ABSURDITY-ALBERT CAMUS

ABSURDITY-ALBERT CAMUS

The “stranger” is a beautiful novel written by French writer, Alber Camus, literally, it means a person you do not know. The novel presents the reader with a new kind of protagonist,-meursault- a man unable to transcend the tedium and inherent absurdity of everyday existence. It is a discussion on the central idea of absurdity. A major component of this philosophy of absurdity was Camus’ assertation that life has no rational and redeeming meaning. Faced with the horrors of Hittlers’s Nazi regime and umprecedented slaughter of the war, many could no longer accept that human existence had any purpose of discerning meaning. Existence seemed simply absurd.

The philosophy of albert camus

The philosophy of albert camus is certered on the absurdity of human existence. There are 3 basic statements of the human situation that form the basis of camus existentialism. They are : God is Dead”; “life is absurd”, “life is meaningless”.

·         God is dead: references have been made to the open statement camus made or wrote about the Christian God. In this novel, he justified Nietzsche’s claims in Christians and their God. Defending him, he said “Nietzsche did not form a project to kill God. He found him already dead in the soul of his contemporaries”. Many reasons can be deduced from camus’ postulation about Christians and their God. His Mediterranean origins are believed by some to be responsible for this. He grew up in a region of the world where chrestianity and values have never made the impact that they did, for example, in European civilization. Again, he did not have an experience of Christians.

·         Life is absurd: this theme has its origin in Soren Kierkegaard who chose to confront the crisis humans faced with absurdity by developing his existential philosophy. However, his existential theory of absurdity has come to be popularly associated by camus. Absurdity refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meanings in life and the human inability to find any. In this context, absurd does not mean logically impossible, but rather humanly impossible. Accordingly, absurdism is a philosophical school of thought stating that the efforts to find inherent mening will ultimately fall becos the sheer amount of information and the realm of the unknownmake certainty impossible. Human existence must come to terms with this reality, and camus tries to do this in his philosophy of absurdity. In other words, camus brings to his readers the traumatic experiences of human life and the right attitude towards it. The absurd is inevitable and it is therefore “that confrontation which arises as a result of man’s appeal with the irrational silence of the world.” He explains further that the feeling of the absurd also spring from a comparison between the irrational silence of the world and the desperate desire for meaning and clarity by man. Camus in his “ the Stranger”, holds that there is no purpose, no order in the universe and hence life is meaningless and absurd, and that the only thing ultimately worth while is the human situation. For camus, it is in man’s own interest to be open to the meaninglessness and absurdity of life. he rejects suicide as an escape route to life’s.                 if this is camus’ postulation, what then is the premonition of saying life is absurd? He likened this to when Sisyphus was forced to roll heavy rock up the mountain only to see it roll back all the way and making all his effort futile. It is in this that camus believes that this is similar to human life in all the activites and events of our lives we merely accomplish anything at the end. We work hard and try to achieve goals but these efforts and goals are meaningless and absurd. Therefore, for camus, death is the great surd of existence, the final proff of the absurdity of both human beings and the universe. Thus the paradoxical situation between our impulse to ask ultimate question and the umpossibility of achieving any adequate answer is what camus calls the absurd.

·         Absurdity in man’s religious life: camus reiterates the Kantian imperative to treat human beings not as a means to an end but as an end. The world is continually soaked in the ocean of injustice. Millions of people worked in exploitation jobs. Religion (according to Karl marx) is still the opium of the masses. It is the tool in the hands of the rich, the govt and the church leaders in manipulating the poor. No matter how harsh the econonmy is, the people in government meet their needs and wants. The religious leaders survive it by making their religious faithful donate either through tithes or offertory

