Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus
Is Camus right in his idea about Philosophical suicide and that the atheist path is the authentic one? Is belief in a religion or some secular ideology a type of avoiding asking life's fundamental questions. It's a refusal to acknowledge that the world is meaningless and indifferent yet humans continually try to find meaning. My view is that Camus's solution would not work for many people including those who are religious. Their belief whether God exists or not provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose in life and to tell them that their belief is philosophical suicide seems rather arrogant I think
Comments (75)
Quoting Ross Campbell
Assuming that the world is inherently meaningless, It does seem more honest to aknowledge that fact about the world than to invent stuff to satisfy a desire for meaning that isn't there in the world.
Quoting Ross Campbell
He was an existentialist, so I don't know if he wanted everybody to accept his idea of the absurd... maybe that would be arrogant. But purely as a description, I think the term philosophical suicide works, because if you start believing in something metaphysical because you want meaning, you are essentially giving up on trying to make sense of the world that you see with reason.... which is what philosophy is essentially.
But it isn't that person's authentic meaning, it's an off-the-shelf, prepackaged meaning that someone else thought up. To that extent, it is philosophical suicide: you are killing your authentic self in preference for an inauthentic one.
Why would guessing in either direction be more authentic than simply acknowledging that one does not know if there is a GOD (are gods) or if there are none...and that the probability of either direction cannot be determined?
Honestly...suggesting to either element that their guesses are "philosophical suicide" is more than just arrogant...it is absurd.
Ignorance is bliss you mean? Because that's what the sense of meaning in religion gives you. You are ignoring to think about the world and life authentically and without filters in order to feel content with a meaning that has been given to you by others, not yourself.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Quoting Frank Apisa
All his life Camus claimed he didn't believe in God and his opposition to Christianity was also permanent.
He didn't believe in God because he thought it was a fictitious and purely escapist solution to the problem of the absurdity of existence. He didn't believe in Christianity because its rejection of the world favoured the belief in a universal guilt which was contrary to its paganising vitalism.
Like any person with more or less firm convictions, he believed in what he was saying, and it seemed to him that his opponents were wrong. Otherwise he would be a sceptic and Camus was not.
But he was never a fierce rival to his opponents. He gave some talks for believers and distanced himself from the atheists of his time because he found them too belligerent.When he said this he must have been thinking of his number one enemy Sartre, who was a militant atheist.
Your authentic self similarly would be off-the-shelf and prepackaged to many many others.
Religion offers a golden stamp of validity to many subjective notions. Whatever path you take to arrive at them and then act upon them, would be your authentic self. Equivalently for non religious belief sets.
By accepting religion, you are prescribing to a dogmatic set of rules. These can't be arrived at rationally by any other means except for them being "just so".
In this respect, it's absolutely philosophical suicide as you are killing the opportunity for further discussion and logical conclusion on these points.
It might seem so, if you authentically arrive at a common position. But many many others is irrelevant. That's kind of the point of authenticity: you don't let others override your true self.
Quoting Risk
No it wouldn't. It would be accepting someone else's meaning. Unless you happen to arrive independently at the conclusion that, say, the world was made in six days by a benevolent creator who believed knowledge was a sin so bad that you and all your offspring inherit it and the only way out is for that creator to send himself to be murdered by us -- which is a bit of a stretch -- then you're foregoing your own freedom to create meaning for yourself and wholesale buying into someone else's.
Quoting Risk
But there's nothing stopping you arriving at a set of rules that overlaps with a given religion's. The golden rule, for instance, is as accessible to each of us. You don't have to accept the entirety of a creation myth, dodgy history lesson, outdated local laws, etc. to figure out that out rationally.
It's been a long time since I read The Myth Of Sisyphus--back in high school I think it was. I don't recall all the detail. However, I do remember Camus trying to pass an argument suggesting that the logic of life recommends being an actor. The tendentiousness of this line of reasoning always felt egregious and the conclusion silly.
The many is incredibly relevant. What I'm eluding to is that non of your ideas were arrived at independently in a different sense to those who follow religion. Unless you were somehow not exposed to academia or society as a whole, you were influenced into a set of beliefs.
You are just defining pre-packaged purely on the number of others who prescribe to it. Whereas your life view is somehow arrived at by you and you alone. I think that seems like the stretch.
The golden rule is a fantastic example of a "just-so" rule. I saw someone else put up a damming argument resolving around raising children to be Christian when you are not a Christian. The golden rule has no logical basis.
You're clearly setting up a false dichotomy in which an entire package must be subscribed to or else every view you have be utterly novel. That isn't the case. There is a world of difference between considering many different ideas, whatever their source, and selecting the ones you personally feel are right and subscribing wholesale to a pre-established mythos, pseudo-history and morality. I can have three eggs. It's not a choice between the whole dozen or none.
I'm attempting to highlight the death of discussion when you boil things down to a "just-so" axiom which is where Camus came from, at least in my interpretation. Atheism is one way to ensure this non suicide when it comes to religious based views but I don't think it is the only example of philosophical suicide. I would extend it to believing in any universal system. Ironically still applying to the belief that there is no universal system.
Film or television?
