Albert Camus: The Absurd
A look into Philosophy’s suicidal heartthrob: Part I of III
Written by Jeffrey Miiller
read part II
Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a French-Algerian philosopher, author, journalist, playwright, and activist. In his work The Rebel, Camus stated that his whole life was devoted to opposing nihilism, a term that is commonly used to refer to the notion that life lacks intrinsic value or objective meaning.
This preoccupation with nihilism would define Camus’ writing, which was in some form or another concerned with the task of providing meaning and value to life.
Camus would go on to state that “there is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide”, which is to ask the following question: is there any value to life? This demonstrates Camus’ pragmatic conception of philosophy where the goal of philosophy is determine how to live well.
Camus is a key figure in existentialism, regardless of his denial of being an existentialist.
In considering Camus’ philosophy, I will focus on the views portrayed in The Myth of Sisyphus, which forms the basis of the philosophical position of Absurdism.
Camus’ Absurdism begins with two fundamental premises. The first premise is that human beings have an inherent desire to discover an ultimate meaning to life and all of existence. In general, this tendency strives towards making the universe intelligible through the human being’s attempts to reduce the world into simplistic principles that can be grasped through thought — and we find no higher form of this tendency than when a single principle is proposed as explaining all phenomena. The countless religious creeds and philosophical systems that have ever been conceived speak to the pervasiveness of this constant human striving for meaning. In seeking to live according to the principles of the Judeo-Christian conception of God or in accepting Plato’s Theory of Forms, the human being finds an answer to the ultimate meaning of life and existence.
The first premise is that human beings have an inherent desire to discover an ultimate meaning to life and all of existence
The fact that such philosophical and religious systems can be found in all cultures across the world and throughout history demonstrates the inherent nature of this human need for meaning and, perhaps, justifies Camus in supposing this premise. We can even find this tendency present in the realm of natural science — the desire to reduce physical phenomena into simpler and smaller sets of principles until the single governing principle of reality is discovered is also an example of the human tendency to seek ultimate meaning. We can refer to this premise of Camus’ philosophy of the Absurd as the ultimate meaning premise.
We find the root of Camus’ ultimate meaning premise contained within the following passage:
The mind’ s deepest desire, even in its most elaborate operations, parallels man’s unconscious feeling in the face of his universe: it is an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity… If thought discovered in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing them up and summing themselves up in a single principle, then would be seen an intellectual joy of which the myth of the blessed would be but a ridiculous imitation. That nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse of the human drama (The Myth of Sisyphus, 22–23).
Camus concisely states his second premise in the following quote: “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said” (The Myth of Sisyphus, 26). We can interpret this in two ways. Our first possible interpretation locates Camus as occupying the position that the world does not obey rational principles. This reading fits Camus squarely into the philosophical tradition of Irrationalism.
If the world does not obey rational principles, then knowledge of the world is unattainable through rational argumentation. If this is so, we cannot use rationality to determine the ultimate meaning of life and existence — we can never satisfy our fundamental tendency for ultimate meaning. Philosophy — at least in how it is traditionally practiced according to conclusions being derived from premises through logically acceptable steps — becomes a useless venture, since the world may not obey logical principles and, thus, would escape the bounds of any attempted logical argumentation.
Camus concisely states his second premise in the following quote: “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said.”
The second interpretation is to understand Camus’ statement in terms of rationality recognizing its own limits, that is to say, that rationality recognizes that it cannot rationally demonstrate that the world is necessarily rational and, thus, must recognize that some things might not obey rational principles. In this reading, Camus is simply recognizing the possibility that the world might be irrational, rather than asserting that it is irrational.
In doing so, Camus is not claiming that it is inherently impossible to ever determine the ultimate meaning to life or existence, as the former interpretation claimed. Rather, this interpretation states that we can never know with certainty that we have determined the ultimate meaning of life and existence. If the world is rational, then perhaps we can derive the ultimate meaning of life — perhaps it has already been done!
However, a rational individual acting in good faith must also acknowledge that the world is not necessarily a rational entity and, if so, any rational argument that seeks to demonstrate ultimate meaning may be false, no matter how sound the argument’s premises are and how valid the argument’s reasoning is. It is possible to derive ultimate meaning through reason, but we always have reason to doubt such derivations, since the world may be irrational and, thus, ultimate meaning may be beyond rational grasp.
One clarification is necessary. In claiming that the world is irrational — in the first interpretation — or that it is simply possible that the world is irrational — in the second interpretation — Camus is not arguing that it is absolutely impossible to ascertain ultimate meaning. Instead, Camus is saying that it is humanly impossible to ascertain ultimate meaning. Perhaps a God, a supercomputer, or some other unthinkable entity could penetrate to the answer to the question of ultimate meaning, but this is beyond the human being and their rational capabilities.
