Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

PHIL 102, UBCChristina Hendricks

Spring 2017

Unless there are images noted otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0

Camus in 1957, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

Algeria & France, 1913-1960

Evolution of French Algeria 1830-1962, Wikimedia Commons, free art license.

Ancient Greek myth of SisyphusWhat Camus does with this:

• Ilustration of absurdity of human life

• Shows the attitude we ought to take to it Sisyphus, by Titian, public domain on Wikimedia

Commons

How could this be possible?

Particularly when he walks back down to start over again? (2, 3)

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy” (3)

Sisyphus icon purchased from thenounproject.com

Smiley icon licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

How might we say our lives are like Sisyphus’ task?

Or are they perhaps not?

Our lives, too, are absurd

Overall questions Camus is addressing

• The “fundamental question of philosophy: “judging whether life is or is not worth living” (3)

• “the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions” (4)

If there is no universal meaning of life, is life still worth living?

What is absurdity?A “contradiction,” a “divorce” between two things (7)

What humans want

What the universe offers

Absurdity of human life

Beginning to feel absurdity“It happens that the

stage sets collapse…” (5)

“…one day the ‘why’ arises …” (5)York Theatre, Flickr photo shared by Sandra Cohen-Rose & Colin Rose, licensed CC BY 2.0

Contradictions: Time“We live on the future” (5), but this ends in death

Everything we do/work for will come to nothing

today tomorrow tomorrow . . .tomorrow…

Sandcastle image licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

Contradictions:Indifference of universe

The universe is “dense,” foreign, with “primitive hostility” (5)

Image of galaxy by NASA

“That stage scenery masked by habit becomes again what it is” (5-

6)

Curtain image and Grand Central Station licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

How to respond to absurdity?

Not by suicide

Resolves the contradiction by eliminating our desires

Resolves the contradiction by ignoring the reality of life & the universe

What humans want

What the universe offers

Not by “eluding” (4)

Eluding/hope

Image of earth by NASA

Image of galaxy by NASABell image licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

How to respond to absurdity?

Acknowledge and revolt against absurdity at the same time

What could this mean?

REVOLT

Acknowledge absurdity

Believing you

will find meaning

Ignoring how

world is (eluding)

Eliminating human desires

(suicide)

Revolt against absurdit

y

Revolt is “not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. … [I]t is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it” (8).

Resignation, giving

up

Both involve middle ground

Acknowledgement & revoltAcknowledge both:

o What we want from the universe (e.g., meaning, purpose; don’t give this up)

o That the universe won’t give this to us (don’t think you’ll succeed in getting what you want)

Image of space licensed CC0 from pixabay.com

Acknowledgement & revolt• Be defiant, not complacent, accepting of

absurdity• Continue to struggle, to revolt, knowing

you won’t succeed

Sisyphus is “ a blind man eager to see who knows the night has no end” (3)

Freedom“to the extent to which I hope, to which I worry about a … way of being or creating, to the extent to which … I accept [life] having a meaning, I create for myself barriers between which I confine my life” (9).

Why must we imagine Sisyphus (and us) happy?

“Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart” (3).

“the purest of joys” is “feeling, and feeling on this earth” (not in our selection). Mountain ima

gelicensed CC0 pixabay.com