When notified of this Notre Dame of Kidapawan College Philosophy Research Festival, I was invited to talk as a professor of philosophy. I understand this invitation as having two requirements. The first requirement is that I talk from a philosophical perspective on the theme “On the Meaning of Human Life”. The second requirement is that I talk on a professional philosophical level, as there were students who already offered their philosophical perspectives.

Looking at the theme through the lens offered by the French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960), especially in his The Myth of Sisyphus (1955), I will expound on the thesis that life is absurd in three sections. The first section is about the question on life’s meaning. The second section explores two stories from which the thesis on life’s absurdity can be drawn. The third section elaborates on the absurdity of life to answer the question on life’s meaning.

I. The Question on Life’s Meaning

This section is concerned with the question on the meaning of life, which will be discussed in two subsections. The first subsection explores the reasons we are concerned with life’s meaning. The second subsection argues for the appropriate question on life’s meaning that this paper will answer.

A. Why Ask about Life’s Meaning

This subsection elaborates two reasons for raising a question on the meaning of life. The first reason is the human desire for meaning. The second reason concerns the problem of suicide.

1. The human desire for meaning

In his Preface to The Myth of Sisyphus (1955), Camus asserted that “it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning” (v). The legitimacy and necessity of this wonder is founded on the emotional and intellectual desires of every human being for familiarity, for clarity (13).

According to Camus, great deep feelings, whether they be indeterminate feelings or specialized ones like jealousy, ambition, selfishness or generosity, have a certain regularity and definiteness (8). Each feeling has its own universe which allows it to be encountered as itself and not be confused with another in habits of doing and thinking (8). Jealousy, for example, rears itself time and again in recognizable ways. Each universe of feeling partially discloses itself such that a person can be defined by them (9).

The mind’s deepest desire, according to Camus, is to understand the world, reducing it into human categories of thought (13). The first thoughts on the world and its elements were that they are expressions of deities, and thus beyond our control. With advancement in knowledge, the current thoughts on the world and its elements are that they can be expressed as mathematical constructs, and thus within our ability to predict and control. This desire’s greatest satisfaction will be that of discovering “in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing them up and summing themselves up in a single principle” (13). Physicists have replaced philosophers as the new theorists of everything.

Other than the desire for meaning, Camus also insists on the grave importance that the question of life’s meaning plays in the problem of suicide.

2. Life’s meaning and the problem of suicide

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus connects the problem of suicide with the question of life’s meaning. The problem of suicide is a judgment on the worth of life. People kill themselves “because they judge that life is not worth living” (3f.); because living life, which is never easy, “is not worth the trouble” (5). People die voluntarily because they “have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering” (5).

In the face of such a life-and-death consequence, the question of life’s meaning takes on urgency. Camus admits that “the question of the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions” (4). No other question has such mortal consequences; in fact, all the other questions are mere games in comparison. Camus observed that he has “never seen anyone die for the ontological argument”, even when it was an attempt to settle once and for all the question of God’s existence and has attracted the greatest philosophical and theological minds. Even Galileo, who is considered as the martyr for scientific truth, found himself not willing to die for the question of whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa (3).

We have given two reasons for asking the question of the meaning of life. Now, we have to ask, how should the question of life’s meaning be asked?

B. How to Ask the Question of Life’s Meaning

This subsection explores two questions on life’s meaning. The first question is “What is the meaning of life?” The second question is “Does life have meaning?”

1. What is the meaning of life?

The earlier papers read by the students are examples of how the question of life’s meaning is usually approached. Their common question was “What is the meaning of life?” They only differed in their choice of philosopher as source of answer. “What is the meaning of human life according to Thomas Hobbes (or to Immanuel Kant or to Soren Kierkegaard or to John Rawls)?”

To ask the question of life’s meaning in terms of the question “What is the meaning of life?” is a valid question. But it is also a way of asking the question with a couple of unquestioned assumptions. Its first assumption is that life has meaning. Its second assumption is that this meaning is definite, that is, there is such a thing as the meaning of life.

