Assignment task: Can you conduct a conclusion for an essay? The main topics were accepting absurdity, living without seeking justification or meaning and boundaries that Camus has set in order for us to not pass those boundaries. If we do pass them then we would run the risk of not understanding the topic. The essay was simply on living without appeal and absurdity based on "the myth of sisyphus".
The essay:
Throughout this essay, I'll be discussing various topics that support what Camus' in my opinion meant about 'living without appeal'. The majority of the information will be coming from a book that Albert Camus' actually wrote himself called "Myth Of Sisyphus". Firstly, Camus simply intended that we need to accept the absurdity of life as well as embracing them as part of the human condition. I will also be arguing that (according to Camus), we need to live without seeking justification or meaning in our everyday lives when referring to the topic of "living without appeal". The reason my side of the argument is relevant is because in "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus argues that the only way to live a meaningful life is learning to live without appeal. By him clearly stating this, it's enough to make assumptions when expanding his thoughts based on his main ideas. Lastly, I'll be arguing that Camus has "set" boundaries when relating to our experiences and understanding of topics and the world around us. I intend to support those arguments by mainly using information from the book "The Myth of Sisyphus' , using lecture notes as well as explaining my reasoning's that would make sense to a reasonable person.
Throughout the last couple of weeks of the course, we have learned about the correlation between Camus' and how a person must learn to 'live without appeal. When Camus' talks about this topic, he has several supporting points as to what he believes 'living without appeal' is. The first major point that was argued in the book "The Myth Of Sisyphus" was about Camus and his view on absurdities throughout life that we experience. He states that we as humans must accept the absurdities of life and learn how to cope with them rather than allow them to impact our lifestyles. A great example of this would be what Sisyphus experiences, the endless loop of rolling up a boulder on a hill just for it to roll down as soon as he reaches the top, just like humans struggling against the absurdity of life. And like Sisyphus that accepted his fate and keeps on rolling up the boulder despite the knowledge that it will just roll down, humans should accept this absurdity of life. Camus also makes the argument in his text that one must come to terms with "the absurd," which he defines as the intrinsic meaninglessness of existence. According to Camus' text, the only possible way to give life a chance at being meaningful is to recognize the absurd. Although, we will go further into depth on absurdity towards the end of the essay.
As we learned in class, 'living without appeal' simply means that we cannot rely on ideas that have traditionally given meaning to human existence. Some examples we discussed were things like intelligent creators, how the world is fundamentally rational and if our lives have meaning. I believe that Camus simply tried stating that we as humans need to start living our lives without attempting to seek for meaning or justification in the things we do. Based on what I've learned, I feel like Camus' wants us to be content with the present rather than the future and to simply cherish our existence and maybe even the small things in life. In the Myth Of Sisyphus, we saw that Camus' argues that one must learn to live 'without appeal' because life is simply meaningless. Lastly, Camus' discussed that we must stay within the boundaries of what we can reason about and that we must not allow ourselves to surpass these boundaries. If this does occur, Camus' states that anything that surpasses our limits is impossible for us to understand which therefore results in it being unknowable to mankind. In order for a topic to fall under the "unknowable", Camus' says that there must be no way to determine if that subject area exists or not.
As many might spiritually disagree with Camus' statement, he makes it very clear that anything that is not possible for us to physically experience and understand should be subjected to living our lives without appeal. Although Camus' solely focuses on physical experiences, I'm arguing that he doesn't totally ignore fictitious thoughts. For example, Camus still had morals and ethics even though they weren't something we could physically determine whether or not they were correct. Although, when referring back to the unknowable, I'm asserting that he believed the most confident method of testing a subject is when we can visually experience, see or understand it. According to Culturico, this was the exact reason why Camus' identified as an atheist. He did not have any physical evidence that any god existed which therefore made the topic of religion to be "unknowable". As a result, he lived his life without appeal when it came to this topic. Now we'll be taking a closer look at whether 'living without appeal' provides a satisfactory solution to the absurdity of life. I have 2 different perspectives as to why 'living without appeal' in fact does act like a solution to the absurdity of life.
Firstly, living despite the meaninglessness of life or living without appeal is, according to Camus, the solution to the absurdity of life. It is the full acceptance of the fact that questions asked will never be answered. Personally, I agree with Camus' stance which is why I'm supporting his argument rather than being against him. I feel that it is finding peace within oneself first. It is not giving up or committing suicide just because life has no meaning, it is winning over the meaninglessness as we rebel against it. It is facing absurdity and embracing it. I believe that living without appeal truly answers the absurdity we are facing. It acknowledges that we as humans are vulnerable but we continue to strive for the meaning of life. Even though our life is seen to be meaningless, it is our courage that will keep us going forward. Which is why, I think that solely living without appeal is the answer to absurdity. Suicide on the other hand is not the answer to meaningless. This is because death is no more meaningful than life - it is just escaping the reality of life which is not what Camus argues. In fact he actually argues the total opposite. The leap of faith or blindly believing in a doctrine or ideology to answer the absurdity of life is a mere act of tricking oneself that the absurdity is being answered. It is just tricking yourself that you have found meaning when in reality these doctrines or ideologies are psychologically created to calm the minds of people.I believe the best way to deal with life's absurdity is to live without appeal, accept that life has no real purpose, and assert your right to choose how you live.
The second similar perspective I have is a bit more of how a person deals with 'living without appeal". I feel that it is a viable option to the absurdity of life because I feel it means living "as if" there was no absurdity. Firstly, a life without appeal can prevent people from paying attention to anything absurd in life, which is the same as not knowing anything is absurd. If such a course of action is successful, then the absurdity problem for us humans does not exist. Secondly, I believe that living without appeal diverts us from thinking about absurdity by making us focus on other enjoyable activities that make us happy. As I stated earlier, Camus wants us to be content with our lives. When closely looking at the book of Sisyphus, Camus says simple actions such as eating and drinking with friends is a way of running away from the absurdity of life and focusing on something else while still accepting it. By doing so, Camus' claims that we will then be able to find true happiness. Therefore, a life without appeal in a way acts as a solution to the absurdities since we simply forget about them.