It strikes me as quite right. One cannot choose not to choose, and hence not to act. Even choosing to do nothing is choosing an action.
Given that this is Camus, probably theater. But this is actually what Camus meant, that one should not commit suicide because the logic of life suggests that you should be a performer, an actor. Not in a vague sense like an entity with agency or something. Literally like a reads-lines-for-a-living actor. To be fair, if I remember correctly, his general argument is that the logic of life suggests that one should have as much experience as possible. He concludes that, as an actor, one is able to derive the most experience possible as a human.
Really someone should double-check my statements, it's been years since I've read the book. But that's how I remember it.
It's more a direction of fit. Let's oppose two views. In the first, meaning is discovered in the world by examining it. In the second, the world is without meaning, but meaning can be imposed on it.
Someone who takes to the second view will look on those who take to the first view as pretending that the world has meaning. They would be seen as imposing their meaning one the world, but this would actually be just posturing. The world is inherently meaningless, but there are those who, inauthenticity, pretend otherwise.
That's how Camas sees religion.
Might it be open for a religious person to agree that the world is inherently without meaning, and yet choose to impose their particular brand of religion on the world? The Knight of Faith, perhaps. I don't see how this could be done without losing coherence.
Here you go, then: The Myth of Sisyphus.
Hmmm, I remember the book being a tad longer than two pages...
The Myth Of Sisyphus And Other Essays
I thought Camus was trying to re-frame the questions concerning belief. The assertion that his view is a solution of some kind does not fit with the exhaustion expressed about the conversation.
I thought we were in the still pissed off stage where the previously offered solutions all sucked.
Camus liked to provoke. In the midst of a depressive phase, at the end of his life, he even said that the only two things that deserved him respect in life were football and theatre. Forced to explain himself, he said he was passionate about football because of its spirit of cooperation and respect for the opposite. (I think football today would make him want to vomit.) And theatre because it recreated an ideal life that allowed him to escape from the absurd. Paradoxically, he said that the life of theatre seemed to him to be the only real one. Not very coherent for someone who had criticized the ideologies of escape. But I have said that it was very worn out.
More seriously, he was always a defender of a vital hedonism that respected the rights of others. He wasn't always consistent in this, but let he who is without sin cast the first stone. It is this hedonism that led him to defend that by assuming the absurdity, the lack of meaning in life, one can also be happy. The Myth of Sisyphus ends with an image that caused astonishment and forced him to write The Rebel: Sisyphus, happy in the exhausting and inexhaustible task of carrying his rock for nothing.
By the way, he didn't consider himself an existentialist and I don't think he was. Rather, he was one of the last humanists.
Dogma is a package: a set of incontrovertibly true principles according to an authority. Which bits people choose to adhere to, yes, not so strict. Okay, split the difference: a substantial chunk thereof. More so than can be accounted for by "Those were just the individual values she settled upon".
There is an extent to which this is not even philosophical suicide but philosophical infanticide: most people who hold strong religious beliefs were indoctrinated as children. I suppose it depends whether you consider the choices when faced with evidence against as real choices. Obviously being raised in a faith is a strong bias toward that faith that a lifetime atheist will never know or fully appreciate. That said, one in twelve turn away from the religion of their parents, so there's some element of choosing the package.
This isn't unique to religion, by the way. It's only because the thread is about religion that that came up. The same goes for any ideology where you identify yourself according to a pre-existing set of morals and beliefs, including Sartre's communism.
Religion as texts, are open to interpretation in many different ways using many different cultural sub-contexts. Similarly with all systems of belief it is an ambiguous set of principles that generally only excludes things, leaving the available set of principles infinite.
A set of values picked from the religious set, is no more or less authentic than those arrived at without religious precedent. Both are concluded at by the individual, through their life experience and their learning.
I'm not sure what basis you could possibly argue that they are somehow less authentic purely because there may be a seemingly large intersection with other peoples values? (hence the importance of the many I mentioned before)
Because they are not derived from experience and consideration, but rather a pre-existing dogma of a religion that you're overwhelmingly likely to have inherited.
I would attempt to convince them (if they are rational) that you don't need ultimate meaning or purpose to enjoy your life. Also the false hope and meaning that religion gives you is like opium (alluding to Marx).
It's an interesting and quite relevant argument.
Finding out there's a door in a room full of complex puzzles you previously thought you were trapped in shouldn't fizzle your interest in them. In fact, it makes them interesting. To solve or even fail with a chuckle instead of a soulless stare of futility.
Anything can be used a crutch. Even an able body. Just something to think about.
:rofl:
Camus is more elementary. Suicide is a possibility for an absurd mind. It is brought about by the despair of a meaningless life.
Anyway, they both sound like literary figures. Actual suicides kill themselves without any speculative complications. They kill themselves because they can't live. The reasons, if any, come later. The absence of God, his silence, the search for Paradise or the absurd. Or that Daisy doesn't love me.
Dostoevsky was puzzled by the suicide of a young Christian. Finally, Camus found that suicide by absurdity was wrong. But these things doesn't stop us from discussing his theories of suicide. Perhaps we want to discuss Dostoevsky's anti-theism and the meaning of life and not suicide, really.
