كمكوّن عضوي للتجربة البشرية، والعيش معها باكتراثٍ أقل. بحسب كامو حتى لو كانت الحياة بلا معنى، وكانت جميع المساعي غير مجدية، فهذا لا يجعلها غير جديرة بالتجربة.
يكتب كامو أطروحته الفلسفية (أسطورة سيزيف) بالاتساق مع روايتيّ (الغريب) و(الطاعون). وبالنسبة لي كان الكتاب ثقيلًا في أكثره، لكن بعض أسطره امتلكت قدرة غنائية مبهجة، أحيانًا بفعل اكتناز اللغة، وأحيانًا بفعل تعدد الأصوات في الفكرة الواحدة. يتمتع كامو برشاقة في الاستدراك والاستطراد والنقض فيمَ يشتبك مع أسئلته الخاصة. وأعتقدُ بأنه مثل نيتشه، يكتب الفلسفة بحرارة، وربما بوسعنا القول، أنه يكتب الفلسفة - هذا الصرح المجرد المؤلف من مفاهيم - بالجسد.
يمثل الكتاب، بحسب كامو: "دعوة للعيش حتى وسط الصحراء". فيما يشكل هجمة مرتدة ضد العدمية - النتيجة الطبيعة لتحوّل القيم إلى هشيم في أوروبا بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية. وأتفق مع كامو، حتى في دراما عبثية مثل هذه، ينبغيعلى المرء أن يتخيّل سيزيف سعيدًا.
February 11, 2023
افسانهی سیزیف مجموعه مقالات و تفکرات آلبر کامو است دربارهی پوچی، مرگ، زندگی و خودکشی. اما اصلا سیزیف کیه؟ «خدایان سیزیف را محکوم کرده بودند که پیوسته تخته سنگی را تا قله کوه بغلطاند. و از آن جا سنگ با تمام وزن خود به پایین میافتاد، خدایان به حق اندیشیده بودند که برای انتقام تنبیهی دهشناکتر از بیهودگی نیست سیزیف تاوان عصیان و سرکشی خود را میدهد؛ اما او مرگ را به اسارت درآورده و از این راه خدایان را عصبانی کرده است.» آلبر کامو موافق خودکشی نیست اما زندگی رو پوچ میدونه و به نظرش آگاهی نسبت به این پوچ بودن زندگی و زندگی کردن آگاهانه در دل این پوچی بزرگترین موهبته. خوندن این کتاب به درک بهتر بقیهی کتابهای آلبر کامو کمک میکنه. در نهایت من در حد تحلیل و نقد کامو، نوشتهها و فلسفهش نیستم، اما فکر میکنم اگر فیلسوف میشدم در مسیری متفاوت از کامو بودم.ه
July 31, 2020
120th book of 2020.
I’m a pretty huge Velvet Underground fan, and by extension, a big Lou Reed fan. Anyone else in the same position may have seen young Reed causing ‘intellectual havoc’ in his interviews. He speaks in paradoxes. In 1974 Lou sits in my favourite interview of mine, being difficult, partly, but also being astoundingly clever.
“Lou, you’re a man of few words, why is this?”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“Do you like meeting people, talking to people?”
“Some.”
“Do you like talking to us?”
“I don’t know you.”
“Do you like press interviews in general?”
“No.”
“Do you shun publicity?”
“No.”
And when frankly asked if he was a “transvestite or homosexual”, he answered, “Sometimes.”
I mention this because Camus’ philosophy here is partially paradoxical. In another Lou Reed interview he allows us to look briefly behind the stage of his mind: An interviewer notes that he is talking in paradoxes, and Lou Reed answers:
“When faced with a paradox, I become paradoxical.”
But, to be paradoxical is not always a bad thing. The famous opening line of the title essay is simply, There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Camus also gives us the opportunity to consider that Sisyphus is a happy man. Standing at the bottom of the hill with his rock, he cannot be happy; he is about to embark on the labour that he is bound to, forever. At the top of the hill, however, he is surely not feeling the same way. Camus writes, At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments towards that lower world whence he will have to push it up again towards the summit. He goes back down to the plain. I suppose, in a sense, in thinking about the unimaginable torture of pushing this rock up a hill for the rest of time, Camus is reminding us that it is not all torture. Simply, there are moments, many moments, that he is ‘achieving’, that he has completed task… In those seconds before it rolls back down again. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks towards the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock. Sisyphus, for Camus, represents the human condition.
The dictionary definition of ‘paradox’ is this:
a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.
Forgetting the definition for a moment, let us look at that all important third word. Absurd. These essays are perfect companions to The Stranger and The Rebel, these books are exploring absurdism. The title essay is split into chapters, per say, of: “An Absurd Reasoning”, “The Absurd Man”, “Absurd Creation”, “The Myth of Sisyphus” and finally, the “Appendix” (which is titled “Hope and the Absurd in the Work of Franz Kafka”). Camus is not talking about only suicide here. He is talking about literature, art, the self, suicide, yes, but suicide can only be discussed in relation to life, for, of course, it is the taking of life. He discusses Dostoevsky, Kafka, he calls Melville an absurd writer… And he discusses the Absurd Man, and the Absurd Hero. Considering Camus’ characteristics of the Absurd Man, can we truly call him innocent? Camus suggests that we can.
The Absurd Hero lives without purpose, and through his own scope of philosophy, that there is no truth. There is contradiction in living without a purpose. Though I do not agree with all of Camus’ philosophies, the Absurd is actually more significant to me than I first believed. Consider his take on religion: Camus once said, “I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.” I have said the exact same thing, many times in my life. I believe and I don’t believe. I am and I am not. In the end, I realise, I possibly sounded quite like Lou Reed. When faced with a paradox (life), I become paradoxical. My mother has always said to me, on religion, “God is God is God is God” for however long she feels like repeating it. Sisyphus is the perfect Absurd Hero; his only accomplishments for the rest of eternity are rooted in his torture, and his only existence. In the end, Camus argues that he knows “himself to be the master of his days.” And for that reason, Camus believes he can be happy.
