- Nagel, "The Absurd"
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This module -- people dissatisfied in some way with all the meaning-in-life authors
- We should be seeking (and finding?) transcendence -- John Cottingham (2021)
- However much you meet the conditions for meaning, your life will still be absurd -- Thomas Nagel (1971)
- Sorry, but you can't have "ultimate meaning," and that's sad -- Rivka Weinberg (2026)
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Nagel, "The Absurd" (1971)
INTRO
Nagel: "Most people feel on occasion that life is absurd, and some people feel it vividly and continually." (p. 716)
- Do you feel that life is absurd? When?
- What does "absurd" mean?
- Is "absurd" the opposite of "meaningful"?
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SECTION I
Some triggers for the feeling that life is absurd... that don't really make much sense
- Life is absurd because "what we do today won't matter in a million years (p. 716)
- Nagel: what happens in a million years doesn't matter today
- Life is absurd because "we are tiny specks in the infinite vastness of the universe" (p. 717)
- Nagel: life would still be absurd if the universe was smaller!
- Life is absurd because there is no "final end" or "ultimate point." (p. 717)
- Nagel: none is needed, so that doesn't make life absurd (p. 717)
"The standard arguments for absurdity appear therefore to fail as arguments. Yet I believe they attempt to express something that s difficult to state, but fundamentally correct." (p. 718)
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SECTION II
Nagel's account of the absurdity of life
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| p. 719 |
- Absurdity = having the engaged inside view AND the doubting outside view all the time; oscillating between the two; not being able to settle on one or the other
- Love and Death (Woody Allen and Diane Keaton 1975) -- discussing philosophy seriously while also being aware of how it seems from the outside
- Listers (2024) -- birding seriously while also looking at birding from the outside
- This dual perspective is very common in comedies....
More examples of the dual perspective?
- inside: serious and engaged
- outside: doubtful, amused
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SECTION III
Trying to be 100% serious by playing a role in a larger enterprise ... it's not going to totally eliminate the external, doubting stance
- You might try to be 100% serious by being involved in an enterprise such as "service to society, the state, the revolution, the progress of history, the advance of science, or religion and the glory of God" (p. 720)
- But just being part of a larger enterprise isn't enough. What if you learned you were being raised as meat for aliens?
p. 721
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SECTION IV
Why not permanently adopt the outside standpoint and take nothing seriously?
- We can't do that
- Nagel is NOT saying doubt is any more correct than engagement. Life is absurd because both engagement and doubt are inescapable.
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Section V SKIP
Oscillating between the standpoints is like feeling both certain and skeptical after studying epistemological skepticism
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Section VI
Is it really important to escape absurdity?
- A mouse's life is not absurd...it's something special about us that our lives are absurd
- You could try to have that detachment all of the time, so you wouldn't oscillate between the two standpoints.
- Your detached life wouldn't be as absurd as most, but certainly wouldn't be meaningful.
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Nagel section VII
How to live with absurdity
- suicide ... that assumes absurdity is a huge problem and it's not actually a problem at all!
- bravery, defiance (Albert Camus) ... again, that assumes it's a problem
- acceptance ... "absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced- and interesting characteristic" (p. 726)
- "we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair" (p. 727)
The ironic life -- incongruity between two attitudes
I love it ... but isn't it kind of silly ... this is great ... but is it great? ... I care .... but should I care?
The wholehearted life
I love it.
Must we live ironically all the time? Is everything subject to doubt or just some parts of life?
