1 - The absurd
Summary
At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.
(MS: 31–2; E: 117–18)The Myth of Sisyphus
Written in 1940 amidst the French and European disaster, this book declares that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to proceed beyond nihilism. In all the books I have written since, I have attempted to pursue this direction. Although Le Mythe de Sisyphe poses moral problems, it sums itself up for me as a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.
(MS: 7; E: 97)Not without reason, the term “absurd” rarely now makes an appearance in academic discourse, even academic discourse on existentialist philosophy, with which the term is usually associated. However, the importance of the concept to Camus's intellectual trajectory cannot be overstated, and a detailed account of what he means by the absurd would be necessary for any serious discussion of his ideas. A convenient way of introducing this analysis is to contrast Camus's concept of the absurd with those versions articulated by the existentialists Kierkegaard and Sartre. Such a contrast will further serve to highlight the extent to which Camus was not an existentialist. For Sartre, with whom the idea is perhaps most usually associated, the term “absurd” denoted the contingent nature of human existence, the realization of which brings what he called nausea.
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- Albert CamusFrom the Absurd to Revolt, pp. 5 - 28Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2008