Sisyphus by Titian, 1549

The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical essay by Albert Camus. It comprises about 120 pages and was published originally in 1942 in French as Le Mythe de Sisyphe; the English translation by Justin O'Brien followed in 1955. Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 535 × 599 pixels Full resolution (1150 × 1288 pixel, file size: 221 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): The Myth of Sisyphus Sisyphus... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 535 × 599 pixels Full resolution (1150 × 1288 pixel, file size: 221 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): The Myth of Sisyphus Sisyphus... Also see: Titian (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Camus. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar). ...

In the essay, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd: man's futile search for meaning, unity and clarity in the face of an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternity. Does the realization of the absurd require suicide? Camus answers: "No. It requires revolt." He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. The final chapter compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll down again. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Absurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe will ultimately fail (and, hence, are absurd) because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to humanity. ... For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ... For the genus of dung beetle, see Sisyphus (beetle). ... The bust of Zeus found at Otricoli (Sala Rotonda, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican) Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. ...

The work should be seen in relation to other works by Camus: the novel The Stranger (1942), the play Caligula (1945), and especially the essay The Rebel (1951) which was completed prior to his death in 1960 due to a car accident. The Stranger, or The Outsider, (from the French L’Étranger, 1942) is a novel by Albert Camus. ... Caligula is a play by Albert Camus. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Summary

The essay is dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix. Pascal Pia, born Pierre Durand (August 15, 1903 - September 27, 1979), was a French writer, journalist, illustrator and scholar. ...

Chapter 1: An Absurd Reasoning

Camus undertakes to answer what he considers to be the only question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life require suicide? For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ...

He begins by describing the absurd condition: much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live as if they didn't know about the certainty of death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. "From the moment absurdity is recognized, 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 "my appetite for the absolute and for unity" meets "the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle."

He then characterizes a number of philosophies that describe and attempt to deal with this feeling of the absurd, by Heidegger, Jaspers, Shestov, Kierkegaard and Husserl. All of these, he claims, commit "philosophical suicide" by reaching conclusions that contradict the original absurd position, either by abandoning reason and turning to God, as in the case of Kierkegaard and Shestov, or by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonian forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Husserl. Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (IPA ) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Lev Isaakovich Shestov (Russian: ), born Yehuda Leyb Schwarzmann (Russian: )) was a Russian - Jewish existentialist philosopher. ... Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (IPA: , but usually Anglicized as ;  ) 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. ... Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (April 8, 1859 – April 26, 1938) was a German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology. ... This article is about Platos Forms. ...

For Camus, who set out to take the absurd seriously and follow it to its final conclusions, these "leaps" cannot convince. Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Suicide, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist. The contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without hope. However, the absurd can never be accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt.

While the question of human freedom in the metaphysical sense loses interest to the absurd man, he gains freedom in a very concrete sense: no longer bound by hope for a better future or eternity, without a need to pursue life's purpose or to create meaning, "he enjoys a freedom with regard to common rules".

To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Without a 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 the full acceptance of the absurd: revolt, freedom, and passion.

Chapter 2: The Absurd Man

How should the absurd man live? Clearly, no ethical rules apply, as they are all based on higher powers or on justification. "Integrity has no need of rules." 'Everything is permitted' "is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment 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 passionate life to the fullest. "There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional." For other uses, see Don Juan (disambiguation). ...

The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. "He demonstrates to what degree appearing creates being." "In those three hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover." For other uses, see Actor (disambiguation). ...

Camus' third example of the absurd man is the conqueror, the warrior who forgoes all promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in human history. He chooses action over contemplation, aware of the fact that nothing can last and no victory is final.

Chapter 3: Absurd Creation

Here Camus explores the absurd creator or artist. Since explanation is impossible, absurd art is restricted to a description of the myriad experiences in the world. "If the world were clear, art would not exist." Absurd creation, of course, also has to refrain from judging and from alluding to even the slightest shadow of hope.

He then analyzes the work of Dostoevsky in this light, especially The Diary of a Writer, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. All these works start from the absurd position, and the first two explore the theme of philosophical suicide. But both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately find a path to hope and faith and thus fail as truly absurd creations. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Russian: Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, pronounced , sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, Dostoievsky, or Dostoevski  ) (November 11 [O.S. October 30] 1821–February 9 [O.S. January 28] 1881) was a Russian novelist and writer of fiction whose works, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, have had a profound and lasting effect... For the theatrical adaptation by Albert Camus, see The Possessed (play). ... For other uses, see The Brothers Karamazov (disambiguation). ...

Chapter 4: The Myth of Sisyphus

In the 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 and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. Finally captured, the gods decided on his punishment: for all eternity, he would have to push a rock up a mountain; on the top, the rock rolls down again and Sisyphus has to start over. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death and is condemned to a meaningless task.

Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. "The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."

Camus is interested in Sisyphus' thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. This is the tragic moment, when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but he also figures out the truth and Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, keeps pushing. Camus argues that Sisyphus is truly happy precisely because the futility of his task is beyond doubt: the certainty of Sisyphus' fate frees him to recognize the absurdity of his plight and to carry out his actions with contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that "all is well." For other uses, see Oedipus (disambiguation). ...

Appendix

The essay concludes with an appendix titled "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka." While Camus acknowledges that Kafka's work represents an exquisite description of the absurd condition, he maintains that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his work retains a glimmer of hope. Kafka redirects here. ...

Sources

• The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays, Albert Camus, Alfred A. Knopf 2004, ISBN 1-4000-4255-0

Colophon of the publisher Alfred A. Knopf. ...

See also

• Theatre of the Absurd
• Eternal return

The Theatre of the Absurd, or Theater of the Absurd (French: Le Théâtre de lAbsurde) is a designation for particular plays written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from... Eternal return or sometimes eternal recurrence is a concept originating from ancient Egypt and developed in the teachings of Pythagoras. ...

External links

• Chapter 4 of the essay 'The Myth of Sisyphus', by Albert Camus
• SparkNotes on 'The Myth of Sisyphus'
• The Absurd Hero by Bob Lane
• Suicide and Atheism: Camus and The Myth of Sisyphus by Richard Barnett