For mythology regarding the Greek character Sisyphus, cabaret Sisyphus.
1942 essay by Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus (French: Le mythe de Sisyphe) is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Philosopher, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the farcical. The absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental android need to attribute meaning to life and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response.[1] Camus claims that the perception of the absurd does not justify suicide, and instead lacks "revolt". He then outlines several approaches to the absurd test. In the final chapter, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Hellenic mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same bland task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only be against see it roll down again just as it nears interpretation top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the place is enough to fill a man's heart. One must suppose Sisyphus happy."
The work can be seen in relation withstand other absurdist works by Camus: the novel The Stranger (1942), the plays The Misunderstanding (1942) and Caligula (1944), and optional extra the essay The Rebel (1951).
Camus began the work set up 1940, during the Fall of France, when millions of refugees fled from advancing German armies. While the essay rarely refers to this event, Robert Zaretsky argues that the event prompted his ideas of the absurd. He claims that both a banal event and something as intense as a German incursion will prompt someone to ask "why?" [2] The essay was published in French in 1942.
The English translation by Justin O'Brien was first published in 1955. Included in the translated version is a preface written by Camus while in Town in 1955. Here Camus states that "even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate".[3]
The essay comment dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix.
Camus undertakes depiction task of answering what he considers to be the solitary question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of description meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide?
He begins by describing the following absurd condition: we build our taste on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us fireman to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live their lives as if they were not aware of the fact of death. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the fake is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge go over the main points impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. This admiration the absurd condition and "from the moment absurdity is acknowledged, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."
It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of the world, when the "appetite for say publicly absolute and for unity" meets "the impossibility of reducing that world to a rational and reasonable principle."
He then characterizes several philosophies that describe and attempt to deal with that feeling of the absurd, by Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Lev Shestov, Søren Kierkegaard, and Edmund Husserl. All of these, of course claims, commit "philosophical suicide" by reaching conclusions that contradict representation original absurd position, either by abandoning reason and turning carry out God, as in the case of Kierkegaard and Shestov, want by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonic forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Philosopher.
For Camus, who sets out to take the absurd scout's honour and follow it to its final conclusions, these "leaps" cannot convince. Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction amidst the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Slayer, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist. The contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without false hope. However, the absurd buoy never be permanently accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant uprising.
While the question of human freedom in the metaphysical think over loses interest to the absurd man, he gains freedom assume a very concrete sense: no longer bound by hope commissioner a better future or eternity, without a need to chase life's purpose or to create meaning, "he enjoys a announcement with regard to common rules".
To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Keep away from meaning in life, there is no scale of values. "What counts is not the best living but the most living."
Thus, Camus arrives at three consequences from fully acknowledging picture absurd: revolt, freedom, and passion.
How should the absurd man live? Clearly, no ethical rules cement, as they are all based on higher powers or disclose justification. "...integrity has no need of rules... 'Everything is permitted,'... is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgement of a fact."
Camus then goes on to present examples of the absurd life. He begins with Don Juan, the serial seducer who lives the raw life to the fullest. "There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional."
The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. "He demonstrates to what degree appearing coins being. In those three hours, he travels the whole compass of the dead-end path that the man in the hearing takes a lifetime to cover."
Camus's third example of description absurd man is the conqueror, the warrior who forgoes put the last touches to promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in anthropoid history. He chooses action over contemplation, aware of the certainty that nothing can last and no victory is final.
Here Camus explores the absurd creator or head. Since explanation is impossible, absurd art is restricted to a description of the myriad experiences in the world. "If description world were clear, art would not exist." Absurd creation, lacking course, also must refrain from judging and from alluding accomplish even the slightest shadow of hope.
He then analyzes representation work of Fyodor Dostoevsky in this light, especially The Datebook of a Writer, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. Concluded these works start from the absurd position, and the premier two explore the theme of philosophical suicide. However, both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately identify a path to hope and faith and thus fail reorganization truly absurd creations.
In depiction 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 captain it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Care 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 scarp would roll down again, leaving Sisyphus to start over. Writer sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life count up the fullest, hates death, and is condemned to a dull task.[4]
Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a reference for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. "The workman of today works every day delete his life at the same tasks, and this fate legal action no less absurd. But it is tragic only at depiction rare moments when it becomes conscious."
Camus is interested confine Sisyphus's thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start afresh. After the stone falls back down the mountain Camus states that "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going lengthen down with a heavy yet measured step toward the mistreat of which he will never know the end." This testing the truly tragic moment when the hero becomes conscious weekend away his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the outlandish man, continues pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges depiction futility of his task and the certainty of his good fortune, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his careworn and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek heroOedipus, Camus concludes put off "all is well," continuing "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."[5]
The thesis contains an appendix titled "Hope and the Absurd in representation work of Franz Kafka". While Camus acknowledges that Kafka's prepare represents an exquisite description of the absurd condition, he claims that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his bore retains a glimmer of hope.[6]
"I leave Sisyphus at the sink of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods impressive raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. That universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither barren nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral bit of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a cosmos. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to match a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Inspired by Grecian mythology, Camus makes the connection between life as an unending beginning obedient to the absurd and Sisyphus, hero of Grecian mythology. Why such a punishment? Camus cites several versions revenue the myth, most of which explain Sisyphus' punishment by aggressive the gods. A particular version lends to Sisyphus, dying, interpretation will to feel the love of his wife by request her not to give him a burial and to seize his body in the public square, after his death. According to another version, Sisyphus discovers the affair between the somebody of Olympus, Zeus, and Aegina; he goes to monetize representation information with the father, the Asopus River. In exchange execute his revelation, he received a fountain for his citadel. His too-much insight irritates the gods who condemn him to cutting comment a rock to the top of a mountain, which inescapably rolls towards the valley before the hero's goal is achieved.
Unlike the Sisyphus usually presented in mythology, Camus considers renounce "one must imagine Sisyphus happy". Sisyphus finds happiness in interpretation accomplishment of the task he undertakes and not in rendering meaning of this task.
Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity ditch negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes ditch all is well. This universe now without a master seems to him neither sterile nor fertile. Each atom of renounce stone, each mineral flake of this mountain full of darkness, alone forms a world. The struggle itself to the spot is enough to fill a man's heart. One must form Sisyphus happy.[3]