Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

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odysseus
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by odysseus »

Ok Immanuel Can. Sorry for the unkind words.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

odysseus wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 8:52 pm Ok Immanuel Can. Sorry for the unkind words.
Absolutely no hard feelings. You're a smart person, with a lot of good insight....good conversation partners are valuable.

Thanks for the chat.
Nick_A
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Nick_A »

O

Are you open to a discussion on why the goals of science as well as the goals of religion should should appear to so many as mutually exclusive? If both are concerned with truth shouldn't they be complimentary? What happened? IYO and what does it mean for the human need for truth?

How can Sisyphus ever stop pushing the rock while living with such chaos?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

New comment, new question on Camus.

He writes, "You must imagine Sisyphus happy." (at the end of his summary of the myth)

What's your take on how somebody who rolls a rock up a hill for all of eternity can be regarded as "happy." What process of mental transformation allows this "victim of the gods" to be anything but miserable and resentful?
duszek
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by duszek »

It could be the feeling of a small partial victory.

You manage to roll a heavy stone for just one meter.
Or you manage to achieve something small in your simple life, like cooking a nice meal, making a nice cup of tea or coffee.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

duszek wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2020 7:12 pm It could be the feeling of a small partial victory.

You manage to roll a heavy stone for just one meter.
Or you manage to achieve something small in your simple life, like cooking a nice meal, making a nice cup of tea or coffee.
That's not quite what Camus says, though. Because Camus doesn't concede that even little victories are possible. That would be to deny the existence of "the rock" and to underplay the hopelessness of the situation. And he's adamant that we must never do that, or it's just another kind of intellectual suicide.

So I think it's something else. I have an idea, and think I know what he says about that; but I want to see what other Camus readers gleaned from him first, because maybe I missed something.
Impenitent
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Impenitent »

of course Sisyphus is happy... he's got rock and roll in spades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHZmrxnw3i8

so did Lemmy…

-Imp
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

Impenitent wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2020 11:07 pm of course Sisyphus is happy... he's got rock and roll in spades
I guess so. :wink:

Any serious answer?
Impenitent
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Impenitent »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2020 12:35 am
Impenitent wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2020 11:07 pm of course Sisyphus is happy... he's got rock and roll in spades
I guess so. :wink:

Any serious answer?
some people find identity in their work

some people find joy in their work

some people find both

look to others, see within?

-Imp
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

Impenitent wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 1:52 am some people find joy in their work
Did you have a chance to read the book, actually? Or are you talking more about what you would do...
Nick_A
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

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“When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.” Simone Weil

IC wrote
He writes, "You must imagine Sisyphus happy." (at the end of his summary of the myth)
I was hoping to get into this on the individuality vs collectivism thread but it died but the point remains. Why is absurdity accepted as reality necessary to explain the dominance of collectivism..

But what can make Sisyphus happy? It is the dominance of imagination which makes living with the fallen human condition tolerable.

The human soul or essence is double sided. It arises from below or the earth but its higher parts descends from above. The most natural influence will be nihilism

To make matters easier and avoid the onslaught from this idea I’ll use the beginning of a link to clarify this position. I’ll post the whole of 194 (3 pages down) which reveals our problem. Life is intolerable for a person who feels the pull of habitual animal man and drawn to a spiritual life he feels at the depth of his being? Imagination creates stability yet deprives the person of the conscious potential with the help of the Holy Spirit to reconcile our basic opposition.

Simone suggests consciously opening to the experience of our basic contradiction. Easier said than done. The world prefers imagination and the resulting absurdity of in which our world exists is the lawful result. Feeling pleasant dominates the need for truth so Sisyphus is happy. But at what cost?

