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Journal Title: The Meaning of life
Volume: *chapter request* Issue: Month/Year: 1980Pages: 65-75
Article Author: Albert Camus
Article Title: "An Absurd Reasoning"
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V
An Absurd Reasoning*
Albert Cam us
Absurdity and Suicide
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest-whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer. And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example, you can appreciate the importance of that reply, for it will precede the definitive act. These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.
If I ask myself how to judge that this question is more urgent than that, I reply that one judges by the actions it entails. I have never seen anyone die for the ontological argument. Galileo, who held a scientific truth of great impor tance, abjured it with the greatest ease as soon as it endangered his life. In a certain sense, he did right. 1 That truth was not worth the stake. Whether the earth or the sun revolves around the other is a matter of profound indiffer-
From The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O'Brien. Copyright© 1955 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
*When Camus writes of"the absurd man," he refers to a person who is aware of and attempts to comprehend absurdity, and such an attempt he c alls "absurd reasoning" or "absurd logic". [Eds.]
1From the point of view of the relative value of truth. On the other hand, from the point of view of virile behavior, this scholar's fragility may well make us smile.
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