The title of my talk, “Albert Camus on the Meaning of Human Life”, may have also given the impression that I am asking a question similar to the students: “What is the meaning of human life, according to Albert Camus?” If that was my question, then my thesis that life is absurd does not answer the question. If my thesis is to be meaningful, there must be another way to ask the question of life’s meaning.

2. Does life have meaning?

This paper does not want to begin with unquestioned assumptions regarding the meaning of life. Instead of preempting, it asks whether life’s meaning exists or not. It is open to the possibility not only that life has meaning, but also to the other possibility that life has no meaning.

So, even though the title of the talk is “Albert Camus on the Meaning of Human Life,” its question is not: “What is the meaning of life, according to Albert Camus; but: “Does life have meaning, according to Albert Camus?” Another way of stating the question is to ask: “Is there meaning in life, according to Albert Camus?”

That it took this long to finally declare the question that guides the paper is because of the felt need to justify the way the question must be asked. That the way the question must be asked needs to be justified is because a choice has to be made between two questions.

But, now it’s time to move on to the two stories out of which the answer to the question of life’s meaning can be plucked.

II. Two Stories on Life and Meaning

This section presents figurative representations of life as objects of reflection on life’s meaning. The first subsection recounts two Greek mythological stories. The second subsection compares and explains the two stories.

A. The Two Stories

This subsection will recount two stories on life and meaning from Greek mythology. The first story is about the labors of Hercules. The second story is about the labor of Sisyphus.

1. Hercules and the twelve labors

The story of Hercules and his labors is a story of his successful overcoming of impossible labors to become the greatest Greek hero. Hercules is son of Zeus, father of the gods, and the mortal Alcmene. When he came out of a temporary insanity caused by the queen goddess Hera, Hercules discovered that he killed his wife and son. To atone for the murders, he performed twelve labors designed by Hera herself. In this paper, the story will just be limited to five notable labors.

The first labor was to slay the Nemean lion. He had to wrestle the lion to the ground and strangle it for the kill. No arrow can pierce its thick skin.

The second labor was to slay the Lernean Hydra. This was a serpent with many heads, one of which is immortal. For every head, that is cut off, two new heads grow in its place. Its breath is also foul and poisonous killing anyone who breathes it. He had to cut the heads and sear the necks to prevent new heads from growing back.

The fifth labor was to clean the Augean stables in one day. The stables of King Augeas was occupied by countless herds of cattle, sheep, goats and horses and haven’t been cleaned for years. He had to divert two rivers into the stables to clean them in a matter of hours.

The eleventh labor was to steal three golden apples of Hesperides. The tree from which the apples were to be picked was a wedding gift to Hera and Zeus. It was guarded by a vicious hundred-headed dragon. To get the apples, Hercules temporarily carried the earth on his shoulder, relieving Atlas who will then do the stealing.

The twelfth labor was to capture and bring out Cerberus, who guarded the gates of the Underworld. Cerberus has three heads of wild dogs, has a tail of a dragon or a serpent, and has heads of snakes all over his back. To succeed, he had to descend to the Underworld, kill Hades’ herdsman in a wrestling match, and capture Cerberus with his bare hands.

After twelve years, he completed all his labors. He had atoned for his crimes. He became the greatest hero of the Greeks.

2. Sisyphus and the rock

The story of Sisyphus is a story of his seeming failure to accomplish anything. Nothing is known of his parents. But he has a reputation of angering the gods. In exchange for water for his kingdom, he was said to have revealed to a father about his daughter’s abduction by Zeus. He was also claimed to have chained Death, who had to be rescued by the war-god Ares. When he was dead, he obtained permission from the god Hades to return temporarily to the world to right some wrongs; but once in the world, he refused to go back to the underworld and had to be collared and dragged back by Hermes, messenger of the gods.

For angering the gods, Sisyphus was condemned to roll a rock to the top of the mountain. But when he reaches the top, the rock would “fall back of its own weight” (88). So, he would need to roll it back to the top again, where it will roll back down again. Camus invites us to imagine this scene:

One sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world when he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain. (89)

The Hungarian animator Jankovics Marcell helps our imagination with his Oscar-nominated 1974 short movie, Sisyphus, freely available in Youtube. This scene would be repeated for all eternity. The gods “had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor” (88).

