[Being
closely related to the earlier entry Philosophy
Of The Absurd Is Philosophy Too (posted on February 1st, 2012 ), via the keyword Absurd, plus to the entry My
Take On Sisyphus (posted on April 3rd - 4th, 2013),
which ought to follow this one, this
is a mainly informative (which should
explain my reluctance to post it before) yet genuinely interesting (which should explain my decision to post it now)
entry, which starts with Kierkegaard, and then focuses on Camus. Both Kierkegaard
and Camus have been allotted entries of their own (to be posted later), but
surely each of them merits more than one, and so does the subject of absurdism.
See also my entry Religion And Absurdity in the Religion section.]
The
concept of the absurd is generally understood as the human urge to find a meaning
in existence and our failure to do so. It starts with Kierkegaard who was the
first to use the word “absurd” philosophically in the following note
made by him in 1849 in his Journals:
“What is the Absurd? It is, as may quite easily be seen, that I,
a rational being, must act in a case where my reason and my powers of
reflection tell me: you can just as well do the one thing as the other, that is
to say, where my reason and reflection say: you cannot act, and yet here is
where I have to act... The Absurd, or to act by virtue of the absurd, is to act
upon faith ... I must act, but reflection has closed the road so I take one of
the possibilities and say: This is what I do, I cannot do otherwise because I
am brought to a standstill by my powers of reflection.”
It
is important to realize that whenever we appeal to the notion of the absurd,
the option of a rebellion or an attempted revolution against absurdity is, in
itself, absurd. Kierkegaard wishes to
transcend the absurdity of existence by taking the path of faith. In my
understanding, he sees that under certain conditions we may be genuinely unable
to make a moral choice, in exercising our freedom of choice (whenever “I am brought to a standstill by my powers of
reflection”), and, paradoxically, our irrational
faith becomes our substitute for rational
morality in all such situations! Here is a good point to run by the
atheists and all other believers in the separation of morality and faith…
Thus,
according to Kierkegaard the path of faith seems like a reasonable way out of
our moral predicament. But this is not the path suggested by another great
thinker who lived a whole century after Kierkegaard, and whom we will be
discussing in-depth for the remainder of this entry.
Absurdism
is the philosophy generally attributed to the French philosopher-writer Albert
Camus and he has certainly deserved this attribution by generously writing
about the meaning of the absurd and by his explicit philosophical treatment of
absurdity in his celebrated 1942 essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe.
(This
is the end of Part I. Part II will be posted tomorrow.)
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