Topic > A study of the myth of Sisyphus in the context of the philosophical framework of existentialism

The myth of Sisyphus is one of the most profound philosophical texts written in the 20th century. The book was originally published in French as Le Mythe de Sisyphe in 1942. Albert Camus' philosophy of absurdity is most evident in Le Etranger (The Stranger). Camus's third novel La Chute (The Fall) is a passionate denunciation of the all-or-nothing approach to human problems that Camus describes in The Myth of Sisyphus as a form of consciousness of absurdity. Martin Esslin states: “In one of the most seminal studies of our time, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus sought to diagnose the human situation in a world of broken beliefs.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe symbolic marriage of natural and social evils, of metaphysical problems, creates a certain element of ambiguity in Camus's novels. Both nature and society as seen by Camus are evil; both are certainly powerful; and both demand the same kind of sinister idolatry from their victims. It is against this spiritual sanctification of material force and the ignorance and illusions on which it thrives that Camus speaks. Camus' sense of the absurdity of human existence and his ethics are based on an identical act of revolt against the existing structure of the universe. To the self-styled agnostic that he was, the one seems as arbitrary as the other. If Camus simply told us that moral values ​​cannot be based on pragmatic facts, nor political right on political force, it would be easy to accept his point of view. Rather, it seems to tell us that moral values ​​are incompatible with the facts of pragmatism, that political morality is incompatible with political effectiveness. In other words, it must presuppose not just an amoral but a directly antimoral universe – a highly anthropomorphic pagan deity of some kind – as a suitable object for revolt. It wouldn't make much sense to shake your fists at blind and insistent matter. Camus divides The Myth of Sisyphus into three sections and each section into several chapters. In the first section Camus states that life becomes meaningless for most human beings in the absurd world. This leads to the serious philosophical problem of “suicide.” Many people die from this, realizing that life is not worth living. It is very difficult to define life. Some nightmarish experience could undermine oneself and lead to death. There is a relationship between individual thinking and suicide. Also be prepared to think that it is starting to be undermined. Society has little to do in this; the culprit lies in the heart of man. Living is never easy, so to speak. Dying vulnerably implies that one has lost faith in life and recognizes the ridiculousness of life. Thus, the absolute meaninglessness of life leads to suicide. The alienation between man and his life is precisely the feeling of the absurd. Belief in the absurdity of existence must dictate one's conduct. It is different from man to man whether a man compromises with absurdity or confronts it. In most cases, we realize that there is a huge gap between thought and action. We can say that those who commit suicide were certain of the meaning of life. The relationship between human thought and suicide is infected with contradictions and darkness. The reasoning on the point of death is absurd, which is why the section is called “An absurd reasoning”. There is hope amidst the absurdity of life and death. Deep feelings always mean more than real emotional outburst. Everything about a man cannot be known and there is something irreducible in him that escapes us. Complete self-knowledge is impossible. The climate of the absurd isat the start. The end is the absurd universe and the mind's attitude towards it. The absurd thing is essentially divorce. It does not lie in the comparison between facts and reality, but arises from their comparison. We find a gap between real knowledge and simulated knowledge. Absurdity has no aura. Create clarity in the person's mind so that he is aware of his absurdity. This is why irrational feelings are created. Suicide resolves the absurd. He swallows the absurd in death itself. Suicide is a repudiation. The absurd man can drain everything to the point of exhausting himself. If the absurd cancels the individual's possibilities of eternal freedom, on the other hand it restores and magnifies the individual's freedom of action. Death and the absurd are the principles of the only reasonable freedom, the one that a human heart can experience and live. The absurd man sees a fiery and icy universe, transparent and limited, in which nothing is possible but everything is given, and beyond which everything is collapse and nothingness. He can then decide to accept such a universe and draw from it strength, hope and the unshakable proof of a life without consolation. Describing the general ideas of absurdity Camus presents the views of some existentialist philosophers on it. Simple “anxiety”, as Heidegger says, is at the origin of everything. Usually time brings us, but the occasion comes when we have to bring it. It does not separate consciousness from the absurd. Jespers says we have lost our naivety in life. He knows that the goal of the mind is failure. Chestov demonstrates that the most universal rationalism always ultimately collides with irrationally constructed human thought. For Chestov, reason is useless and there is something beyond reason. To an absurd mind, reason is useless and there is nothing beyond reason. He says: “The only true solution is precisely where human judgment sees no solution… we turn to God only to achieve the impossible.” For Kierkegaard, antinomy and paradox become criteria of the religious. He says Christianity is a scandal. For him, desperation is not a fact but a state, the very state of sin. Sin distances us from God. The absurd, which is the metaphysical state of conscious man, does not lead to God. Hussrel and other phenomenologists, with their own extravagances, restore the world in its diversity and deny the transcendent power of reason. Although Camus' symbols equate to all secular images of divine injustice, they are no less painfully recognizable as human symbols. events. If we go back to the myth of Sisyphus itself, we find that the gods had condemned Sisyphus to roll a stone incessantly to the top of a cliff, but the stone fell back again and again. The Gods thought that there could be no more deadly punishment than useless and hopeless labor. Sisyphus must be seen as an absurd and hopeless hero. He is as much through his passions as through his torture. A face that struggles so close to the stones is already stone itself. His moment of suffering is his moment of consciousness. Happiness and the absurd are the two children of the same mother earth. Camus believes that men who fight together against a common evil, even if they are fighting a losing battle, can give meaning to their lives and achieve a sense of solidarity. Camus does not suggest that this intellectual and moral struggle against the existing structure of the universe is man's primary goal on earth. The affirmative side of Camus's thought rather in the positive side and in the quality of life itself, in the occasional moments of earthly happiness which, however ephemeral, however gravely threatened, are as real and important an aspect of human existence as the symbolic plague The intimate understanding of the underlying tragedy of human existence leads to an acute and painful awareness of the bond.”