B. Comparison and Explanation

This section reflects on the stories of the fate of Hercules and Sisyphus when punished to perform god-designed labors. The first subsection compares Herculean labor with Sisyphean labor that we may be led to an answer on the question of life’s meaning while avoiding the simple philosophical positions of yes or no, which Camus finds too easy to be reflective of the human condition (6). The second subsection explains the difference between the two labors.

1. Comparing Herculean and Sisyphean labors

This subsection compares four characteristics between Herculean and Sisyphean labors. The first characteristic is level of difficulty. The second characteristic is rate of success. The third characteristic is termination of effort. The fourth characteristic is chances of release.

In terms of level of difficulty, each of Hercules’s labors is obviously more difficult than Sisyphus’s labor. Factor in the number of labors into the equation and the level of difficulty just multiplies for Hercules. This is not to discount the difficulty of rolling a rock up the mountain, but the labor of Sisyphus still falls within the realm of the humanly possible compared to any of Hercules’s twelve labors. That is why the expression “Herculean tasks” is an eponym for a task that is too difficult as to be deemed impossible to accomplish.

In terms of rate of success, Hercules has a twelve over twelve rate of success compared to Sisyphus’s zero over one. Even when one discounts from Hercules’s success rate his achievement over the second and the fifth tasks, ten over twelve still beats zero over one anytime. Hercules’s accomplishment of the second task was discounted because he was helped by his nephew Iolaus; and of the fifth task because he was paid a reward for the task. Sisyphus was able to roll the rock to the top of the mountain, but the rock keeps rolling back down. Sisyphus fails in the task the gods imposed on him because he cannot keep the rock on top of the mountain.

In terms of termination of effort, Hercules was able to complete all twelve tasks in twelve years compared to Sisyphus who found himself needing to roll the rock to the top of the mountain for all eternity. So, while Hercules was able to stop laboring after twelve years, Sisyphus’s must put in ceaseless effort because he cannot complete the task’s goal.

Finally, in terms of chances of release from the punishment imposed by the gods, Hercules was totally freed and rewarded with heroic status, while Sisyphus was condemned to perform his task for all of eternity. Hercules’s story became the model, the perfect embodiment, of the hero’s journey from suffering to fame and immortality. Sisyphus’s story became the model, the perfect embodiment of “futile and hopeless labor” (88).

We have differentiated the story of Hercules from that of Sisyphus. We will explain the differences next.

2. Explaining the difference

This subsection offers two explanations for the success that Hercules achieves compared to Sisyphus, despite having more difficult tasks. The first explanation is that Hercules had help from others in performing the tasks, while Sisyphus did it all alone. The second explanation is that, in those tasks where he did not have help, Hercules is capable of superhuman effort because he is a child of god, while Sisyphus is a mere mortal.

(a) The first explanation is that, in some of his tasks, Hercules had able help available. He had help in slaying the Lernean Hydra. He had help in stealing the apples of Hesperides. He had help in abducting Cerberus.

In slaying the Lernean Hydra, he was helped by his nephew. This nephew held a torch on the neck of every head that Hercules severs, thus preventing a new head from growing back.

In stealing the apples of Hesperides, Hercules also had help. In exchange for freeing the Titan Prometheus from his own punishment, Hercules was told the secret of the way to steal the apples. The secret was for Hercules to temporarily take on the burden of another Titan, Atlas, who can get the apples because the Hesperides who are guarding the apples are his daughters. Finally, to avoid the wrath of Zeus and Hera for having stolen the apples, Hercules was helped by the goddess Athena in returning the apples.

In abducting Cerberus from the land of the dead where no mortals are allowed, Hercules was not alone. He was first helped by a priest who initiated him into the mysteries celebrating Demeter and Persephone, the mother-in-law and the wife, respectively, of the god of the underworld, Hades, who is the master of Cerberus. Hercules also received permission from Hades to take Cerberus with him on the condition that only brute force will be used.

Hercules was helped in some of his labors. But, there were other labors were he did it like Sisyphus, alone. Still, with those labors, Hercules succeeded. What can explain that difference?

(b) The second difference is that Hercules is a demigod. He is a son of the father of the gods, Zeus. His divine nature, though limited by the mortal nature from the mother, still gives Hercules the ability to exert supernatural effort that is not available to the merely mortal Sisyphus.