Quoting Ross Campbell
I believe that one can still believe and subscribe to Albert Camus's views in The Myth of Sisyphus and still belong to a religion or secular ideology. I think his statement that believing in aspects of these beliefs and avoiding asking life's fundamental questions is an extreme statement. Most existential Christians, for example, believe that life is meaningless unless they 'make' meaning through their belief and subscription to their God/savior. So, life is meaningless unless you direct some of your attention and meaning to what God prescribes (referencing the book of the Bible Ecclesiastes here - this is the conclusion of that book). Nietzsche and Camus both argue, and have the view, that although life is meaningless, one has the opportunity to push back on this absurdity and create their own meaning in their life and the experiences in which they will endure.
Quoting Ross Campbell
But what if an atheist goes through philosophical suicide, tabula rasa, and then begins to come toward this aforementioned view that life is meaningless and then 'makes' their own meaning to the fact that life is meaningless unless one acts within their God prescriptions? I bring forth this question because Camus states that one makes their own meaning once they decide to live, this is the entire point of him saying that we must rebel against the absurd and not let it win, which would result in us committing suicide or living with absolutely no meaning (referencing from the rebellion part of The Myth of Sisyphus).
Quoting Christoffer
One can still have a sense of meaning in religion if they 'make' their own meaning post-philosophical suicide, which is what Albert Camus prescribes in The Myth of Sisyphus. He wants his readers to 'rebel' against the absurd and to 'make up' their own personal meaning, even though in reality there is no meaning to life. So, just because someone may have a sense of meaning in religion, there is still a possibility that that person found this sense post-philosophical suicide and after the fact that in reality, they believe there is no meaning. But for comfort and for the sake of 'making' their own meaning, they subscribe to some prescriptions that religion gives them. Also, what about doing this makes this person be thinking 'non-authentically' as you have stated?
Anyway, thanks for your quote and insight. Even though I don't agree, I love hearing others' opinions, especially about this wonderful work from Camus.
Ah, Dostoevsky, my favorite. I agree with your insights here on both of these philosophers.
This, in my humble opinion, needs some qualification. Meaningless only in the sense that one wasn't conferred to you by, you know, a "higher power" whatever that means to you.
One can, as far as I can tell, always give ourselves a meaning of our own choosing. :chin:
[quote=Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus]It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate, knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness.[/quote]
:death: :flower:
Very interesting, thanks for sharing this!
I am not sure that we agree on Dostoevsky's assessment. As a novelist he is an undoubted genius. As a thinker, he became fanatized because of his traumatic experience in Siberia. He is a classic case of Stockholm syndrome. His chauvinism, tsarism, anti-Semitism and anti-liberalism are easy to criticize. It is often said that they have no consequences in his writings. I don't think so. If we lose sight of the fact that Dostoevsky was an irrational Slavophile fundamentalist, we lose sight of half of what he wrote.
The same thing happens if we leave aside Camus' anti-communist colonialism.
I think we have to be consistent and recognise that literary admiration doesn't have to imply ideological admiration. Both Dostoevsky and Camus were contradictory characters, tormented by lights and shadows. More the first than the second, of course.
I did not know that about Dostoevsky, but from reading his works, I definitely feel the force of his work as a writer, author, and literary figure. But, in my experiences reading his texts, it is not just the literary force that strikes me, it is the dialogues and what he is representing often: humans existence and the questions, struggles, and suffering that they must reconcile or renounce within their lives. So, I feel the force of his philosophical love and observation of zooming into The Human Experience. Dostoevsky, in my opinion, also allows this to unfold for the reader in his character creation and the lengths he will go to get the reader so familiar with their personality, experiences, views, etc. Other philosophical novels I have read, especially in the existential camp, don't appear to have as much depth to its characters, plots, and conflicts as Dostoevsky. This doesn't make them necessarily better or worse, that is not what I am trying to get at. What I am trying to explain is that, for me, I think that his literary genius complements the philosophy he is bringing forth. He is not bringing forth a text that proclaims this or that, he is just zooming in on humans and what they experience in this absurd life, and to me, to be able to do that without preaching a bunch of views is brilliant from a philosophical standpoint as well.
What do you think of someone that writes things like these? :
When he wrote The Myth of Sisyphus Camus believed that life had no meaning, neither objective nor subjective. Not only that, but the human being lived in contradiction with the world (that is the absurd). This is the image of Sisyphus, condemned to the eternal exhausting and useless work of climbing a rock that falls as soon as it reaches the top. Both in The Stranger and in Caligula he tries to illustrate this idea and the result is an impression of permanent anguish. Camus' claim that this situation can produce some kind of happiness is unconvincing. He himself tried to counteract it in later works, but at the end of his life it reappeared in his diaries and in some stories in Exile and the Kingdom. It doesn't seem that he got rid of it completely.
In my opinion, the image of Sisyphus' absurd work is disturbing and difficult to erase. Because I don't think any happiness can be drawn from it. At some point in our lives one feels like a little Sisyphus. And then, what do you do?
