The Philosophy Book

284

LIFE WILL BE LIVED

ALL THE BETTER IF

IT HAS NO MEANING

ALBERT CAMUS (1913–1960)

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Epistemology

APPROACH

Existentialism

BEFORE

1849 Søren Kierkegaard

explores the idea of the absurd

in his book, Fear and Trembling.

1864 Russian writer Fyodor

Dostoyevsky publishes Notes

from the Underground, which

has existentialist themes.

1901 Friedrich Nietzsche

writes in Will to Power that

“our existence (action,

suffering, willing, feeling)

has no meaning.”

1927 Martin Heidegger’s

Being and Time lays the

ground for the development

of existential philosophy.

AFTER

1971 Philosopher Thomas

Nagel argues that absurdity

arises out of a contradiction

within us.

S

ome people believe that

philosophy’s task is to

search for the meaning of

life. But the French philosopher and

novelist Albert Camus thought that

philosophy should recognize instead

that life is inherently meaningless.

While at first this seems a depressing

view, Camus believes that only by

embracing this idea are we capable

of living as fully as possible.

Camus’ idea appears in his essay

The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus

was a Greek king who fell out of

favor with the gods, and so was

sentenced to a terrible fate in the

Underworld. His task was to roll

an enormous rock to the top of a

hill, only to watch it roll back to

the bottom. Sisyphus then had to

trudge down the hill to begin the

task again, repeating this for all

Because we have

consciousness,we feel that

life is meaningful.

But we know that

the universe as a whole

has no meaning.

Our lives are

acontradiction.

To live well, we need to

overcome this contradiction.

We can do this by fully

embracing the

meaninglessness

of existence.

Life will be lived

all the better if it

has no meaning.