He demonstrates this supernatural ability in many tasks. In slaying the Nemean lion, Hercules showed strength that allowed him to wrestle with and strangle the lion. In cleaning the Augean stables, he was able to divert two wide rivers for their waters to clean the stables, in a single day. In stealing the apples of Hesperides, he was able to substitute for the Titan Atlas in carrying the whole world on his shoulders. And in abducting Cerberus, he was able to subdue the monster with brute force.

Sisyphus, on the other hand, as mere mortal, is expected to fail in tasks designed by gods as punishment. He will not be able to experience the task as a serious punishment if it is something easily overcome. His experience of punishment is greater when the incommensurability between the task and his ability to perform it is greater.

Having recounted and reflected on the stories, it is now time to develop insights that allow us to address the question of life’s meaning raised above and understand the thesis that life is absurd.

III. The Absurdity of Life

This section connects the stories above with the thesis that life is absurd to clarify the answer to the question of life’s meaning. The first subsection is about Camus and the two myths. The second subsection explores the possibility that life is meaningless. The third subsection concludes that life is absurd.

A. Camus on the Two Myths

This subsection presents to us Camus’s evaluation of the myths of Hercules and Sisyphus. For him, the myth of Hercules is a false tale for human beings. The myth of Sisyphus is a figurative expression of a profound truth.

1. Camus on the myth of Hercules

Camus sees in the mythical story of Hercules a widely held but false belief for two reasons. The first falsity of the tale lies in the false characterization of human nature. The second falsity lies in the false characterization of the human condition.

While humans may long for supernatural powers like those of Hercules, Camus sees in the character of Hercules nothing more than wishful thinking to which humans resort to inspire themselves to bear the heavy burden each one carries in the world. But this is an illusory escape from, instead of realistically facing, the reality of burdens.

Camus also sees the labors of Hercules as a false representation of the human condition. The tasks are false representations of reality because they were successfully accomplished. They beg the question whether they were really punishments or were simply disguised opportunities for the glorification of the son of Zeus. They were also false representations because they give mere mortals a false sense of hope that if only they exert themselves as Hercules exerted himself--that is, by exerting themselves beyond themselves--they will overcome their burdens and earn immortality.

2. Camus on the myth of Sisyphus

Camus sees the myth of Sisyphus not as a primitive, unreal tale, but as a figurative expression of a profound truth. The first truth of the tale lies in its true characterization of human nature. The second truth of the tale lies in its true characterization of the human condition.

Camus sees the mortality of Sisyphus as the true nature of humanity. Sisyphus relies on his natural human powers in performing his task. Even though constantly frustrated from achieving success, he soldiers on with the task: the rock rolls back down, he goes back down and pushes the rock up again. Isn’t this the real heroism?

Camus also sees the labor of Sisyphus as the true condition of humanity. Aside from its being difficult, it is characterized by futility: no matter what one does or how much one exerts one’s effort, one is bound to fail. The rock just refuses to cooperate: it keeps acting according to its nature, which is to obey the law of gravity. The futility is also not just momentary, but endless: constantly repeating itself all throughout life. The human condition happens in time, which constantly renews itself into the future. The endless failure to accomplish the task guarantees that one cannot look forward to a moment in the future when there will be at least a reprieve from the burden. One was born into it; one is condemned to live it. Escape doesn’t guarantee not being thrown into a worse fate than what one already has.

We have seen Camus’ rejection of Hercules’s story, and promotion of Sisyphus’s story as the human story. We will now articulate in more straightforward terms the lessons from the myths.

B. Is Life Meaningless, Then?

This subsection explores how life reflects the story of Sisyphus in terms of four characteristics. First, life is difficult. Second, this difficult life is marked by futility. Third, this futile and difficult life just goes on seemingly endlessly. Finally, this endlessly futile and difficult life is just hopeless.

First, life is difficult. We can enumerate many other aspects of life that just makes life difficult. A lot of things in life are just rocks we need to roll up the mountain.

Second, this difficult life is also marked by futility. A difficult life would have been bearable if only we can be as successful as Hercules, but we are not. There is no success to be claimed. All the effort exerted is just wasted. As Murphy’s Law puts it: “When everything is going well, obviously you have overlooked something” and “When everything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.”

Third, our lives are very much Sisyphean because life’s futile labor is ceaseless. The lack of completion, of success, cannot be used as an excuse to stop. Instead, it becomes the reason that forces us to do everything all over again. There is just no rest for the weary.

Fourth, we also live Sisyphean lives because there is no hope of respite from this ceaseless, futile labor that is life. One has been born into it and is condemned to live it. The escape that suicide may open up as a possibility, offers no guarantee of a better situation either. Catholics, for example, recognize that this world is a valley of tears, but promise the fires of hell to those who leave it behind before the appointed time.

Confronted with this characterization of life as hopeless, ceaseless, and futile labor, it seems that the only conclusion to be derived is that there is no meaning in life. There is just no reason to all the madness. Life lived like this is not worth living at all.

Camus, however, disagrees with such a categorical conclusion. We would be mistaken to think that life has no meaning for Camus. But we would also be mistaken to think that Camus would offer the meaning of life. Let us articulate Camus’s answer to our question in the final subsection of this paper.

C. Life as Absurd

Does life have meaning? According to Camus, the answer to this question is that life is absurd. Let us elaborate on this first by defining absurdity. Let us elaborate this next by pointing out this absurdity in the myth of Sisyphus.

By absurdity, Camus means contradiction. He enumerates some common experiences in which absurdity is claimed. First: A virtuous man accused of coveting his own sister will protest against the absurdity of the accusation. Not only is the accusation comical, but there is a presumption of a contradiction between the deed he was accused of and the principles he lives by. Second: Attacking with a sword a group armed with machine guns is absurd. Not only is there a “disproportion between his intention and the reality he will encounter”, but there is also a contradiction “between his true strength and the aim he has in view” (22). Such an understanding is consistent with how dictionaries define absurdity: ridiculous, preposterous, incongruous, illogical, foolish, unreasonable, laughable, etc.

There are two contradictions in the myth of Sisyphus. One contradiction is fundamental to the story: that between the human being and the kind of life he is expected to live. The other contradiction is between the desire for meaning and the silence of the object of meaning.

The first contradiction defines the very story of Sisyphus itself. That the story is a punishment story means that a contradiction must exist between what is desired by Sisyphus and the life he is expected to live. Sisyphus, if given the choice, would not want to live a life rolling a rock to the top of the mountain. But, he doesn’t have that choice. He is condemned to the life he now lives. He lives a life of contradiction.

The second contradiction is between the meaning of Sisyphus’s efforts and what the world allows. Sisyphus may resign himself to the punishment and so he means not just to roll the rock to the top of the mountain but also to keep it there. He means to succeed that he may be able to free himself from the life of contradiction he lives. But the rock contradicts both his intention and his efforts and keeps rolling down the mountain. The rock’s contradiction of human intentions is not because of any intention of its own; it has none. The rock contradicts because it cannot be influenced by nor cooperate with human intentions. It is not even aware of the human project that enlisted it. It just behaves naturally: on an inclined plane with gravity pulling it down, the rock rolls down. So, as long as Sisyphus imposes on the rock a human meaning, not minding the brute factuality of the rock, then the contradiction persists endlessly.

This life of contradictions that characterizes Sisyphus’s life is also true of human life in general. This is what is meant by Camus when he says that life is absurd.

Let us end this by summarizing what we have just gone through. We began by asking about the question of life’s meaning. We said that we need to ask about life’s meaning because of our natural desire for meaning, and because it matters in the decision whether life is worth living or not. We justified the need to ask not what life’s meaning is, but whether life has meaning or not. To answer the question, we compared and analyzed two mythical stories: the punishments suffered by Hercules and Sisyphus. We discovered that the story of Sisyphus reflects the human story much better than the story of Hercules. From the story of Sisyphus, we learned that life is characterized not by meaningfulness or meaninglessness, but by absurdity, by contradiction. Ω

Reference:

Camus, A. (1955). The myth of Sisyphus and other essays. Trans. Justin O’ Brien. Vintage Books.