The question for us, as the reader, is what does this mean for ourselves? What does that mean for our world? Nothing else for the moment but indifference to the future and desire to use up everything that is given. Ironically, the answer, answering with the Absurd, makes the world more Absurd again. It is depressing and comforting at once – God may exist, but that makes suffering no clearer. The other famous example: We can fill life with friends and family and love, but what does any of that mean when they die, we die, that people get diseases, die in freak accidents? In the simplest of terms, Camus’ meaning of life is accepting that there is no meaning in life. Not so comforting. Or is it? My mother often admits she can never be ‘happy’ because she is a perfectionist; nothing can be perfect, therefore she can never be happy. Absurd, I tell her. And she says, Yes. And though she accepts that nothing can be perfect, she continues to strive for perfection. In that sense, my mother is like Sisyphus – the Absurd Hero. There is no ‘meaning’ to striving for perfection because it is impossible, but she continues living, because she has found a purpose in striving for it regardless of its plausibility. In fact, turning the viewfinder on myself, am I not almost the same? I wish to be a writer, I wake every day and write in hope of writing a ‘good’ novel, possibly the ‘best’ novel, but that is not possible. Trying is what makes life worth living; if we stand at the bottom of the hill every day and begin pushing the rock up we may believe that our life is pointless and fruitless; unhappy. Or, we will stand at the bottom and know that our purpose is to drive that rock upwards, and when we reach the top, we have, again, momentarily, succeeded.
Lou Reed seems to be some sort of chameleon: “When faced with a paradox, I become paradoxical.” Sisyphus finds meaning in the meaningless. My mother finds small accomplishments in the unaccomplishable – perfection. In the end, for Camus, life is Absurd: people die, people live with broken hearts, people grieve, people cry, people lose themselves; this is all to be accepted and embraced. Life is the meaning we place in it, to whatever end; possibly it doesn’t matter. Sisyphus is happy when he considers his ‘goal’, his ‘purpose’, not the eternity that stretches out before him. Camus' distinction: if I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living. So, mother, you will never make anything perfect, because nothing is perfect, but I hope that you are happy in trying, and that your life is then purposeful – the only, the greatest thing, we can maybe hope for.
I’m a pretty huge Velvet Underground fan, and by extension, a big Lou Reed fan. Anyone else in the same position may have seen young Reed causing ‘intellectual havoc’ in his interviews. He speaks in paradoxes. In 1974 Lou sits in my favourite interview of mine, being difficult, partly, but also being astoundingly clever.
“Lou, you’re a man of few words, why is this?”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“Do you like meeting people, talking to people?”
“Some.”
“Do you like talking to us?”
“I don’t know you.”
“Do you like press interviews in general?”
“No.”
“Do you shun publicity?”
“No.”
And when frankly asked if he was a “transvestite or homosexual”, he answered, “Sometimes.”
I mention this because Camus’ philosophy here is partially paradoxical. In another Lou Reed interview he allows us to look briefly behind the stage of his mind: An interviewer notes that he is talking in paradoxes, and Lou Reed answers:
“When faced with a paradox, I become paradoxical.”
But, to be paradoxical is not always a bad thing. The famous opening line of the title essay is simply, There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Camus also gives us the opportunity to consider that Sisyphus is a happy man. Standing at the bottom of the hill with his rock, he cannot be happy; he is about to embark on the labour that he is bound to, forever. At the top of the hill, however, he is surely not feeling the same way. Camus writes, At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments towards that lower world whence he will have to push it up again towards the summit. He goes back down to the plain. I suppose, in a sense, in thinking about the unimaginable torture of pushing this rock up a hill for the rest of time, Camus is reminding us that it is not all torture. Simply, there are moments, many moments, that he is ‘achieving’, that he has completed task… In those seconds before it rolls back down again. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks towards the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock. Sisyphus, for Camus, represents the human condition.
The dictionary definition of ‘paradox’ is this:
a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.
Forgetting the definition for a moment, let us look at that all important third word. Absurd. These essays are perfect companions to The Stranger and The Rebel, these books are exploring absurdism. The title essay is split into chapters, per say, of: “An Absurd Reasoning”, “The Absurd Man”, “Absurd Creation”, “The Myth of Sisyphus” and finally, the “Appendix” (which is titled “Hope and the Absurd in the Work of Franz Kafka”). Camus is not talking about only suicide here. He is talking about literature, art, the self, suicide, yes, but suicide can only be discussed in relation to life, for, of course, it is the taking of life. He discusses Dostoevsky, Kafka, he calls Melville an absurd writer… And he discusses the Absurd Man, and the Absurd Hero. Considering Camus’ characteristics of the Absurd Man, can we truly call him innocent? Camus suggests that we can.
The Absurd Hero lives without purpose, and through his own scope of philosophy, that there is no truth. There is contradiction in living without a purpose. Though I do not agree with all of Camus’ philosophies, the Absurd is actually more significant to me than I first believed. Consider his take on religion: Camus once said, “I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.” I have said the exact same thing, many times in my life. I believe and I don’t believe. I am and I am not. In the end, I realise, I possibly sounded quite like Lou Reed. When faced with a paradox (life), I become paradoxical. My mother has always said to me, on religion, “God is God is God is God” for however long she feels like repeating it. Sisyphus is the perfect Absurd Hero; his only accomplishments for the rest of eternity are rooted in his torture, and his only existence. In the end, Camus argues that he knows “himself to be the master of his days.” And for that reason, Camus believes he can be happy.
The question for us, as the reader, is what does this mean for ourselves? What does that mean for our world? Nothing else for the moment but indifference to the future and desire to use up everything that is given. Ironically, the answer, answering with the Absurd, makes the world more Absurd again. It is depressing and comforting at once – God may exist, but that makes suffering no clearer. The other famous example: We can fill life with friends and family and love, but what does any of that mean when they die, we die, that people get diseases, die in freak accidents? In the simplest of terms, Camus’ meaning of life is accepting that there is no meaning in life. Not so comforting. Or is it? My mother often admits she can never be ‘happy’ because she is a perfectionist; nothing can be perfect, therefore she can never be happy. Absurd, I tell her. And she says, Yes. And though she accepts that nothing can be perfect, she continues to strive for perfection. In that sense, my mother is like Sisyphus – the Absurd Hero. There is no ‘meaning’ to striving for perfection because it is impossible, but she continues living, because she has found a purpose in striving for it regardless of its plausibility. In fact, turning the viewfinder on myself, am I not almost the same? I wish to be a writer, I wake every day and write in hope of writing a ‘good’ novel, possibly the ‘best’ novel, but that is not possible. Trying is what makes life worth living; if we stand at the bottom of the hill every day and begin pushing the rock up we may believe that our life is pointless and fruitless; unhappy. Or, we will stand at the bottom and know that our purpose is to drive that rock upwards, and when we reach the top, we have, again, momentarily, succeeded.
