{"id":8787,"date":"2013-05-14T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/14\/senses-of-absurd\/"},"modified":"2013-05-14T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T16:46:08","slug":"senses-of-absurd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/05\/14\/senses-of-absurd\/","title":{"rendered":"Senses of ‘Absurd’ and the Difference between Nagel-Absurdity and Absolute Absurdity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I continue the investigation into existential meaning and absurdity.  Earlier posts in this series are collected in the Meaning of Life<\/a> category.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let's take a step back and ask what we might mean by 'absurd' the better to isolate the sense or senses relevant to the question of the putative absurdity  of human existence.  I count the following main senses.  <\/span><\/p>\n

1. In the logical<\/em> sense, 'absurd' means logically impossible or self-contradictory.  Thus a round square is an absurdity as is a cat that is not a cat.  A philosophizing cat, however, though nomologically impossible, is not an absurdity in the logical sense.  In a reductio ad absurdum<\/em> proof one proves a proposition by assuming its negation and then, with the help of unquestioned auxiliary premises, deriving a formal contradiction.  One thus reduces the assumption to absurdity.  'Absurdity' here has a purely logical sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. In the epistemic<\/em> sense, a proposition is absurd if it is epistemically impossible, i.e., logically inconsistent with what we know.  In ordinary English we often call propositions absurd that neither are nor entail logical contradictions.  Thus if a Holocaust denier asserts that no Jew was executed by Nazis at Auschwitz, we say, "That's absurd!" meaning not that it is logically impossible — after all, it isn't — but that it contradicts what we know to be the case.  The same goes for *There are whore houses on the Moon.*  It is false, but more than that, it blatantly contradicts what everyone knows; so we say it is absurd.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n\"Sisyphus\"<\/a>3. We also apply 'absurd' to such nonpropositions as enterprises, schemes, undertakings, projects, plans, and the like.  An 80-year-old with ankle problems tells me he intends to climb Weaver's Needle.  I tell him his project is absurd.  I am not saying that what he has in mind is logically impossible, or even that it is nomologically impossible, but that "there is a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality." (Thomas Nagel, "The Absurd," Mortal Questions<\/em>, p. 13)  Camus gives the example of a swordsman attacking machine gunners.  That is an absurd project.  The means chosen is radically unsuited for the end in view.  The fantasies of transhumanist and cryonic physical-immortality-seekers I would call absurd.  Ditto for the quest for the philosopher's stone, the perpetuum mobile<\/em>, the classless society.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The above are all 'discrepancy' senses of 'absurd.'  There is the self-discrepancy of a self-contradictory proposition such as *No cat is a cat.*  There is the discrepancy of a false proposition such as *There are whore houses on the Moon* with what we all know is the case.  There is the discrepancy between certain projects and plans with reality and its real possibilities. The logic and epistemic uses can be set aside: they are not directly relevant to the problem of the meaning of human existence. The third sense brings us in the vicinity of Nagel's use of 'absurd.'<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Nagelian absurdity<\/em>.  Nagel's use of 'absurd' is also a 'discrepancy' use.  As opposed to what?  As opposed to an absolute use, to be explained in a moment. In his 1971 J. Phil.<\/em> essay "The Absurd," Thomas Nagel maintains that "the philosophical sense of absurdity" arises from "the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt." (13)   "What makes life absurd" is the collision of "the two inescapable viewpoints," namely, the situated viewpoint from which we live straighforwardly, immersed in our projects and taking them in deadly earnest, and the objective, transcendental viewpoint from which we coolly comtemplate our lives and everything else sub specie aeternitatis<\/em>.  There is a discrepancy between the seriousness with which we take our projects and the indifference with which we view them from 'on high' under the aspect of eternity.This discrepancy is inescapable since both the subjective and objective viewpoints are essential to being human and they necessarily conflict.    <\/span><\/p>\n

5. Absolute Absurdity<\/em>.  Suppose our lives are Nagel-absurd.  Does it follow that they are absolutely absurd?  I define:<\/span><\/p>\n

