Specific_Milk
Student
- Aug 28, 2022
- 103
Do you think that Camus asserted alot of stuff (based on the Existentialist framework of existence preceding essence and that meaning can be made in this meaningless universe etc) and did not assess suicide fairly as being a valid solution to the problem of the Absurd?
Here I will quote some passages (hopefully the context is not lost) and that I think are just mere assertions from Camus rather than conclusions derived from logical deduction:
pg 53''that revolt gives life its value" : a clear assertion of an existentialist idea that one can make meaning in a meaningless universe. This is an assumption of the whole philosophy to which other schools before it do not agree with. There are plenty of philosophical traditions that do not subscribe to this idea. (for instance, the religious school of thought, that meaning is within God and God alone. Or the entirety of the Greek tradition, where essence precedes existence is the traditional viewpoint of life)
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pg 52-''it may be thought that suicide follows revolt-but wrongly. For it does not represent the logical outcome of revolt''
pg 52-''it is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will. Suicide is a repudiation''
Both quotes above asserts that revolting is more desirable than suicide
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Here is a more explicit quote: pg 52'Living is keeping the absurd alive. … One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt''
I mean he could've put in a little more effort in hiding the fact that he is approaching this problem with a life affirming attitude, already assuming that life is desirable to death (and made no logical arguments to explain this assumption)
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An interesting one comes from this line:pg 52 ' suicide settles the absurd. It engulfs the absurd in the same death. But I know that in order to keep alive, the absurd cannot be settled. It escapes suicide to the extent that it is simultaneously awareness and rejection of death. '
If I understand this passage above correctly, he argues that suicide does settle the absurd but then makes a sort of metaphysical claim that somehow, even the act of suicide does not adequately resolve the Absurd as it some how escapes/eludes this? How confusing and deceptive is all of this. A book that started off claiming to objectively assess the extent that suicide is a valid solution to the Absurd, only for all nooks and crannies to be filled with the assumptions of existentialism (life affirming and a belief that value can be made in a value-less universe). To a person not subscribe to the assumptions of existentialism, these are mere assertions.
Here I will quote some passages (hopefully the context is not lost) and that I think are just mere assertions from Camus rather than conclusions derived from logical deduction:
pg 53''that revolt gives life its value" : a clear assertion of an existentialist idea that one can make meaning in a meaningless universe. This is an assumption of the whole philosophy to which other schools before it do not agree with. There are plenty of philosophical traditions that do not subscribe to this idea. (for instance, the religious school of thought, that meaning is within God and God alone. Or the entirety of the Greek tradition, where essence precedes existence is the traditional viewpoint of life)
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pg 52-''it may be thought that suicide follows revolt-but wrongly. For it does not represent the logical outcome of revolt''
pg 52-''it is essential to die unreconciled and not of one's own free will. Suicide is a repudiation''
Both quotes above asserts that revolting is more desirable than suicide
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Here is a more explicit quote: pg 52'Living is keeping the absurd alive. … One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt''
I mean he could've put in a little more effort in hiding the fact that he is approaching this problem with a life affirming attitude, already assuming that life is desirable to death (and made no logical arguments to explain this assumption)
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An interesting one comes from this line:pg 52 ' suicide settles the absurd. It engulfs the absurd in the same death. But I know that in order to keep alive, the absurd cannot be settled. It escapes suicide to the extent that it is simultaneously awareness and rejection of death. '
If I understand this passage above correctly, he argues that suicide does settle the absurd but then makes a sort of metaphysical claim that somehow, even the act of suicide does not adequately resolve the Absurd as it some how escapes/eludes this? How confusing and deceptive is all of this. A book that started off claiming to objectively assess the extent that suicide is a valid solution to the Absurd, only for all nooks and crannies to be filled with the assumptions of existentialism (life affirming and a belief that value can be made in a value-less universe). To a person not subscribe to the assumptions of existentialism, these are mere assertions.
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