Lou Reed seems to be some sort of chameleon: “When faced with a paradox, I become paradoxical.” Sisyphus finds meaning in the meaningless. My mother finds small accomplishments in the unaccomplishable – perfection. In the end, for Camus, life is Absurd: people die, people live with broken hearts, people grieve, people cry, people lose themselves; this is all to be accepted and embraced. Life is the meaning we place in it, to whatever end; possibly it doesn’t matter. Sisyphus is happy when he considers his ‘goal’, his ‘purpose’, not the eternity that stretches out before him. Camus' distinction: if I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living. So, mother, you will never make anything perfect, because nothing is perfect, but I hope that you are happy in trying, and that your life is then purposeful – the only, the greatest thing, we can maybe hope for.
March 19, 2020
- Le Penseur, de Bernard et Clotilde Barto - near La Médiathèque Jacques Demy, Nantes
Right after Promise at Dawn (La Promesse de l'Aube), I wrap up The myth of Sisyphus and come out eventually disheartened by the mighty silence ruling over the studio in Lorient. In spare words, this is a study on the absurd. The onset is : "is life worth living?" The subject is tailored to make you react to it and decide where you stand.
On the whole, I don't align with Camus. I am astounded by the sternness of his observations. Indeed, they are accountable to the aim Camus sets but they entirely negate joy and ivresse, together with whatever personal purpuse and illusion they may bear to you.
Camus writes :
"What is absurd is the meeting of the irrational with the craving and the call for clarity which resonates in the innermost depths of man."
("Ce qui est absurde, c'est la confrontation de cet irrationnel et de ce désir éperdu de clarté dont l'appel résonne au plus profond de l'homme")
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.36
"If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, life would have purpose, or to put it in other words, this problem wouldn't have, because I would be part of the world. I would be the world against which I set myself with my whole conscience and by my requiring it to be kindred".
("Si j'étais arbre parmi les arbres, chat parmi les animaux, cette vie aurait un sens, ou plutôt ce problème n'en aurait point car je ferais partie de ce monde. Je serais ce monde auquel je m'oppose maintenant par toute ma conscience et par toute mon exigence de familiarité")
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.76
Although, where did Camus's absurd man come from? Like a tree among trees, he comes from a state of implied oneness with the world, he once lived in oneness. This state is by no means gratuitous. Once, there was a link, a kinship with the world, now reigns silence. This is, I guess, what could lead to such dereliction.
Camus states :
"Absurd is born of the meeting of the human desire with the insensate silence of the world."
("L'absurde naît de la confrontation de l'appel humain avec le silence déraisonnable du monde")
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.46
It sounds short-sighted though : the world may well be insensate, unreasonable, irrationnal, but this delirium is by no means silent.
Let us agree the world has no meaning whatsoever by itself. But to hold to you can't construe a personal, makeshift, limited purpose out of the world as you meet people in this delirium, is untrue. And out of the meager purpose that could weld out of this insensate world, I know friendship is the most tangible and vital happening.
So like Chestov and Husserl, who did consent to considerable crookedness to ram in their demonstrations and force their conclusions, as to where I stand, I think Camus's scepticism have him discard some elementary truths to uphold the passion of the absurd to the end.
----------
Je boucle le mythe de Sisyphe après La promesse de l'aube et j'en ressors accablé par le silence souverain d'un studio à Lorient.
Je ne rejoins pas entièrement Camus dans des observations qui me surprennent par leur aridité d'ensemble, explicables par le but qu'il se donne mais qui nient la joie avec ce qu'elle comporte d'ivresse, de sens propre à chacun, d'illusion si on veut.
Camus écrit :
"Ce qui est absurde, c'est la confrontation de cet irrationnel et de ce désir éperdu de clarté dont l'appel résonne au plus profond de l'homme"
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.36
"Si j'étais arbre parmi les arbres, chat parmi les animaux, cette vie aurait un sens, ou plutôt ce problème n'en aurait point car je ferais partie de ce monde. Je serais ce monde auquel je m'oppose maintenant par toute ma conscience et par toute mon exigence de familiarité"
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.76
Et pourtant, comme l'arbre parmi les arbres, l'homme absurde de Camus était parti d'un état d'unité tacite avec le monde. Ce premier état n'a rien de négligeable. Là où il y avait d'abord un lien, le silence ensuite. Voilà ce qui paraît conduire à la perte de sens.
Camus soutient :
"L'absurde naît de la confrontation de l'appel humain avec le silence déraisonnable du monde"
Le mythe de Sisyphe, Folio essais (1942), p.46
Il n'y a qu'un malheur : si le monde est déraisonnable, ce délire fait de chimères, d'ivresses et de rencontres n'a rien de silencieux.
Le monde n'a aucun sens intelligible par lui-même, mettons. De là à soutenir qu'on ne peut pas construire un sens provisoire au monde au cours des rencontres, il y a loin, et du sens qui filtre de ce monde déraisonnable, l'amitié me paraît la manifestation la plus tangible et la plus vivante.
Comme Chestov et Husserl qui consentent à des entorses considérables pour aboutir de force à leurs conclusions, je crois aujourd'hui que le scepticisme de Camus le pousse à sacrifier quelques vérités élémentaires pour soutenir la passion de l'absurde jusqu'à son terme logique.
