Talk:The Myth of Sisyphus

Suicide

In the article it says that Camus discusses the question of suicide, and even says "Given such a futile world, he asks, what is the alternative to suicide?" However, I could find no suggestion of suicide in Camus' essay, so can someone please say why they get the idea that there is no alternative to suicide from Camus' words? - El Zahir

To El Zahir: It doesn't refer to suicide, and in fact the implication of that statement shows what is fundamentally an extremely poor understanding of the text. As Camus explains in "The Rebel," suicide is the worst possible thing we can do. If our life is all we have and it is for us to nobly strive to succeed in the face of a somewhat nihilistic universe, suicide becomes the ultimate form of cowardice. That is why I removed that statement from the article. - Mike

To Mike: Thanks for the info, I'm glad I'm not the only one who found that statement untrue, and thanks for fixing the article. - El Zahir

Camus asks and answers the question of suicide in chapter 1 of his essay; the last chapter, the only one that mentions Sisyphus and that is often reproduced on the internet, indeed does not refer to suicide. AxelBoldt 02:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

"Taking the absurd seriously means acknowledging the contradiction between the desire of human reason and the unreasonable world. Suicide, then, also must be rejected: without man, the absurd cannot exist." The "then" in the second sentence seems to indicate that it follows from the first sentence. It doesn't to me, or the connection is at least insufficiently well explained. - Phil

Free Will

Question: How does Camu deny free will in this essay, or in the work at large? In particular he refers to our personal fate being created by us and that we are masters of our days.

"[...]in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death."

If nobody can point this out I'll delete the offending passage. -Frank.

Tantalus

Removed references to Tantalus. They belong on a page about Tantalus, and possibly even Sisyphus, but not on this page, which is about Albert Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus". To my knowledge, Camus does not mention Tantalus in the essay. Graham Chapman

A fair and interesting point, Graham. However mythology and philosophy are both comparative disciplines. The fact that Sisyphus was Camus' chosen metaphor as opposed to Tantalus is, to my mind, revealing of Camus' use of the Sisypharean myth to explore the existential nature of human experience. user:sjc

I agree that mythology and philosophy are difficult to separate at times, but this page is about Albert Camus'essay (for example, notice that I don't expand on the philosophy of the absurd, I link to it because it is a separate topic). Now, the difference between the title of his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" and the Greek myth of the same name is only one of capitalisation, i.e. the Greek myth could be titled "The myth of Sisyphus". You could quite reasonably put such an article on the same page as this by separating it by a horizontal line - from what I have seen, this is the Wikipedia convention for handling alternative meanings of the same term.

If you were to put comparisons with Tantalus on such a page, OR if you put it on a page titled "Sisyphus" then it would help to explain the mythology and would make sense. However, IMHO, to preserve a NPOV for the part of this page describing Camus' essay as a page in an encyclopedia, this page is about Camus'essay, and references to additional characters from Greek mythology might shed light on the mythology, but only serves to obscure the essay. There's also the viewpoint that such discussion belongs in a philosophical treatise, but I'm inclined not to argue that one because I'm not qualified.

Graham Chapman

I'm not really disagreeing with you, Graham, otherwise I would simply have reinstated the Tantalus stuff without comment. However, you should be aware that a lot of academic criticism which deals with the ideistic nature of the Sisypharean torment is couched explicitly in terms of explaining this fundamental dichotomy between it and the holistic nature of the Tantalic torment. Like the stone, this Tantalus stuff will inexorably return, just mark my words... :-) sjc

Fair enough. I see from various sites on the Internet that they are often compared - http://www.mythweb.com/today/today03.html and http://www.zipcon.net/~parallax/tns.html, and presumably heaps more. Thus having shown my ignorance on this point, I'll stop arguing. Thanks for having given me ideistic and holistic to ponder on. I'll just go away for a few days until my head stops hurting...!

Minor point, but if Sisyphus was pushed by being blinded, how could he see the boulder roll down the hill as in the next comment? I'm a Wikipedia newbie, so I don't want to touch the entry, but could someone else please review that?