https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ltp/19 ... 0143ar.pdf

194 L A V A L THÉOLOGIQUE E T PHILOSOPHIQUE

................................led his opponents to self-contradiction or showed them the true meaning of their own philosophical viewpoints by drawing out all of the implications of these viewpoints. Socrates uses rational analysis to undermine reason itself. Hence, Kierkegaard believes that “ irony .. . is unable to tolerate the absolute except in the form of nothingness.” 1 The phenomenal world (actuality) is negated not in order to posit another reality, but merely to negate actuality itself. The view that Socrates’ irony is merely the self-disparagement and nescience which is portrayed in the Socratic dialogues is superficial. Irony is not merely a rhetorical device perfected by Socrates but has a profound meaning. Irony is capable of inducing a self-consciousness in the individual to whom it is directed. It reduces an apparently abstract discussion to a personal level and suggests that there is a realm of truth which is other than that which is conventionally accepted. One of Socrates’ aims (in using irony) was to awaken men from the sleep of moral and intellectual complacency. Irony is used to free men from the dominance of general or abstract conceptions which appeared to convey knowledge, but which actually cloaked ignorance. The ironic standpoint involves an affirmation of the existing subject, the individual who refuses to yield to conventional opinion, who questions ostensible ‘ knowledge,’ who refuses to be explained away by a speculative dialectic. An ironist such as Socrates suggests that most of man’s knowledge is not truly knowledge at all, but the presumption to knowledge. The effect of Socrates’ inquiries is negative and is intended to be so. The destruction of comfortable certainty, Socrates seemed to believe, would lead individuals to self-conscious reflection, to an awareness of what they do not know, to what they are not. In this regard, Kierkegaard maintains that Socrates . . . occupied himself with the problem , w hat it means to be a m an.. . Socrates doubted whether we are men at birth; one does not so easily get the chance to becom e a m an or to know what it is to be a man. F or the ideality in being a m an was what concerned Socrates, and what he sou gh t.2 Irony is in the service of a philosophical self-consciousness, a philosophical anthropology. Kierkegaard’s own irony served to ‘ mask ’ his deep, personal commitment to Christianity. If Socrates asked, how can I become a man, Kierkegaard asked, how can I become a Christian? In the Concept of Irony Kierkegaard emphasizes the negativity of irony insofar as any knowledge claim is subject to the critical power of the ironic standpoint. Irony is the antithesis of the actual and is oriented in the direction of the ideal infinity of the possible.................
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 4:54 am “When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.” Simone Weil

IC wrote
He writes, "You must imagine Sisyphus happy." (at the end of his summary of the myth)
I was hoping to get into this on the individuality vs collectivism thread but it died but the point remains. Why is absurdity accepted as reality necessary to explain the dominance of collectivism..
Sorry, Nick. You're totally off topic. You'll need to go back to the "collectivism" thread. This one has nothing to do with that, even by implication. This is about Camus's book.
Nick_A
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Nick_A »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:13 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 4:54 am “When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door.” Simone Weil

IC wrote
He writes, "You must imagine Sisyphus happy." (at the end of his summary of the myth)
I was hoping to get into this on the individuality vs collectivism thread but it died but the point remains. Why is absurdity accepted as reality necessary to explain the dominance of collectivism..
Sorry, Nick. You're totally off topic. You'll need to go back to the "collectivism" thread. This one has nothing to do with that, even by implication. This is about Camus's book.
All it means is that that you have no idea why sisyphus should be happy. All discussion bout Kierkegaard was meaningless for you on this thread and should be deleted. You are clueless as to how ideas at greater depth are related. Classic intellectual snobbishness if there was ever one with the audacity to burden Christianity with this unfortunate quality.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Immanuel Can »

Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:29 pm Classic intellectual snobbishness if there was ever one...
Yes, it's unbearably snobbish to talk about Camus and Existentialism on a thread about Camus's Existentialism.

Better to switch to talking about Simone De Beauvoir...um...Simone Says...um...Simone the Soothsayer...um...Simple Simone the Pie Woman...well, you know who I mean. :wink:
Nick_A
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Re: Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Post by Nick_A »

Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:42 pm
Nick_A wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2020 2:29 pm Classic intellectual snobbishness if there was ever one...
Yes, it's unbearably snobbish to talk about Camus and Existentialism on a thread about Camus's Existentialism.

Better to switch to talking about Simone De Beauvoir...um...Simone Says...um...Simone the Soothsayer...um...Simple Simone the Pie Woman...well, you know who I mean. :wink:

The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo. Kierkegaard

The question comes up why sisyphus should be happy. Seems obvious enough so I answer the question. But as usual, intellectual snobbishness takes over and attacks not just Simone but the author of a rather deep article that obviously goes right over your head. It makes you feel good but what good does it do for anyone trying to understand the depth of the ideas as to why sisyphus should be happy with absurdity? Kierkegaard understood why. You prefer to argue and condemn. Your way, not mine.
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