March 16, 2023
Книга о чувстве абсурда, которое порождает вопрос о смысле жизни и, соответственно, по мнению Камю, вопрос о самоубийстве является главным философским вопросом. Мне не очень нравится, что вопрос о смысле жизни ставится с позиции: "если его нет, то умереть". Своего рода уравнение, где абсурд является неизвестным, который и решит вопрос, стоит ли жизнь труда жить? Что такое абсурд? Это отсутствие смысла, это разлад с миром, который Вас окружает. То есть это что-то внешнее. Стоит ли зависеть от внешнего? Да, мы зависим от внешнего мира. Мы живем в мире, который невозможно игнорировать. Мы сами чать этого мира. Сама типология абсурдных людей абсурдна– Дон Жуан, стремящийся к количеству побед, Актёр, живущий на сцене, Завоеватель, Творец. В конечном итоге, сам Камю завершает свой рассказ легендой о Сизифе (кстати, кто он в типологии, Актер?), чей труд абсурден, и кого автор призывает считать счастливым. В конечном счете, это заявление говорит о том, что смысл жизни в отсутствии смысла, в принятии абсурдности и жизни с осознанием этого. « Утверждение абсурдности мира есть своего рода метафизическое счастье.» Гуманизм этого утверждения в том, что оно разрешает нам не кончать самоубийством, не найдя в жизни смысла и живя в абсурдном мире. Тем не менее, мне эта философия не близка. Я предпочту находить смысл жизни в любви к своим близким людям.
Shelved as 'to-finish'
November 6, 2019"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer."
- Albert Camus
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
- Shakespeare, Hamlet
- Albert Camus
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
- Shakespeare, Hamlet
January 7, 2017
نميتونم در مورد كامو و يا فلسفه ش حرفى بزنم چون ترجمه كتاب انقد نامفهوم و گاهى انقد خنده دار بود كه نميتونستم حرفهاى كامو رو بفهمم، به نظر مياد اين كتاب چرك نويس ترجمه باشه و نه ترجمه نهايى، نميدونم ايا اين اولين كتابيه كه خانوم بحرينى دست گرفتن و يا چرا كتابى به اين سختى رو انتخاب كردن، به نظرم ميرسه كتاب رو از انگليسى برگردون كردن نه فرانسه و كاش انتشارات نيلوفر يه ويراستار در اختيار اين مترجم قرار ميداد، در ضمن خانم بحرينى اگه اين نقد رو ميخونى فارسى عبارت vicious circle دور باطل ميشه نه دور خبيث، در ترجمه تسلط به زبان مقصد به اندازه زبان مبدا لازمه
June 11, 2014
In “Sisyphus” Camus explores the great Greek myth to address Hamlet’s ultimate question as to whether one should be or not be. Camus scoffs at Kierkegaard who also addresses the plight of the Absurd Man, by which both thinkers understand the human condition today when faced with life in which it appears incomprehensible through pure reason. Camus darkly adds that life is ultimately futile because mankind is powerless and after all life is simply an endless series of hardships, which symbolically entail rolling a boulder up a mountainside only to watch it fall to the bottom whereupon the process must be repeated endlessly. Camus derides the Kierkegaardian “leap of faith” as committing a suicide of logic, reason and abandoning both to sacrifice the lucidity which only a person confronting the hopelessness of his human condition with reason can assume. Camus praises Nietzsche and in the writing style in many places Camus reads very much like Nietzsche. Camus also widely praises Kafka and his novels as projecting in "The Trial" and "The Castle" worthy epitomes of the hopeless condition of man against the absurdity of life. For Camus, reason takes one sooner or later to the abyss where one peers into the utter hopelessness of the human condition and catches a lucid glimpse of death, which challenges him to question the "everydayness of existence." For Camus this glimpse requires an intellectual honesty brought only by standing up to the Absurd and projecting the lucidity of reason into the abyss. In his mind Camus believes that Sisyphus finds a certain happiness in the futility of his condition, when the boulder rolls back down the mountain, for it is in these moments of climbing back down the mountainside that Sisyphus is able to consider that despite the futility of his existence “all is well.” He adds that Homer deemed Sisyphus to be the wisest of mortals and admires that Sisyphus was in a state of revolt against the gods and was unafraid of their power in his protest against them despite his rebellion landing him with an eternal task of futility at their bidding. In his view the everydayness of mankind in work robs us of the consciousness necessary to gain a lucid perspective of life. Camus has infinite faith in reason. This is where he and Kierkegaard divide their views of the human condition. Camus criticizes Kierkegaard for making a leap of faith into the god which consumes him. He sees Sisyphus as becoming as strong as the rock that he pushes up the mountainside and views himself as the Absurd Man pushing the rock up the mountain in revolt of the gods but gaining the lucidity of a Zarathustra in the process and accepting his life bravely "without appeal." Consider that the rock pushed by Sisyphus is of sufficient size and weight that the mortal can actually move it up the mountainside: in other words the boulder is not so great that Sisyphus cannot maneuver it even up a mountain despite the enormous strains that the process takes of him. Camus proposes that it is senseless and perhaps even foolhardy and cowardly to abdicate to hope and then wander into the “desert of god’s grace.” He sees Kierkegaard as abdicating himself to a “humiliated logic” which is intellectual suicide and cites Kierkegaard’s foolish pursuit, now legendary, of Regina Olson as an example of what can happen when reason is given up to faith and hope and love. As Camus writes with the confidence of Nietzsche in his beautiful phrasing in this essay, at times almost gnostic in tone and sense, with a propensity to cite apparent contradictions in which the opposites both seem true. Kierkegaard understands the fallacy of the either/or set-up with more than two possible answers or solutions and won’t fall victim to them. Camus wants us to choose between the either/or of faith, or humiliated reason, and pure reason. And for Camus this choice is a life and death matter. While I admire the writing and philosophy of Camus, he does not seem fully to understand the reason why reasonable people adopt positions of faith. Camus is an egoist and narcissist for whom the world beyond his reason is a reason not to commit intellectual suicide at the expense of humiliated reason. Kierkegaard is a higher genius in my view because he has taken a long, perceptive and intelligent study of the abyss and recognizes that his reason can only take him so far. If God exists, as Kierkegaard believes, then He has not created humanity with sufficient brains to make sense of the vastness, complexity and mystery of the universe. Kierkegaard is a proponent of reason but recognizes with proper humility that he is not the center of the universe and when his reason reaches a dead-end, then faith can kick-in as a reasonable means of experiencing the Absurd in a life affirming-approach which recognizes that some of the deeper questions may be answered later, if only one will persist, and that the best hope to overcome the abyss is to give