We can refer to this second principle — in either of the two interpretations I have pointed out — as the irrational world principle.
In the former interpretation, the irrational world principle refers to the claim that the world is irrational. In the latter interpretation, the irrational world principle refers to the claim that we can never know with certainty that the world obeys rational principles — there is always the possibility that the world is irrational and, if so, we can never be certain that our attempts to derive the ultimate meaning of life have been successful.
The irrational world premise is illustrated in the following two quotes.
Its contrary, blind reason, may well claim that all is clear; I was waiting for proof and longing for it to be right. But despite so many pretentious centuries and over the heads of so many eloquent and persuasive men, I know that is false. On this plane, at least, there is no happiness if I cannot know. That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh. (The Myth of Sisyphus, 26)
This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction. (The Myth of Sisyphus, 24)
The rigorous philosopher may be dissatisfied with Camus’ at this point, since Camus does very little to demonstrate why we should accept his two premises. It certainly seems intuitive that human beings inherently seek ultimate meaning in life. The pervasiveness of religious and philosophical systems that seek to determine the one true way of living across cultures and throughout time provides some backing for the ultimate meaning premise.
However, this certainly does not demonstrate without doubt that human beings have an inherent need for ultimate meaning — it is possible that there is another satisfactory explanation for the proliferation of religious and philosophical systems that attempt to discover or create ultimate meaning.
The first interpretation of the irrational world premise — the notion that the world is inherently irrational — strikes us as non-intuitive. The second interpretation’s claim that we can never know if the world obeys rational principles is more intuitive, at least to the skeptic. Camus points to the inability of great minds throughout recorded history to discover ultimate meaning through rationality as justifying the pessimistic view of reason that pervades the irrational world premise. Again, this is far from definitively proving the irrational world premise. We see the literary and artistic strain in Camus here, who states his ideas instead of attempting to prove them without doubt.
We find between Camus’ two premises — the ultimate meaning premise and the irrational world premise — an irresolvable tension. The ultimate meaning premise is constantly frustrated by the irrational world premise. Human beings constantly search for ultimate meaning in life and existence. However, the possibility of an irrational world forever casts doubt on any attempt to derive such ultimate meaning.
Thus, the human being is constantly frustrated from achieving their inherent need for meaning. This tension-filled relationship is the notion of the Absurd that defines Camus’ philosophy. In other words, “the absurd is the confrontation of this irrational [world] and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.” (The Myth of Sisyphus, 26).
The Absurd is the conflict between the very human desire to seek an answer the question of ultimate meaning in life and a universe that frustrates all efforts to fulfill such a desire, remaining cold and indifferent to the many individuals that exist within it.
The Absurd is fundamentally relational, rather than a property of the universe or human being as individual entities: it is a relationship that occurs between a being that seeks ultimate meaning and yet will always be frustrated in achieving a certain answer. In constantly seeking for certain ultimate meaning, the human being is constantly trying to exit the Absurd, constantly trying to overcome the frustration of their efforts for ultimate meaning by an indifferent, unintelligible universe.
Camus claims that once the Absurd is recognized it “becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all” (The Myth of Sisyphus, 8).
This notion of the Absurd proves to be the foundation of Camus’ philosophy, which is, fittingly, also referred to as Absurdism. From this core concept, Camus identifies multiple ways in which we can relate to the Absurd. We can escape through physical suicide or philosophical suicide, which amounts to a leap of faith that involves suspending rationality.
The Absurd is the conflict between the very human desire to seek an answer the question of ultimate meaning in life and a universe that frustrates all efforts to fulfill such a desire, remaining cold and indifferent to the many individuals that exist within it
We can also exist in revolt to the Absurd, which involves being constantly conscious of the lack of ultimate meaning to our lives and of our inevitable mortality. This latter option is Camus’ desired solution. Camus goes on to flesh out a way of life based on this notion of revolt.
In accepting our mortality, the lack of any guaranteed afterlife, and the lack of any ultimate meaning to life — which is equivalent to revolting against the Absurd through stubbornly remaining conscious of it and refusing to take a leap of faith — Camus states that only then can we live with intensity and passion. In recognizing the transience of our lives, we can value each moment of our lives for what it is, as one of the finite number of experiences we will have, and something that must be savored.
With this viewpoint of life, one can revel in the sensuous experience of the body, wonder at the intricacy of the world, and care for those we love in life. Unable to discover an ultimate meaning to life, we are solely responsible for the creation of our own personal sense of meaning to life.
I have painted a very brief and insufficient picture of the philosophy that follows from Camus’ notion of the Absurd. Join me next time, where we will tackle the task of further fleshing out Camus’ philosophy of Absurdism and its implications on how the human being ought to live.
Read part II