I don't know how to respond to this or if I can whether it'll be good enough to lessen our burden. Let's, for a moment, grace the Sisyphean scene - Sisyphus himself, the rock, and the hill - with the presence of Aphrodite (beauty) at the top of the hill. In every imaginable sense, Sisyphus' task is utterly devoid of meaning but now with Aphrodite sitting at the top of the hill, gorgeous blue eyes gazing at him, pouting her ruby lips, her flowing hair hugging the contours of her graceful body, and so on, there's something different, naturally, right - there's Aphrodite. The question is: between the rock and Sisyphus, does this difference, well, make a difference? The rock, doesn't matter how big or how ponderous or how whatever, can never appreciate Aphrodite's beauty but, despite Sisyphus' eternal burden, every time he reaches the top of the hill, he'll be in the presence of beauty personified. No matter how brief this encounter is, no matter how tired Sisyphus is, no matter how devoid of aesthetic sense Sisyphus is, it's my contention that the rock that Sisyphus is condemned to roll up the hill has it worse than Sisyphus. It's no longer an issue of how meaningful something can be but how meaningless things can get. :chin:
Sisyphus' rock doesn't symbolize for Camus a particular burden that you can avoid. It is the absurdity of life itself. The only way to get rid of the rock is to commit suicide. This is what Camus discusses in his book.
As I said:
Quoting TheMadFool
Thanks for the clarification although the meaninglessness of Sisyphus' task seems to be the condition that the rock rolls down on every occasion - the futility of his effort is what Sisyphus' meaningless existence is about, no?
As for the absurdity of life, it only is so if one seeks some kind of higher purpose understood in the sense of being a significant part of, having a role in, something "bigger" than yourself. I suppose it's a natural, even instinctive, desire for there are things "bigger" than oneself but surely one must consider, seriously indeed, that there's no necessity that one has to get that much sought after part in the grand scheme of things. And I suppose this is Camus' absurdity for he's ignored a possibility that is as real to the same extent, even more perhaps, as our desire for a "higher purpose". We're absurd alright but, in this sense, Camus is more absurd.
Quoting TheMadFool
You are giving your own version of the absurd. This is not Camus' idea. For Camus the absurd is a feeling that emerges when man notices the unsolvable contradiction between his desires and reality. This is not something he can resolve by avoiding the contradiction. The contradiction is. For example: Camus was seriously ill since his adolescence. This was a constant threat until his death and prevented him from doing what he loved most in his life: playing football. Death itself is a sign of the common absurdity. Everyone will be immortal. Everyone knows that he will die. Other contradictions between desires and the real world are less dramatic but are constantly present in human life. These are what we can call irremediable frustrations. When this affects essential levels in important psychological and moral fields, we are faced with absurdity.
It is the rock that everyone carries with them. If the rock goes up and down it is not because you feel absurd in a psychological sense. It is the symbol of a real situation that you cannot change in the essential.
Really, I have my very own version of the absurdity of life? What's yours then?
Quoting David Mo
I wonder how general the idea of Camusian absurdity is. Does it encompass all desires? Are all desires thwarted by reality? For instance, I wanted to smoke five minutes ago, and I did. I had a headache and wanted some Tylenol and I popped two into my mouth, washed them down with a glass of water. Of course the simple nature of these, my, desires aren't lost on me but, do you supppose they're counterexamples to your claim: "unsolvable contradiction between his desires and reality"?
Anyway, Camus seems to be mainly concerned about the meaning of life - our desire for it and the unwillingness of the universe to give us one. Sisyphus would've loved to find out that the rock at the top of the hill would amount to something in the sense either it is, in and of itself, an achievement or it's a step toward something else. That the rock rolls down again to the starting position means both these possibilities are null and void. Meaninglessness!
Great insight here, however, I disagree that there can be no happiness drawn from it. From my experience, it increased my enjoyment and happiness in life based on the sole fact that he convinced me of my intuition - throughout my life - that life is in face absurd and meaningless. In other words, contradictions are apparent in every corner of life, and there is no universal meaning for anyone. This calmed my anxiety and depression to be quite frank. A lot of my anxious thoughts about life used to stem from me not living up to some meaning, standard, or expectations that most people do. This is irrational and anxiety-provoking in my opinion. The depression usually stemmed from my mind is in constant conflict over whether life had meaning or not for most of my life, and how contradictory and absurd people, life, and the world truly is. Parts of the book are disturbing, but, at the same time, I think they can be comforting - like were and are for me.
This is a very interesting take. Thank you for sharing this. I haven't thought about the myth in this light yet, especially the part where you state:
Quoting TheMadFool
I think this definitely is a unique and beneficial way to look at the myth in the context Camus wants. Maybe there is some sort of range not in meaning but meaningless lives? Some people have it more contradictory than others in the world, but this would have to presume that contradiction/absurdity is the breaker of meaning in all accounts of lives under examination. I don't know if Camus and yourself are getting at this? What do you think?
Did you find joy in reading and taking in this book? Why or why not? Did you find it disturbance and a joy? How did it affect your lives initially, if you don't mind sharing?
I'm afraid it's uniqueness and benefit is outweighed by the fact that it's not really a choice and if one must insist that it is one, the old Camusian absurdity at play again, it's a Hobson's choice.
