Question

Discuss the concept of absurdity in Albert Camus’ philosophy.

Answer 1

• My understanding of what camus was suggesting was life inherently has no meaning. Yet everyday we attempt to find meaning. This logical conundrum is the absurd.
• 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).
  
• Now he is suggesting there are 3 ways of dealing with this. Suicide and religion (removing one's existence so it doesn't matter, and burying your head in the sand respectively ) The last is the crux of the question; accepting the absurd. Think of sysisthus pushing that Boulder up a hill over and over again. Then compare it to life. Accepting the absurd is about knowing that it's pointless to keep going, but you do it anyway. That is the absurd hero mentality.
• Camus sees this question of suicide as a natural response to an underlying premise, namely that life is absurd in a variety of ways. As we have seen, both the presence and absence of life (i.e., death) give rise to the condition: it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none, and it is absurd to hope for some form of continued existence after death given that the latter results in our extinction.
• But Camus also thinks it absurd to try to know, understand, or explain the world, for he sees the attempt to gain rational knowledge as futile.
• Here Camus pits himself against science and philosophy, dismissing the claims of all forms of rational analysis: “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh”