" By imagining Sisyphus happy, it then becomes possible to find our own happiness in no matter what situation. Camus begins his argument with a powerful statement about suicide, noting that it is the most important of all philosophical problems. The Continue Reading...
Yet, even Tarrou must fall to the plague inevitably. Camus as much as says that while Tarrou's ideals may be beautiful, they are not ultimately the truth: there is no moksha for Tarrou -- only death. Does absurdism expect that one's best course of a Continue Reading...
life is an issue that has been plaguing thoughtful people since the first Cro-magnons evolved into modern homo sapiens with the power to think rationally and creatively, and most importantly, self-consciously. Aside from humorous attempts to explain Continue Reading...
Heidiegger Camus Martin Heidegger's "Being and Time" addresses both of these complex philosophical concepts, being and time. Being means existence, or the fact that something can exist. Heidegger approaches the concept of being from multiple perspec Continue Reading...
The absurdity in Monty Python comedy sketches seem like a philosophical cousin to Albert Camus. Likewise, Camus is like a distant relative of Buddha. Buddhism asks the individual to cease striving and desiring everything and anything -- including e Continue Reading...
1998). This is the context that favors ultimate questions by the very nature of our lives. Meaning can be constructed by making a choice in such absurd situation. Meursault's act of murder can be interpreted as an act of courage, a provocation he ad Continue Reading...
Foremost, though, is the Nietzschian concept that freedom is never free -- there are costs; personal, societal, and spiritual. To continue that sense of freedom, one must be constantly vigilant and in danger of losing that freedom, for the moment th Continue Reading...
Existentialism: A History Existentialism is a philosophical school of thought that addresses the "problem of being" (Stanford Encyclopedia, 2010). Existentialist questions involve the nature of man in relation to the universe, the subjective nature Continue Reading...
Sociology) It doesn't take a rocket scientist to note that there have been disturbing trends in schools recently. While the spate of extreme violence appears to be waning, schools are still troubled places, with both students and teachers seemingly Continue Reading...
Absurdity of Life in Modernist Drama Although not prolific, the contemporary American playwright Peter Morris demonstrates very readily the way in which the absurdist strain in modernist drama has carried through into the early twenty-first century. Continue Reading...
Educational Philosophy The four Educational Philosophies Essentialism Essentialism argues that a common core of knowledge needs to be passed to learners in a disciplined and systematic manner. The concentration in this traditional viewpoint is on Continue Reading...
We are engaged in what happened then. We are the same ones who were involved in the action; the memory brings us back as acting and experiencing there and then. Without memory and the displacement it brings we would not be fully actualized as selves Continue Reading...
And, if one flees historical reality, then, is it not futile in that eventually it will catch up with us? As a "guest" of this world, then, what is the basic responsibility we have towards humanity? Daru chooses an isolated and ascetic life -- he fl Continue Reading...
Nature.... General Will The ideas to create just and liberal society go all the way back to ancient times. The first examples of civil society were proposed by Plato and Aristotle, who saw the ideal state to be a republic ruled by the wise men and Continue Reading...
Good Man is Hard to Find For the purposes of this essay, I chose Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." "A Good Man is Had to Find" is an apt topic for research such as this, because the ambiguity of the story's position rega Continue Reading...
Breathless in the face of Godard's Sharp and Fragmented Vision of Filmed Sexuality all these things, at first sight...are obstacles to conventional smoothness and logic. Yet they are perfectly efficient in the sense that they crate an impression of c Continue Reading...
The only reason to continue living is to accept and transcend the absurdity with personal scorn and strength. Camus is overwhelmingly concerned with the impact of his ideas on everyday life -- coping with the severe and confusing realities of everyd Continue Reading...
Response to Question 1: The Perfect Stranger Harun, who is effectively a proxy for Kamel Daoud himself, narrates the story of his brother’s murder in ways that pay ironic homage to Camus’s The Stranger. In fact, The Meursault Investigati Continue Reading...
(It will be recalled that Wright's then unpublished Lawd Today served as a working model for The Outsider.) Cross, in his daily dealings with the three women and his fellow postal workers feel something akin to nausea. His social and legal obligatio Continue Reading...
Human Beings Make Sense of Things In the early-1900s, Edmund Husserl sought to provide psychology with a truly scientific basis, not by copying the physical sciences but through the description of conscious experiences. This would be a truly humani Continue Reading...
The question that Caine struggles with is whether life has any real meaning, taking into account the ugly, cruel, but still unimaginably changeable circumstances under which many people are able to live -- "in particular, young black men caught in a Continue Reading...
Arthur Miller or John Steinbeck or even Ernest Hemingway, and most likely he/she has heard the name, but cannot place it. Or, the response will be, "Isn't he a writer or something?" Ask someone in the field of literature the same question, and of co Continue Reading...
Character in Giovanni's Room. Personal values are thought to be a combination of experience and belief, or the mixture of what a person has come to believe through what they have learned and what they may have experienced. When the inner belief sys Continue Reading...