Quoting The Questioning Bookworm
I've always faced contradictions throughout my life, from the day I could, in my own small way, think, to this very moment. Our relationship, that between me and contradictions, can best be described as that between a moth and a flame - an irrestible urge in me, the moth, to dive headlong, with absolutely no concern for the dangers therein (I have a feeling that it induces insanity), into the burning flames of one contradiction after another after another. I've never managed to make even the slightest progress toward a resolution/solution for any one of them. Sisyphus, Camus?
As for absurdity, I once made a resolution of sorts - no, it wasn't New Year's day - that I wouldn't smile or laugh at a joke unless the punchline was a contradiction! I was, as it appears, a hardcore logic fan. This didn't work out very well for me for the simple reason that the contradictions didn't show up in the places where I wanted to or, more accurately, they appeared in all the wrong places. I wanted to roll on the floor laughing but there were no contradictions; there were contradictions but laughter, even a wee smile, was inappropriate. Sisyphus, Camus?
At least it does not coincide with Camus'. As I said, the absurd is above all a feeling. I sometimes feel like Camus. But not always. I'm not sure about your idea of absurd.
Quoting TheMadFool
No. He only refers to those problems that are pressing for the human being in general and each one in particular.The fact of not hitting a pool or finding that there are no tickets for the theatre does not cause the absurdity that Camus spoke of.
Why? The only way to overcome the anxiety produced by a vital desire that cannot be satisfied is to stop having it. But I believe that this recipe cannot be maintained for too long. May the stoics forgive me. There are desires for justice, for love, for the absence of pain that one cannot suppress without amputating a part of oneself. And this would be bad faith. If a man is as impassive as a lettuce he is not a man, he is a lettuce. At the very least, a lettuce is not happy. And it is happiness we are talking about. Isn't it?
An intellectual pleasure and a personal concern. 'Joy' is too strong a word that I reserve for personal relationships and other special circumstances.
In any case, it is not a book you can overlook.
Care to expand on that? I thought it had and is supposed to have a sobering, depressing effect on us? I'm not sure. You tell me.
Quoting David Mo
:ok: I don't think I have Camus figured out as well as I thought. Can you show me the way?
We can accept a provisional definition of absurd in Camus.
Quoting David Simpson, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This tension manifests itself in a strong sense of the futility of human existence. (Note that meaning does not necessarily mean a religious or transcendent destiny. You can find meaning in pleasure or in the struggle for life).
Camus makes an extensive explanation of the absurdity in the Introduction to the Myth of Sisyphus. The book is half philosophy and half literature. Therefore it can sometimes seem poetic. This is Camus' way.
I have found this introduction online:
https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf
I have copied some fragments here in case you do not have time to read it:
Lets take a break, then.
I see. I've always wondered at the notion of the so-called illusions that you refer to. In what sense are illusions illusions? My personal preference is not to make, what to me is, the unhelpful distinction reality and illusions as seems to be the intent behind Camus' pronouncements on the world. My approach, if you can call it that, is to view reality as layered-cake so to speak - there are different levels of connecting with reality, each level requiring a different mindset, a different frame of mind, a different attitude, a different set of circumstances, with no level being less real than the other. The real-illusion dichotomous perspective on reality makes it seem like one is more preferable to the other as if one is closer to the truth and the other not. In my book, all the layers of the cake are truthful in their own way with not layer being preferable to another.
As for "healthy" men having thought of their own suicide, I've always wondered whether the entire field of psychiatry hasn't got things backwards. Look at all the suffering, pain, anguish, horrors, atrocities, taking place in the world. Switch on the TV, turn the pages of a paper - tragedy after tragedy is all you'll see. A "healthy" man - a man with even a modicum of empathy or common sense - would find it difficult, even impossible, to take all of that in and still remain calm, unaffected and happy. Yet, say the psychiatrists, depression, and what usually follows - suicide - is an illness and those who can go on living their lives as if the world is all hunky dory are considered "normal". In essence, the person with tears in faer eyes is more normal than the one who's smiling ear to ear. Take this however you want to but my main objective here is to point out that normal and sick, insofar as mental health is concerned, has been incorrectly defined.
Again, I don't subscribe to the view that depends on a real-illusion dichotomy. As I said, there are many layers to truth, each has its own quality, character, worth, beauty, and so on. Come to think of it, even a layered-cake model seems a poor analogy since it connotes a hierarchy. What comes to close to what I want to convey is that of a multi-faceted object - reality has many sides to it and each has its own value, no side being greater/lesser than another. Nonetheless, awareness of how many faces reality has is integral to coming to terms with them.
Quoting David Mo
At this point, I must a lodge a complaint as to the tediousness of all this - every point, if it is one, made so far has been built upon the foundation of the real-illusion duo which, as I reiterate here, is unhelpful and misses the point of what reality is - a man of a thousand faces, not one man wearing a thousand masks, hiding his true identity that needs work to uncover.
Let's pause indeed.
It appears that I'll have to stick to my guns on the matter. Camus, if he's the writer concerned, has gone about proving his point - Absurdity - by splitting the world apart into two viz. the real and the illusory. This is an established tradition in philosophy - Plato's cave. Where the two have diverged in an important respect is that Camus claims the illusory has more meaning than the real; hence, the absurdity [of the real] and Plato believes the opposite, the real has more meaning than the illusory; hence, necessarily, the non-absurdity [of the real]. Who is correct? :chin:
Since both can't be correct and both make sense, we have a paradox in our hands. Ergo, my initial contention that dividing reality into real-illusion is flawed. It's better to look at reality as something with many sides to it and each side has its own worth, its own value, its own character, and so on. Given this view, Camus' argument fails because it depends on the real-illusion dichotomy and that we've seen leads to a paradox and so, is untenable.