reason more time to fathom the Absurd. This requires faith in oneself, faith in existence and more faith in the power reason itself. Camus is a chauvinist to pure reason. Kierkegaard says rather humbly that in this grand dance to the music of time that faith is the only sane and, indeed, the most reasonable approach to the Absurd. Camus deals with suicide; Kierkegaard more reasonably proposes faith and love instead as solutions, as real weapons to confront the Absurd. Why address an Absurd universe with reason anyway as Camus proposes? Why not confront an Absurd universe with your own Absurdity: at least, this approach is consistent and attuned to life itself? Kierkegaard’s faith represents humility; total abdication to the blind faith of Camus to reason is highly unreasonable and possibly the height of unreason. I know of no dead men who manage to achieve a higher state of personal enlightenment after they off themselves. It is really only a matter of timing, after all, isn't it? Woody Allen points out that 90% of life is simply showing up; I would add the the other 10% is timing. Why would it not be the height of reason to admit that there are many grand mysteries of existence which man does not have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, nor the limited intellectual bandwidth to process in a universe as vast as ours? It is not necessary to deny life and time the opportunity to hope that answers will be forthcoming and abdicate, as Camus discusses, to the senseless prospect of cutting short both: I find this approach of Camus to be the height of insanity, which is precisely where Nietzsche’s chauvinism to pure reason ultimately led him. In the world of Camus there is no God but him: if God does not exist, then Camus is his own God. Camus believes that, if man has no higher God to appeal to, then man must be free from the will of a non-existent God. Kierkegaard’s view is that faith and love are two of the tools with which mankind is endowed as gifts to overcome the abyss and the Absurd. Further, life requires the courage of Abraham to take the leap of faith and is not intellectual suicide but rather is a higher form of intelligence which enables the faculties beyond the limits of reason to add value to the existential experience of life. I emphasize that taking a leap of faith requires courage: it is neither a blind nor irrational abdication. The leap of faith also requires humility of which many intellectual egotists are incapable: so much so that some intellectual egotists would consider the logic of suicide? Spare me the logic of such pure unreason: death comes to us all soon enough as it is. Faith adds an additional intellectual sense as a another dimension to come into play and to deny its expression, out of egoism or chauvinism to pure reason, seems to me to be the height of pure folly. The vast ego of Camus discounts people who deploy faith as intellectual lightweights because he does not have the good, common sense to give them credit for having the intellectual bandwidth to examine deeply the abyss and find the resources in faith to build a bridge to span it and overcome life’s many anxieties, its pain, suffering and debilitating effects in everyday life. Kierkegaard lived in the streets of Copenhagen like Dostoyevsky in St. Petersberg as a homeless person: this penniless and lonely genius knew intimately from dark experience the depths of despair and yet was able to forge a faith that illuminated life. Kierkegaard’s “Works of Love” is a masterpiece like “Fear and Trembling” and “Either/Or” on how the expansion of the human tool chest beyond pure reason alone enriches life and fulfills hope every single day of life. We have ample reason to believe in hope and our everyday life is full of reason as to why mankind should be hopeful about future outcomes while lucidly grasping from reason and experience that many outcomes will not play out as hoped amid the randomness and chaos which inhabit our vast universe. Mankind does have the highly reasonable freedom at its disposal to hope that on the whole life is well worth living. Even if life were on the whole no better than a zero-sum game, there are valuable lessons in the downsides, which stoke one’s reason, and, when one actively seeks it, incredible joy exists on the upside sufficiently to convince us of the wisdom and rationality both of faith and love. I must reject the narrowness of the perspective of Camus in this essay and embrace in all humility the limits of human reason while concurrently embracing it for all it is worth, which is considerable, and enable both the twin leaps or faith and love to perform for me when the absurdity of life leaves me no other reasonable approach. As Camus points out the trip down the mountainside even for Sisyphus was full of enlightenment and from the mountaintop the view is absurdly vast and truly lucid in its overwhelming and inexhaustible beauty.
June 21, 2022
Seltsam, in gewisser Weise habe ich mich von Camus' Logik des Absuden faszinieren lassen, und habe mich auch ein gutes Stück darin wiedergefunden. Und doch muss ich am Ende sagen, dass seine Theorie in meinen Augen und mit meinen Erfahrungen hakt. Dass das Leben absurd ist, wenn man den großen Zusammenhang sieht, verstehe ich. Auch ich hadere damit, dass ich meinen Leben nicht den Sinn geben kann, den ich möchte. Demnach würde mir nur der philosophische Selbstmord übrig bleiben. Aber das sollen wir nicht machen als nach dem Sinn fragende Menschen. Vielmehr sollen wir eine Revolte starten, die Absurdität nicht die Oberhand gewinnen lassen durch unseren Freitod, sondern unsere verbleibende Lebenszeit mit dem andauernden Streben nach dem Sinn des Lebens füllen. Gilt übrigens nur für Agnosiker. Gläubige an eine göttliche Macht kennen die Absurdität ja nicht, da ihre Religion sie von diesem Spannungsfeld befreit. Da gibt ewiges Leben und noch vielmehr, wenn man auf andere Weltreligionen schaut.
Aber letztlich ist das auch nur ein Lamentieren aus dem philsophischen Elfenbeinturm, ohne die Realität zu beachten. Denn es gibt ausreichende Menschen, die ihrem Leben einen Sinn geben können und der muss nicht mehr metaphysisch sein, sondern ganz simpel in einfacher Nächstenliebe sich äußern. Oder einem Kunstgewerbe nachgehen. Oder seinen SuB zu Lebzeiten noch vollständig abbauen. Was auch immer. Es sind nur wenige, die dieses Spannungsfeld spüren, die Camus beschreibt. Depressive stehen dem bestimmt näher. Aber Antworten auf die großen Fragen des Lebens kann Camus in meinen Augen damit auch nicht bieten.
Aber letztlich ist das auch nur ein Lamentieren aus dem philsophischen Elfenbeinturm, ohne die Realität zu beachten. Denn es gibt ausreichende Menschen, die ihrem Leben einen Sinn geben können und der muss nicht mehr metaphysisch sein, sondern ganz simpel in einfacher Nächstenliebe sich äußern. Oder einem Kunstgewerbe nachgehen. Oder seinen SuB zu Lebzeiten noch vollständig abbauen. Was auch immer. Es sind nur wenige, die dieses Spannungsfeld spüren, die Camus beschreibt. Depressive stehen dem bestimmt näher. Aber Antworten auf die großen Fragen des Lebens kann Camus in meinen Augen damit auch nicht bieten.
