19. Albert Camus on The Absurdity of Life from Unpacking Ideas

19. Albert Camus on The Absurdity of Life

1 hour 10 minutes Posted Jul 25, 2022 at 4:30 pm.

Introduction 

Writing from a place of confusion and curiosity 

The only Serious Philosophical Problem

The Nietzschian Criterion 

Can we live with the awareness of the absurd without turning away?

Suicide as a social cause vs. existential cause 

Is living worth the suffering?

The uncertainty of the afterlife

Camus two certainties 

Nostalgia for Unity 

Camus’s Critique of Science 

Waking up to the Absurd  

Definition of Absurdity

Philosophical Suicide 

Critique of Kierkegaard 

Critique of the Phenomenologists

Truths worth Dying For

The Greek Myth of Sisyphus 

What Makes Sisyphus a Tragedy 

Abandoning Hope

Consciousness as the cause of and cure to suffering 

Finding Meaning in the struggle 

We can only control how we respond 

Crushing Truths Perish from Being Acknowledged  

wrapping up/outro

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Show notes

In this episode we unpack Algerian Novelist Albert Camus' 1942 essay "The Myth of Sisyphus."

This essay explores...

-Why life is an absurdity

-Why sitting with inconvenient truths make them easier to bare

-How to find meaning in a meaningless world

Links to Reading and Other Sources Mentioned

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

A Night of Serious Drinking by Rene Daumal

Oedipus by Sophocles

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (film)

*note* reading is not required to enjoy this episode!

Host: Zach Stehura UnpackingIdeas.com

Guest: Arthur O'Dwyer

Theme Music: Polyenso

Timestamps

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