Perhaps a reference to Tantalus at the end of the article as it does seem to be integrated in literary comparisons and chit chat about Sisyphus. It's always good to see at least a few references to similar concepts in other works.

The explanation of who Sisyphus is on this page is different from the explanation on the Sisyphus page--here it says he was condemned because of his extraordinary wisdom, whereas on the Sisyphus page it says the reason is "obscure." Perhaps somebody with more knowledge on the subject than I should resolve this difference.

"Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology who upset the gods with his extraordinary wisdom." Would a second look at the original myth, as Camus knew it, add depth to this assessment of the essay? BtW Camus calls Sisyphus "the absurd hero" not the absurd man. Is there any perceptible difference? --Wetman 06:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Someone should clarify how faith is characteristic of existentialism. To me, this statement is far too generalized, especially when considering that the most well-known branch of existentialism is the atheistic form of Sartre (and, given that he saw all existence as contingent, how could we say that his philosophy was characterized by any sort of faith?). If somebody could explain this, I'll keep in the parenthetical. However, it seems to me like it was unnescessarily added in order to differentiate Camus from Sartre, which is not needed in this article (at least as it currently stands), and so, I plan on deleting it soon. -Tinpatches 03:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)tinpatches

Camus' inductive logic

This seems to be Camus' inductive proof for absurdism. It's great to get a new perspective on this philolgical gem.

Link change

Please note that the previous link to the Camus' essay was dead, and it has sinced been changed.

Sisyphus a good example?

This is not related to writing the article. Was Sisyphus the best example to choose? Anyone familiar with Greek myth knows that the story always changes. A contemporary individual hearing this story, contemplating himself in place of Sisyphus would likely hold out hope that some other god would come along and save him from his perpetual task, given the multitude of arcing stories present in other myths - they would imagine Sisyphus to hold onto a similar hope. I guess it is only now 2000 years later that the myth is sealed in stone, and can be used as an example by Camus. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-11-15 17:29Z

Vandalism?

"How ironic that Camus rejected this emphatically only to hang himself in 1959 with cement encased pasta. He predated Lenny Bruce and Brittany Spears but is considered equally influential, at least in philosophical circles."

Huh? Camus died in a car accident. Could someone with a better grasp of Camus than me fix this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.203.187.55 (talk) 21:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

I am soooooo confused... (Pt. deux)

For cross-reference purposes to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus See end of paragraph 9: "However, the absurd can never be accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt." To deal with it well, should I ACCEPT absurdity (as is mentioned many times in this article) or REVOLT against it (as is contradictorily mentioned twice)? I think the wording needs to be changed: Camus ACKNOWLEDGED the Absurd, ACCEPTED its reality and advocated REVOLT against it. The 'authors' of this page and the one cited above seem to be at odds; I'm assuming they are done by two different people/groups. What did Camus, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche have to say about this subject? Are there any other philosophers who have addressed this issue?

interesting difference: Acceptance versus Acknowledged, can you both accept and revolt against the absurd? Pohick2 (talk)

Isn't that the point? Its absurd, really. You accept it, but you revolt against it. Read the Stranger, for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.8.206.129 (talk) 23:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Reception?

Why was this essay notable? What was its reception? Has it been criticised? Fences and windows (talk) 22:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

References

It's frustrating that quite a lot of the quotations lack page references to the English or French editions. It would be great to have both as the poetry and complexity is sometimes lost in the translation. Any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.234.250.188 (talk) 12:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Contradictions regarding acceptance of the absurd

The summary in the article seems to contradict itself.

• The summary of chapter 1 says that "the absurd can never be accepted" (my emphasis).
• The summary of chapter 4 says that Sisyphus "is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance" (my emphasis).

I have not read Camus' work, so I do not know how to interpret this. I just note that the above seems obviously contradictory. Someone who knows the subject better might consider revising the wording. SpectrumDT (talk) 08:49, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Note the title, this might help resolve your dilemma. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.199.30.236 (talk) 12:53, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Preface 1955

I was wondering if it would be relevant to cite the preface to the 1955 version that Camus wrote in Paris. He talks about suicide in the preface, and wanted to hear your thoughts on its relevance - Bwash1unh