February 7, 2019
Hiç bi bok anlamadım. Kimse kusura bakmasın anladığını söyleyen çok bilmişlerin de bi bok anladığını düşünmüyorum. Bence çevirmen bile anlamadı. Zaten öyle bir kere okuyupta anlaşılacak bi şey değil. Hatta artırıyorum, öyke 10 kere de okuyunca anlaşılacak bi şey değil bu kitap.
Bir kere hayvani bir alt yapı lazım. Sadece bahsedilen isimler, yazarlar, filozoflar ve kitapları önceden tanıyor ve okumuş olmak lazım.
Dostoyevski, Kafka, Nietcshe yetmez (ki bunların da tüm eserlerini hem okumuş olmak lazım hem de anlamış olmak lazım. Kaçınız okudu?)
Chestov, Kierkegaard falan diyor adam. Kaçınız bunların adını duymuştu?
Neymiş efenim okumuşta aynı kendini tarif ediyomuşta intihar şöyle bir eylemmişte böyle bir eylemmişte....
Hadi lan oradan. Serseri. Delikanlı ol anlamadım bir şey de.
Yahu bırak niçeyi miçeyi ulan Türkçem yetmedi Türkçem. Öyle kelimeler kullanmış herif. Bence çevirmende sağ olsun uğraşmış biraz anlaşılmasın diye.
Ulan ben o kadar uğraştım yırttım kendimi tercüme etmek için, al şimdi biraz da sen uğraş demek istemiş bence.
Bilmiyorum ben öyle sezdim sanki:)
Haaa bu arada okuma yaşı en az 45. O yaşa gelince revize ederim belki 50 ‘ye:)
Bir kere hayvani bir alt yapı lazım. Sadece bahsedilen isimler, yazarlar, filozoflar ve kitapları önceden tanıyor ve okumuş olmak lazım.
Dostoyevski, Kafka, Nietcshe yetmez (ki bunların da tüm eserlerini hem okumuş olmak lazım hem de anlamış olmak lazım. Kaçınız okudu?)
Chestov, Kierkegaard falan diyor adam. Kaçınız bunların adını duymuştu?
Neymiş efenim okumuşta aynı kendini tarif ediyomuşta intihar şöyle bir eylemmişte böyle bir eylemmişte....
Hadi lan oradan. Serseri. Delikanlı ol anlamadım bir şey de.
Yahu bırak niçeyi miçeyi ulan Türkçem yetmedi Türkçem. Öyle kelimeler kullanmış herif. Bence çevirmende sağ olsun uğraşmış biraz anlaşılmasın diye.
Ulan ben o kadar uğraştım yırttım kendimi tercüme etmek için, al şimdi biraz da sen uğraş demek istemiş bence.
Bilmiyorum ben öyle sezdim sanki:)
Haaa bu arada okuma yaşı en az 45. O yaşa gelince revize ederim belki 50 ‘ye:)
June 3, 2010
Albert Camus (1913–1960) is not a philosopher so much as a novelist with a strong philosophical bent. He is most famous for his novels of ideas, such as The Stranger and The Plague, both of which are set in the arid landscape of his native Algeria.
Camus studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, which brought him into contact with two of the major branches of twentieth century philosophy: existentialism and phenomenology. Existentialism arises from an awareness that there is no pre-ordained meaning or order in the universe and that we must take responsibility for determining the meaning and order we are to give to our lives. Camus is particularly interested in religious existentialists, such as Kierkegaard (though such a label is not entirely fair to Kierkegard), who conclude that there is no meaning to be found in human experience, and that this necessitates a "leap of faith" that places an irrational and blind faith in God.
Phenomenology, as advocated by Edmund Husserl, confines itself to observing and describing our own consciousness without drawing any conclusions regarding causes or connections. Like existentialism, phenomenology influenced Camus by its effort to construct a worldview that does not assume that there is some sort of rational structure to the universe that the human mind can apprehend.
This idea—that the universe has a rational structure that the mind can apprehend—characterizes an older trend in European philosophy called "rationalism." Rationalism traces its roots to Rene Descartes and to the birth of modern philosophy. Most of twentieth century European philosophy has been a direct reaction to this older tradition, a reactionary attempt to explore the possibility that the universe has no rational structure for the mind to apprehend.
Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus around the same time he wrote his first novel, The Stranger, at the beginning of World War II. Camus was working for the French Resistance in Paris at this time, far from his native Algeria. While it is never wise to reduce ideas to their autobiographical background, the circumstances in which this essay was written can help us understand its tone. The metaphor of exile that Camus uses to describe the human predicament and the sense that life is a meaningless and futile struggle both make a great deal of sense coming from a man, far from his home, who was struggling against a seemingly omnipotent and senselessly brutal regime.
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.
As his starting point, Camus takes up the question of whether, on the one hand, we are free agents with souls and values, or if, on the other hand, we are just matter that moves about with mindless regularity. Reconciling these two equally undeniable perspectives is one of the great projects of religion and philosophy.
One of the most obvious—and on reflection, one of the most puzzling—facts about human existence is that we have values. Having values is more than simply having desires: if I desire something, I quite simply want it and will try to get it. My values go beyond my desires in that by valuing something, I do not simply desire it, but I also somehow judge that that something ought to be desired. In saying that something ought to be desired, I am assuming that the world ought to be a certain way. Further, I only feel the world ought to be a certain way if it is not entirely that way already: if there was no such thing as murder it would not make sense for me to say that people should not commit murder. Thus, having values implies that we feel the world ought to be different from the way it is.
Our capacity to see the world both as it is and as it ought to be allows us to look at ourselves in two very different lights. Most frequently, we see others and ourselves as willing, free agents, people who can deliberate and make choices, who can decide what's best and pursue certain ends. Because we have values it only makes sense that we should also see ourselves as capable of embodying those values. There would be no point in valuing certain qualities if we were incapable of acting to realize those qualities.
While we generally take this outlook, there is also the outlook of the scientist, of trying to see the world quite simply as it is. Scientifically speaking, this is a world divested of values, made up simply of matter and energy, where mindless particles interact in predetermined ways. There is no reason to think that humans are any exception to the laws of science. Just as we observe the behavior of ants milling about, mindlessly following some sort of mechanical routine, we can imagine alien scientists might also observe us milling about, and conclude that our behavior is equally predictable and routine-oriented.