Quoting David Mo
I am not a stoic, but knowing that life is meaningless and there are no overarching principles or meaning in it is relieving. I say relieving because it can allow oneself to not be subject to other peoples' meaning in their own lives. Sometimes, in society, there seems to be pressure on children and teenagers to accept the world around them and conform to its meaning. However, as we know from human nature, humans are extremely unpredictable, impulsive, desire-filled, sometimes immoral, irrational, etc. As these children/teenagers enter the world upon adulthood they will soon realize this if they have not already. Yet, when they were growing up, there is a possibility that they witnessed many judgements on people that didn't conform to society's social constructs or meanings of life that we are 'supposed' to live up to.
This can be extremely troubling for a person. Why? It can lead to the anxiety of not living up to society's and certain social groups unrealistic expectation of the 'good individual.' The contradiction starts here in oneself. Most likely there are not many humans that can live up to these unrealistic/perfect standards, yet most in society judges them if they have missteps in life. So, accepting life is meaningless, can bring someone joy and relief, in my opinion, and it definitely has for me. I am only 25, but I have had a roller coaster of a life so far. I have been sober for a year now, but I have had my running with alcoholism. For addicts, they have seemed to have a conspicuous struggle that is pitted against these societal standards. While drinking all the time was depressing and anxiety-inducing so was being sober for the first 6-8 months. Why? Most people around me drink for pleasure, on the weekends, during the week at dinner, and any get-together or parties. If I want to be around family and friends, I have to be around people drinking. At first, it was uncomfortable and I had to overcome my urge to drink with these people. But becoming sober also decreased my list of friends in life. Nearly all of the friends I had when I drank soon disappeared. This made me feel as I was making a bad decision since I have always been a person to value friendships and hanging out with people. This then made me question the trust, loyalty, and support of those around me, thereby furthering the anxiety. Eventually, this lead to me just being depressed that I even had an alcohol problem in the first place. I started asking questions like: "How and where in my life led me to have a drinking problem? Where did my life go awry? Where did it all go wrong? Should I keep drinking and not stay sober? Why did God allow me to have this problem and hurt others along the way because of my drinking? Is it always going to be this hard, being the sober guy at the part this boring and annoying?" I then became angry about the entire drinking problem ever existing in my life and my self-contempt grew further. But, then something amazing happened, I became re-acquainted with reading existential philosophy and reads like The Myth of Sisyphus as well.
Philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Ambert Camus, Jean-Pual Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and their conclusions that life is meaningless all brought me joy. They gave convincing cases of paradox, contradiction, and absurdity of life and human existence. Absurd shit happens and there is nothing we can really do about it. People do crazy shit, no matter if we like or not, and that is just a part of life. This was comforting to me, especially with my drinking and my past knowing that people, and people just like me, are not perfect, and they do not live up to standards that societal groups/constructs try to pressure us to be. We are different, but also the same. We have a drinking problem that we hate and love, and we cannot get rid of it even if we wished it to go away. Knowing this and being reminded from existentialism how insane life and all human's desire for clarity and explanation really are was and are a relief. And this why I state that Camus and other existential conclusions have 'calmed' my anxiety and depression.
Quoting David Mo
Very interesting. I definitely had an intellectual and personal pleasure from reading it, as well as joy. I 100% agree that it is not a book you can overlook.
I am not the one who refers to illusions in those texts. They are by Camus. From the Introduction to The Myth of Sisyphus. Anyway, you centre your objection to Camus on the distinction between illusory and real. If you do not want to use those words you will have to use others to distinguish what is only in your head from what exists outside it.
An example: A thirsty voyager walks in the desert. He sees a mirage in the background and thinks it is an oasis. But when he reaches the place where he saw the mirage there is nothing but sand. The oasis was an illusion and the reality was the sand of the desert. Do you not accept this difference? Water can be drunk, but not sand. Does that make a little difference to you? Not for the voyager.
The concept of illusion in Camus has another collateral meaning that is expressed in English as 'wishful thinking'. That is to say, when illusion depends on a strong desire, it conditions beliefs. A typical effect is cognitive dissonance. It consists in looking for more or less inconsistent ad hoc hypotheses to save a belief that the facts refute. It is very typical in religions. In Camus' terms one can speak of a philosophy of lucidity versus an illusory philosophy.
Quoting TheMadFool
I see that you have opened a new thread with this theme. If I have time I'll go over there.Here I will only say one thing: Plato also makes the distinction between real and illusory. The difference is that for him the real world was the ideal world. The name 'idea' leads to confusion. Plato's ideal world was not in the head of human beings but in a higher plane of existence. In philosophy the term 'idea' was adopted for that transcendent world. It would have been less confusing if the concept of 'form', which Plato uses, had been taken on.