X is absolutely absurd =df<\/sub> the existence of X is (modally) contingent but without cause or reason.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some say the universe is absurd in this sense.  It exists; it might not have existed; it exists without cause; it exists without reason or purpose.  "It is just there, and that is all," to paraphrase Russell in his famous BBC debate with Copleston.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It seems obvious that our lives could be Nagel-absurd without being absolutely absurd.  Suppose God created us to love and serve him in this world and to be happy with him in the next.  Suppose this is true and is known or believed to be true.  Then our existence, though modally contingent,  would have both a cause and a reason (purpose).  Our lives would have an objective meaning.    But this objective meaning is consistent with our lives embodying an inescapable conflict between subjective and objective points of view such that a fully aware human being would not be able to shake off what Nagel calls "the philosophical sense of absurdity."  Supposing  my life objectively has a purpose and so cannot be absolutely absurd, it remains Nagel-absurd because our power of self-transcendence — which is essential to us — allows us to call into question every thing and every purpose and every sense-bestowing wider context, including God and God's purposes, and the divine milieu that presumably would be the ultimate context.  As Nagel puts it in his 1971 essay: "If we can step back from the purposes of individual life and doubt their point, we can step back also from the progress of human history, or of science, or the success of a society, or the kingdom, power, and glory of God, and put all these things into question in the same way." (17)<\/span><\/p>\n

 Indeed, even the existence of God himself, which cannot be absolutely absurd because God is causa sui<\/em> and a necessary being, could be Nagel-absurd.    God might reflect on his eternal life and his purposes and find them dubious and arbitrary.  "Why did I limit my own power by creating free beings?  Look at the mess they have made! Why did I bother?  I was happy and self-sufficient and in no need of any creaturely images and likenesses."  God might even think to himself: "I am from eternity to eternity, and outside me there is nothing save what is though my will, but whence then am I<\/em>?" (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason<\/em>, A613 B641, Kemp Smith tr. This is the only passage in the CPR that I would describe as 'chilling.')<\/span><\/p>\n

Even if God reminds himself that, as a necessary being, he cannot fail to exist, the very fact that he contemplates his existence 'from outside' — assuming that he does so contemplate his existence — introduces willy-nilly an element of contingency and brute-factuality into his existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

It would therefore appear that Nagel-absurdity does not entail absolute absurdity, that the former is logically consistent with objective meaningfulness. This can be see also in a third way.  One key thesis of Nagel's 2012 book Mind and Cosmos<\/em> is that mind is not a cosmic
\naccident.  Mind in all of its ramifications (sentience, intentionality,
\nself-awareness, cognition, rationality, normativity in general) could
\nnot have arisen from mindless matter.  To put it very roughly, and in my
\nown way, mind had to be there already and all along in one way or
\nanother.  Not an "add-on" as Nagel writes, but "a basic aspect of
\nnature." (16) If this is right, then mind is not a fluke and not something that just exists without cause or reason purpose.  Nature has aimed at it all along.  So our existence as instances of mind is not absolutely absurd.  But it can presumably still be Nagel-absurd.  So again we see that Nagel-absurdity does not entail absolute absurdity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now when we ask whether human life is absurd, are we asking whether it is absolutely absurd or Nagel-absurd?  I suggest that we are asking whether it is absolutely absurd.  This question is not settled by life's being Nagel-absurd.<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point someone might suggest that life's being Nagel-absurd, though it does not entail life's being absolutely absurd, is yet evidence for it.  I don't see how it could be, but this question requires a separate post.  My main purpose in this post was taxonomic.  The main uses of 'absurd' are now on the table.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Overview<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Should Nagel's Book Be on the Philosophical Index Librorum Prohibitorum?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Absurd: Nagel, Camus, Lupu<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The Absurd Again: Weak and Strong Nagelian Theses<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Thomas Nagel, Heretic<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Plantinga Reviews Nagel<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Can Reason Be Understood Naturalistically? More Notes on Nagel<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>The New Heretic: Thomas Nagel and Anti-Materialism<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>What is Reason? How Did it Arise? Nagel and Non-Intentional Teleology<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Nagel Again<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I continue the investigation into existential meaning and absurdity.  Earlier posts in this series are collected in the Meaning of Life category. Let's take a step back and ask what we might mean by 'absurd' the better to isolate the sense or senses relevant to the question of the putative absurdity  of human existence.  I count … Continue reading “Senses of ‘Absurd’ and the Difference between Nagel-Absurdity and Absolute Absurdity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}