The feeling of absurdity is effectively the feeling we get when we come to see ourselves in the second of these two alternative perspectives. This is a strictly objective worldview that looks at things quite simply as they are. Values are irrelevant to this worldview, and without values there seems to be no meaning and no purpose to anything we do. Without values, life has no meaning and there is nothing to motivate us to do one thing rather than another.
Though we may never have tried to rationalize this feeling philosophically, the feeling of absurdity is one that we have all experienced at some point in our life. In moments of depression or uncertainty, we might shrug and ask, "what's the point of doing anything?" This question is essentially a recognition of absurdity, a recognition that, from at least one perspective, there is no point in doing anything.
Camus often refers metaphorically to the feeling of absurdity as a place of exile. Once we have acknowledged the validity of the perspective of a world without values, of a life without meaning, there is no turning back. We cannot simply forget or ignore this perspective. The absurd is a shadow cast over everything we do. And even if we choose to live as if life has a meaning, as if there are reasons for doing things, the absurd will linger in the back of our minds as a nagging doubt that perhaps there is no point.
It is generally supposed that this place of exile—the absurd—is uninhabitable. If there is no reason for doing anything, how can we ever do anything? The two main ways of escaping the feeling of absurdity are suicide and hope. Suicide concludes that if life is meaningless then it is not worth living. Hope denies that life is meaningless by means of blind faith.
Camus is interested in finding a third alternative. Can we acknowledge that life is meaningless without committing suicide? Do we have to at least hope that life has a meaning in order to live? Can we have values if we acknowledge that values are meaningless? Essentially, Camus is asking if the second of the two worldviews sketched above is livable.
Camus is not a philosopher and he is not interested in engaging the aforementioned thinkers in an intellectual debate. As in the previous chapter, where he rejected rationalism, Camus is not trying to refute these thinkers. He does not give us arguments as to why their thinking is askew, but simply gives us reasons as to why he finds their thinking unsatisfying.
Camus reduces the problem that interests him to two basic facts: first, that man expects and hopes to find some sort of meaning in the world, and second, that whatever meaning the world may have is concealed from man. It is important to note that Camus does not deny that God exists or that there is some inherent meaning or purpose behind everything. He simply claims that he has no way of knowing whether or not there is a God or meaning or purpose. His aim in The Myth of Sisyphus is to determine whether or not it is possible to live simply with what he knows. That is, can he live with those two basic facts, or does he need either to hope for something more (a God or meaning or purpose) or to commit suicide?
The absurd is the relationship that links these two basic facts. It is absurd that I should expect the universe to have a meaning when the universe itself is so resolutely silent. Because the absurd is the relationship that links the only two basic facts we can know for certain, Camus asserts that the absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world. The absurd is a fundamental truth and Camus takes it as his duty to follow out its logic.
The absurd is also essentially a conflict. We demand meaning but the universe gives us none. The dissatisfaction we feel with our lot in life is fundamental to the absurd, and any attempt to resolve this dissatisfaction is an attempt to escape from absurdity.
Camus's complaint against the four thinkers discussed in this chapter is that, each in his own way attempts to escape from absurdity. To do this, each thinker must reject one of the two basic facts that Camus has taken as his starting point. Jaspers, Chestov, and Kierkegaard reject the need for reason and purpose in the world. They embrace the idea that the world is irrational, and find God in this idea. Husserl rejects the idea that we cannot find meaning in the world, claiming to find essences behind its mute phenomena.
Camus is not a philosopher, and he is not accusing these thinkers of reasoning wrongly. He is simply accusing them of not finding content in what they can know. All four go beyond the basic, undeniable facts of experience to assert that there is something more, something transcendent, something that resolves the dissatisfaction caused by their confrontation with the absurd. They are not mistaken in doing so, but they are avoiding the question that seems to Camus to be fundamental: do weneed to assert that there is something more in order to live? Camus's problem is a hypothetical one: if there is nothing more than rational humans in an irrational universe, can we live with the absurdity of that situation?
The route Camus takes here is committed to shunning philosophy. He purports to be interested only in whether a certain proposition is livable, not whether it is true. If he were to try to assert his own metaphysical position, if he were to try to claim that such-and-such is the case, he would then be burdened with the responsibility of proving the superiority of his metaphysical position over those of other philosophers.
All this is relevant because Camus comes dangerously close to metaphysics when he asserts that the absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world and that our need for reasons and the silence of the universe are the two basic facts of human existence. Camus might defend himself by saying that these assertions do not come from any positive knowledge about the nature of the world, but are rather all that is left over when he denies himself any positive knowledge. The absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world because it does not rely on claims to know anything about the world beyond what is given to us. Is it… :D
Camus studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, which brought him into contact with two of the major branches of twentieth century philosophy: existentialism and phenomenology. Existentialism arises from an awareness that there is no pre-ordained meaning or order in the universe and that we must take responsibility for determining the meaning and order we are to give to our lives. Camus is particularly interested in religious existentialists, such as Kierkegaard (though such a label is not entirely fair to Kierkegard), who conclude that there is no meaning to be found in human experience, and that this necessitates a "leap of faith" that places an irrational and blind faith in God.
Phenomenology, as advocated by Edmund Husserl, confines itself to observing and describing our own consciousness without drawing any conclusions regarding causes or connections. Like existentialism, phenomenology influenced Camus by its effort to construct a worldview that does not assume that there is some sort of rational structure to the universe that the human mind can apprehend.
This idea—that the universe has a rational structure that the mind can apprehend—characterizes an older trend in European philosophy called "rationalism." Rationalism traces its roots to Rene Descartes and to the birth of modern philosophy. Most of twentieth century European philosophy has been a direct reaction to this older tradition, a reactionary attempt to explore the possibility that the universe has no rational structure for the mind to apprehend.
Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus around the same time he wrote his first novel, The Stranger, at the beginning of World War II. Camus was working for the French Resistance in Paris at this time, far from his native Algeria. While it is never wise to reduce ideas to their autobiographical background, the circumstances in which this essay was written can help us understand its tone. The metaphor of exile that Camus uses to describe the human predicament and the sense that life is a meaningless and futile struggle both make a great deal of sense coming from a man, far from his home, who was struggling against a seemingly omnipotent and senselessly brutal regime.
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is meaningless. Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose.