But the fact that rationalist and empiricist philosophers do not agree on which things are real and which are not doesn't mean that the distinction between real and illusory is not made in both sides.
You're not the first case I've met. But I find it hard to believe that you have never felt that the real world is indifferent or hostile to your most human desires and that this has not made you feel a sense of helplessness. This is the absurd.
That sounds like the same thing! A distinction without a difference.
I take the help of Plato only to make the case that all philosophers (makes me want to start a new branch of philosophy) without exception are of the view that truth, whatever it is (Camus' meaningless life included), and, most germane to our discussion, living by it (again, Camus' meaningless life as part of it) is, in that and by that only, meaningful.
The Cambridge dictionary and I see no difference between 'distinction' and 'difference'. Could you tell us where the difference is?
Quoting David Mo
You speak as if you're coming at this issue from a standpoint that's not predicated, according to you, on Camus' real-illusion distinction.
Then you suggest that I should do something that's different viz. "you will have to use others to distinguish what is only in your head from what exists outside" but that's precisely what Camus' real-illusion distinction is.
In other words, you've made a distinction but there's no difference between what you claim are distinct. A distinction without a difference.
I'm sorry but your answer doesn't clarify anything about the two things I asked you:
1) How does a difference differ from a distinction? How do you define difference and distinction?
2) Don't you see a difference (or distinction) between something that only happens in your head and something that exists outside it?
This is not coming from a dicitonary, but from my own analysis of how I use and how I've ever seen used these two words: distinciton and difference.
A difference can be named. It can sometimes be measured. "The difference between Peter and Paul is that their names end in letters that are not the same." "The difference between Peter and Paul is that one is taller than the other." "The difference between 5 and 8 is 2." (Woke you up dint it.)
A distinction is a difference that is not measurable or definable. "Peter finished his dissertation with distinciton." (The event or quality that made him outstanding is not revealed, and can't be inferred from this utterance.) "Our guests of distinciton are Peter and Paul." (No idea why they are different form us, clue is not given; they are just named as different, but no amount of thinking will yield results as to what it is that make them are diffferent.)
A distinction means also that the difference is honourable, that the difference renders the different person not only different in laterally valuable ways, but different in a ranking of some scale from lower to higher ranks.
Well, the question is a bit ambivalent. If I see a house, I see a house, so the image is in my mind (in my head) and outside. There is no difference.
But if I see a house, and I think I should eat lunch, then there is a huge difference between what I see and what happens only in my head.
The question begs for context, but I'll be damned if I wade through TheMadFool's posts trying to find a particular needle among many in a haystack.
Jey, I just had a deja vous experience. "Trying to find a particular needle in a haystack" is an expression I heard in my twenties and was incapable of properly parse it to understand it. I was a very disturbed young man. I remember I agonized over what it could mean. I was mentally and emotionally challenged at the time. "what do you mean particular needle? One specific needle, and if yes, what would it be that made the needle specific, since for all intents and purposes there is no discernible difference between needles? And if there are many needles, wouldn't that alone increase my chances of finding one needle of them? And would that one needle be the particular needle I needed, or a different one, and how would I know whether it was the real McCoy or not?"---- These are quasi-rational thoughts, because they make sense. Their only fault is the incapabality of the thinker to think conceptually and metaphorically. But there were other thoughts, too, that were not rational, but muddled and unclear, which i can't reproduce, because i can't remember them, and I can't remember them because now I can only think in what I believe are logical and reasonable ways.
What do you mean there is no difference? Close your eyes and paint the house red. You can do it. Open your eyes and paint the house you are seeing green in red. You can't. Because the house exists outside your head.
I can give you more transcendental examples, if you like.
Sorry. Distinction has two meanings. We are not talking about the one you mention. I use the word in the sense I said above.
Oh, I have definitely have felt that the real world is indifferent and hostile to my most human desires and that this same reality has made me feel helpless. This has happened quite often, but for the sake of my conversation, I should have qualified that it 'can' be relieving. This is what I meant, sorry for not qualifying even more specifically. I am not perfect, haha! Thanks for pointing this out.
Knowing that my impulses and desires are often pitted against by the real world being indifferent or hostile towards them has been difficult and has made me helpless on countless occasions, especially with the death of loves ones. But, in other areas, it can be relieving, especially when you accept that there is not a list of meaningful actions or achievements one must meet in their life - like what many people in American society seem to 'need' to have a 'great life.' Living in this way can make someone more miserable in my opinion because they will eventually be met with the absurdity of the 'real world' being indifferent or hostile to their aims.
Quoting David Mo
It is indeed absurd, but that's my point. It is relieving to 'know' or 'believe' in the view that life is meaningless, and yet it also lends itself to feelings of helplessness when met with great suffering, anxiety, conundrums. But, in my opinion, it may actually provide more relief than the other than does not believe that life is meaningless. Let's suppose we have two hypothetical people. One believes, and is convinced, that life is meaningless. One believes, and is convinced, that life is not meaningless. When met with unexpected news or situations that may be negatives, the one that believes that life is meaningless will most likely be, at least, a tad bit more prepared and equipped for the negative. Now, this is all possible. Obviously, many other factors may contribute to the opposite taking place, but, in my humble opinion, this is what I believe to be true. Therefore, sometimes, it can be and may be relieving.