·         Life is meaningless: camus argued that human beings cannot escape asking the question “what is the meaning of existence?” it was in his attempt to answer this question that he introduced absurdity. However, he denied that there could be an answer to this question, and removed every scientific, teleological metaphysical, or human generated end that would provide a satisfying answer. Philosophically, camus is classified to be an existentialist. One of the theme that frequently occurs in the novel is the meaninglessness of life as revealed by Meursault. For Meursault, nothing can be done to change life and situation. This is philosophical theme of existentialism known as anguish and facticity. Anguish is when man feels that existence is unnecessary, meaningless and no satisfying answers to battling questions about life. facticity is considered as the certain limiting condition of human existence. The theme of facticity as displayed by Meursault comes about through the throwness of individual existence. According to Meursault man does not choose where and how to be born but finds himself thrown into the world in circustances and situation that are not his won making.

Criticisms

Ernest Nagel offers an interesting critique of absurdist philosophy of camus. He noted that the basic critique of camus is that he presupposes a search for meaning as either generalized, or innate. Camus, according to nagel does not readily function on being or other philosophical aspects, and instead runs straight for what the absurd does, and how we face it. Camus writing is vague and he frequently makes unsupported base claims in which he builds his arguments rather than give theoretical arguments, he illustrates using mythes and paintings. In this he lacks rigor. He offers no system to his work and to the point is decidedly skeptical up until he finds a reason to stop being so.

Acquinas treats of God, who is the first cause, himself uncaused. The five proofs he treated are: the argument from motion, the argument from causation, the argument from contingency, the argument from the degrees of perfection and the argument from design. These proofs are discussed bellow

The first way: the argument from motion. (ex motu)

Life is in motion. Neutrons, electrons, protons and atoms are also moving or changing. Thomas employs his knowledgeable of Aristotle’s potentiality and actuality in order to explain the existence of God from motion. Everything which moves goes from potentiality to actuality. It is an actual motion that converts a potential motion into an actual motion. Each thing is moved by something else but this sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum. Thus, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other and this first unmoved mover is what we call God.

The second way: the argument from causation. (ex causa)

The second way Thomas Aquinas tried to prove the existence of God is from the fact of causation. In the world perceptible by the senses, there is a series of efficient causes of things. The efficient cause of a thing is that which causes change and motion to start or to end. Nothing exists prior to itself. If follows that nothing is the efficient cause of itself. If the first thing in a series of things does not exist, nothing in the series exist. It is quite apparent that above all causes, there must be a cause who proper action is to give being. Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, a first cause or uncaused caused to which we give the name God. Everything besides God derives it being from God.

The third way: the argument from contingency (ex contingentia)

The argument from contingency is grounded on the distinction between possibility and necessity. It is possible to be and it is also possible not to be. This is true because all contingent beings come into being and go out of being. People are born and people die. If everything has contingent existence, then a time will come when everything will no longer exist. Thus, we cannot but postulate that there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. The existence of this being is not contingent on any other being. This is God.

The fourth way: the argument from gradation of Being (ex gradu)

It is quite observable in the universe that some things are better, nobler and truer than other things. There are varying degrees of perfection in the world. Hence, there ought to be something which is good, true and noble to the greatest degree. Aristotle says that whatever is greatest in truth is greatest in being… the maximum in any category is the cause of everything else in that category. There must be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection and this we call God.

The fifth way: the argument from purpose or design (ex fine)

The argument from design follows form the occurrence of things in the world. It is observable that things, animate and inanimate, concscious and unconscious tent toward an end. Is it not the case that whatever lackes intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence. In other words, since natural things have no knowledge, there must be some previously existing intelligence directing them to an end like an archer who gives a definite motion to an arrow so that it will wing its way to a determined end. As a result, the world is governed by the providence by which God rules the world to the political foresight of the president of a country or to the monarchical foresight of a king or queen of a kingdom. Also, since different or discordant things cannot always or for the most part be parts of one order except under someone’s control but in the world, things of different natures are under one control, under one order and this is not accidental. Thus , there must be a super intelligent being by whose providence the world is ordered and governed. This being we call God.