Position

The Absurd

Life has no discoverable cosmic meaning; lucid revolt in the face of the absurd is the honest response.

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Classification

Position level
specific
Domains
Ethics

Overview

For Camus, the absurd is not despair but a clear-eyed confrontation with the gap between the human need for meaning and the world's silence. Rather than escape into suicide or a leap of faith, one lives fully and consciously within that unresolved tension. That lucid revolt is Camus's answer to the absurd.

Position on

Held by traditions

  • Absurdism

    Question scope: The Meaning of Life

References

  • Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)