As his starting point, Camus takes up the question of whether, on the one hand, we are free agents with souls and values, or if, on the other hand, we are just matter that moves about with mindless regularity. Reconciling these two equally undeniable perspectives is one of the great projects of religion and philosophy.
One of the most obvious—and on reflection, one of the most puzzling—facts about human existence is that we have values. Having values is more than simply having desires: if I desire something, I quite simply want it and will try to get it. My values go beyond my desires in that by valuing something, I do not simply desire it, but I also somehow judge that that something ought to be desired. In saying that something ought to be desired, I am assuming that the world ought to be a certain way. Further, I only feel the world ought to be a certain way if it is not entirely that way already: if there was no such thing as murder it would not make sense for me to say that people should not commit murder. Thus, having values implies that we feel the world ought to be different from the way it is.
Our capacity to see the world both as it is and as it ought to be allows us to look at ourselves in two very different lights. Most frequently, we see others and ourselves as willing, free agents, people who can deliberate and make choices, who can decide what's best and pursue certain ends. Because we have values it only makes sense that we should also see ourselves as capable of embodying those values. There would be no point in valuing certain qualities if we were incapable of acting to realize those qualities.
While we generally take this outlook, there is also the outlook of the scientist, of trying to see the world quite simply as it is. Scientifically speaking, this is a world divested of values, made up simply of matter and energy, where mindless particles interact in predetermined ways. There is no reason to think that humans are any exception to the laws of science. Just as we observe the behavior of ants milling about, mindlessly following some sort of mechanical routine, we can imagine alien scientists might also observe us milling about, and conclude that our behavior is equally predictable and routine-oriented.
The feeling of absurdity is effectively the feeling we get when we come to see ourselves in the second of these two alternative perspectives. This is a strictly objective worldview that looks at things quite simply as they are. Values are irrelevant to this worldview, and without values there seems to be no meaning and no purpose to anything we do. Without values, life has no meaning and there is nothing to motivate us to do one thing rather than another.
Though we may never have tried to rationalize this feeling philosophically, the feeling of absurdity is one that we have all experienced at some point in our life. In moments of depression or uncertainty, we might shrug and ask, "what's the point of doing anything?" This question is essentially a recognition of absurdity, a recognition that, from at least one perspective, there is no point in doing anything.
Camus often refers metaphorically to the feeling of absurdity as a place of exile. Once we have acknowledged the validity of the perspective of a world without values, of a life without meaning, there is no turning back. We cannot simply forget or ignore this perspective. The absurd is a shadow cast over everything we do. And even if we choose to live as if life has a meaning, as if there are reasons for doing things, the absurd will linger in the back of our minds as a nagging doubt that perhaps there is no point.
It is generally supposed that this place of exile—the absurd—is uninhabitable. If there is no reason for doing anything, how can we ever do anything? The two main ways of escaping the feeling of absurdity are suicide and hope. Suicide concludes that if life is meaningless then it is not worth living. Hope denies that life is meaningless by means of blind faith.
Camus is interested in finding a third alternative. Can we acknowledge that life is meaningless without committing suicide? Do we have to at least hope that life has a meaning in order to live? Can we have values if we acknowledge that values are meaningless? Essentially, Camus is asking if the second of the two worldviews sketched above is livable.
Camus is not a philosopher and he is not interested in engaging the aforementioned thinkers in an intellectual debate. As in the previous chapter, where he rejected rationalism, Camus is not trying to refute these thinkers. He does not give us arguments as to why their thinking is askew, but simply gives us reasons as to why he finds their thinking unsatisfying.
Camus reduces the problem that interests him to two basic facts: first, that man expects and hopes to find some sort of meaning in the world, and second, that whatever meaning the world may have is concealed from man. It is important to note that Camus does not deny that God exists or that there is some inherent meaning or purpose behind everything. He simply claims that he has no way of knowing whether or not there is a God or meaning or purpose. His aim in The Myth of Sisyphus is to determine whether or not it is possible to live simply with what he knows. That is, can he live with those two basic facts, or does he need either to hope for something more (a God or meaning or purpose) or to commit suicide?
The absurd is the relationship that links these two basic facts. It is absurd that I should expect the universe to have a meaning when the universe itself is so resolutely silent. Because the absurd is the relationship that links the only two basic facts we can know for certain, Camus asserts that the absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world. The absurd is a fundamental truth and Camus takes it as his duty to follow out its logic.
The absurd is also essentially a conflict. We demand meaning but the universe gives us none. The dissatisfaction we feel with our lot in life is fundamental to the absurd, and any attempt to resolve this dissatisfaction is an attempt to escape from absurdity.
Camus's complaint against the four thinkers discussed in this chapter is that, each in his own way attempts to escape from absurdity. To do this, each thinker must reject one of the two basic facts that Camus has taken as his starting point. Jaspers, Chestov, and Kierkegaard reject the need for reason and purpose in the world. They embrace the idea that the world is irrational, and find God in this idea. Husserl rejects the idea that we cannot find meaning in the world, claiming to find essences behind its mute phenomena.
Camus is not a philosopher, and he is not accusing these thinkers of reasoning wrongly. He is simply accusing them of not finding content in what they can know. All four go beyond the basic, undeniable facts of experience to assert that there is something more, something transcendent, something that resolves the dissatisfaction caused by their confrontation with the absurd. They are not mistaken in doing so, but they are avoiding the question that seems to Camus to be fundamental: do weneed to assert that there is something more in order to live? Camus's problem is a hypothetical one: if there is nothing more than rational humans in an irrational universe, can we live with the absurdity of that situation?
The route Camus takes here is committed to shunning philosophy. He purports to be interested only in whether a certain proposition is livable, not whether it is true. If he were to try to assert his own metaphysical position, if he were to try to claim that such-and-such is the case, he would then be burdened with the responsibility of proving the superiority of his metaphysical position over those of other philosophers.
All this is relevant because Camus comes dangerously close to metaphysics when he asserts that the absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world and that our need for reasons and the silence of the universe are the two basic facts of human existence. Camus might defend himself by saying that these assertions do not come from any positive knowledge about the nature of the world, but are rather all that is left over when he denies himself any positive knowledge. The absurd is our fundamental relationship with the world because it does not rely on claims to know anything about the world beyond what is given to us. Is it… :D
Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,461 reviews