I believe, with Camus, that the role of philosophy is not to comfort without lucidity. Philosophy is a project for human self-knowledge and consolation without lucidity is self-deception about humanity. I do not deny that some horrible circumstances can justify self-deception. Mitigating circumstances, I would say. But not as a rule.
Quoting David Mo
I do not accept this definition. It is incomplete. if you use this definition, you throw away the difference between "difference" and "distinction". Difference can be denoted quanti- and qualitatively. The difference could be that something is more green, heavier, a number, or a measurement. Distinction is a difference which carries the nuance meaning that the difference can't be described quali- or quantitatively. It means there is a difference, but it defies the description of difference.
While my definition does NOT contradict your definition, it is more complete, it is true, and is not partial, and therefore my definition ought to be used, not yours which you got from Cambridge.
Some more examples to claim that my definition is better:
The distinction between 5 and 8 is 3.
The the two houses have a distinction in the hue of green they are painted.
The distiniction between David Mo and me is that we disagree on the meaning of distinciton.
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In the above three examples, the word "distinction" does not fit, it is not a proper way to use it. But if you put "difference" in the place of the imporperly used word "distinction", then the sentences will read normally.
This ought to prove to you that the two words are not equivalent; there is more than just idiomatic or traditional differences in usage; you ought to see that there is a difference in meaning between the two.
You are adding a whole bunch of EXTRENOUS qualifiers. Yes, the two images CAN be made different; but there are instances when they are not different. Whereas you deny that they are the same, under ANY circumstances.
Well there are circumstances when they are the same. I am not denying that they can't be different; but that that was not your proposition. Here you keep moving the goal posts, so to speak, David Mo. You are a clear thinker and a very smart person, and you ough to know that I catch tricks in arguments like that almost immediately on the spot.
I think it would be easier for your to admit I am right, but that takes an ego hurdle, I admit. I can't require that from you, as I don't know you and thus I am not convinced you are capable of that. Why ask for the impossible, eh? Do as you wish, but please don't employ ill logic or fallacies; let's keep this discussion clean and sportsmanlike.
To be honest, I never expected you to move goal posts, or to make logically illegal references that connect two unrelated propostions, like you did in our discussion on what it is that constitutes the difference between "difference" and "distinciton".
I don't see the difference you make.
Usually we talk about a difference in shade, indicating that it is a slight difference.
You propose examples of difference that are not distinction. Now the examples of distinction that are not difference are missing. Without that the examples are meaningless.
I'm afraid you don't know exactly what you are talking about with the difference between distinction and difference.
There are no true or false definitions. There are useful or confusing definitions. I have just shown that your definitions are confusing.
Quoting god must be atheist
Don't try to psychoanalyse me. It's not your thing. Give me answers to my objections and we'll continue.
I gave you a reason to distinguish what exists outside and inside the head (mind). Not convinced? Why not? This is the question.
Not convinced? Why not? This is the question.
Keeping an eye on trying not to repeat the mistake of psychoanalizing you, which I am obviously not qualified to do, and even if I were, it would be out of place; I will say this much: your not seeing the house example as your moving the goal posts, and your not seeing the difference between "difference" and "distinction", is not explained by your most recent objections why you should not see them.
I have explained my objections, and your above most recent demand for more explanations, supported by repeated, and not new objections, which objections I have disarmed with my explnations, and which contain no new information to which I need to respond, since my response would be the same as before, since your objections are not new but repeated old objections.
This could conceivably go on forever: I would need to constantly repeat my objections to your objections, and you would yet again repeat the same objections, without any new information contained in your objections.
Now here's a bit of a psychoanalysis, and please forgive me, because I will mention a feature of your mind, only one feature, without the mentioning of it I can't make my point:
I learned by reading your posts that you are one of the smartest original thinkers on this board, with keen insight, and with a sharp mind.
Psychoanalysis ended. This above sentence is not a false compliment to disarm you or to cajole you into weakness. You would be too smart for that, anyway. This was my true opinion, without any peppering with false adoration due to ulterior motives. This opinion stands, for the future as much as for the past and present. Even if we don't come to an agreement on the issue of the difference between difference and distinction.
I can't reconcile why a person who thinks so well, can't see the point in my explanation and why they insist on the opposite of my opinion.
This I could explain only with further psychoanalysis, which I naturally refrain from doing here on the forum... it will stay a private opinion in my head, because opinions should be stated only on philosophical topics, not on the state of the mind of other users. You are right about that, and I hope you can forgive me the psychoanalysis inlcuded in this post.
Gee, that sounds like irony or hyperbole to me.
The thing is simpler than everything you write. You gave a number of examples of things that are not "distinct ". But the thing is not complete if you do not give a number of examples of things that are "distinct" now.
As far as I know, there is a small difference between 'difference' and "distinction". Distinction is a sub-class of difference: it is the difference between things that are similar in other respects. For example: there is a difference in intensity between crimson red and scarlet red but they are similar red variables. They are distinct. But they are still different.
Coming back to our discussion, the difference between illusion and reality is not a simple distinction. They are contradictory concepts. Two things that contradict each other do not have a simple difference of hue.