Albert Camus The Descent 1947

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AJ0bBDPW8GA

The Myth of Sisyphus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For mythology regarding the Greek character Sisyphus, see Sisyphus. For the TV episode, see The Myth of Sisyphus (Fargo).
The Myth of Sisyphus
Book cover of the first edition
Cover of the first edition
Author Albert Camus
Original title Le mythe de Sisyphe
Translator Justin O'Brien
Language French
Subjects Existentialism
Absurdism
Published
1942 (;ditions Gallimard, in French)
1955 (Hamish Hamilton, in English)
Publication place France
Media type Print
Pages 185 (original French edition)
ISBN 0-679-73373-6
The Myth of Sisyphus (French: Le mythe de Sisyphe [l; mit d; sizif]) is a 1942 philosophical work by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as S;ren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response.[1] Camus claims that the realization of the absurd does not justify suicide, and instead requires "revolt". He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. In the final chapter, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

The work can be seen in relation to other absurdist works by Camus: the novel The Stranger (1942), the plays The Misunderstanding (1942) and Caligula (1944), and especially the essay The Rebel (1951).

History
Camus began the work in 1940, during the Fall of France, when millions of refugees fled from advancing German armies. While the essay rarely refers to this event, Robert Zaretsky argues that the event prompted his ideas of the absurd. He claims that both a banal event and something as intense as a German invasion will prompt someone to ask "why?" [2] The essay was published in French in 1942.

The English translation by Justin O'Brien was first published in 1955. Included in the translated version is a preface written by Camus while in Paris in 1955. Here Camus states that "even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate".[3]

Philosophical context
Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus against the backdrop of early twentieth-century European philosophy, particularly existentialism and phenomenology. Although often grouped with existentialist thinkers, Camus consistently rejected the existentialist label, insisting that his philosophy of the absurd was distinct from both Kierkegaard’s leap of faith and Heidegger’s ontology of Being. Instead, Camus argued that the confrontation between humanity’s “appetite for meaning” and the universe’s “unreasonable silence” constituted the absurd, which must be lived with clarity rather than resolved by appeal to transcendence.[4][5]

Scholars note that Camus diverged sharply from Soren Kierkegaard and Lev Shestov, who posited that faith provided the only way beyond despair. Camus considered such responses forms of “philosophical suicide,” since they abandon reason in favor of religious or metaphysical hope.[6] Similarly, he critiqued Husserlian phenomenology and Hegelian rationalism for elevating reason into abstract systems that obscure the absurd rather than confront it directly.[7]

Commentators have also situated Camus in dialogue with Friedrich Nietzsche. While Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence and affirmation of life informed Camus’s emphasis on revolt and freedom, Camus rejected Nietzsche’s metaphysical implications and instead grounded his thought in the lived experience of the absurd.[8][9]

In later interpretations, philosophers such as Thomas Nagel and Ronald Aronson have highlighted how Camus’s concept of the absurd continues to shape debates in existential ethics, modern humanism, and the philosophy of meaning.[10][11]

Summary
The essay is dedicated to Pascal Pia and is organized in four chapters and one appendix.

Chapter 1: An Absurd Reasoning
Camus undertakes the task of answering what he considers to be the only question of philosophy that matters: Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life necessarily require suicide?

He begins by describing the following absurd condition: "we build our life on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live their lives as if they were not aware of the certainty of death. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world: their stories ultimately end in meaningless abstractions, in metaphors. This is the absurd condition and "from the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all."

It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of the world, when the "appetite for the absolute and for unity" meets "the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle."

He then characterizes several philosophies that describe and attempt to deal with this feeling of the absurd, by Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Lev Shestov, S;ren Kierkegaard, and Edmund Husserl. All of these, he claims, commit "philosophical suicide" by reaching conclusions that contradict the original absurd position, either by abandoning reason and turning to God, as in the case of Kierkegaard and Shestov, or by elevating reason and ultimately arriving at ubiquitous Platonic forms and an abstract god, as in the case of Husserl.

For Camus, who sets out to take the absurd seriously and follow it to its final conclusions, these "leaps" cannot convince. 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 contradiction must be lived; reason and its limits must be acknowledged, without false hope. However, the absurd can never be permanently accepted: it requires constant confrontation, constant revolt.

While the question of human freedom in the metaphysical sense loses interest to the absurd man, he gains freedom in a very concrete sense: no longer bound by hope for a better future or eternity, without a need to pursue life's purpose or to create meaning, "he enjoys a freedom with regard to common rules".

To embrace the absurd implies embracing all that the unreasonable world has to offer. Without meaning in life, there is no scale of values. "What counts is not the best living but the most living."

Thus, Camus arrives at three consequences from fully acknowledging the absurd: revolt, freedom, and passion.

Chapter 2: The Absurd Man
How should the absurd man live? Clearly, no ethical rules apply, as they are all based on higher powers or on justification. "...integrity has no need of rules... 'Everything is permitted,'... is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgement of a fact."

Camus then goes on to present examples of the absurd life. He begins with Don Juan, the serial seducer who lives the passionate life to the fullest. "There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional."

The next example is the actor, who depicts ephemeral lives for ephemeral fame. "He demonstrates to what degree appearing creates being. In those three hours, he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover."

Camus's third example of the absurd man is the conqueror, the warrior who forgoes all promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in human history. He chooses action over contemplation, aware of the fact that nothing can last and no victory is final.

Chapter 3: Absurd Creation
Here Camus explores the absurd creator or artist. Since explanation is impossible, absurd art is restricted to a description of the myriad experiences in the world. "If the world were clear, art would not exist." Absurd creation, of course, also must refrain from judging and from alluding to even the slightest shadow of hope.

He then analyzes the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky in this light, especially The Diary of a Writer, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov. All these works start from the absurd position, and the first two explore the theme of philosophical suicide. However, both The Diary and his last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, ultimately find a path to hope and faith and thus fail as truly absurd creations.

Chapter 4: The Myth of Sisyphus
Painting of Sisyphus by Titian
Sisyphus by Titian, 1549
In the last chapter, Camus outlines the legend of Sisyphus who defied the gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was eventually liberated and it came time for Sisyphus himself to die, he concocted a deceit which let him escape from the underworld. After finally capturing Sisyphus, the gods decided that his punishment would last for all eternity. He would have to push a rock up a mountain; upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again, leaving Sisyphus to start over. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death, and is condemned to a meaningless task.[12]

Camus presents Sisyphus's ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. "The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."

Camus is interested in Sisyphus's thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. After the stone falls back down the mountain Camus states that "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end." This is the truly tragic moment when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, continues pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that "all is well," continuing "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."[13]

Appendix
The essay contains an appendix titled "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka". While Camus acknowledges that Kafka's work represents an exquisite description of the absurd condition, he claims that Kafka fails as an absurd writer because his work retains a glimmer of hope.[14]

Ending
"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

See also
Eternal return
Theatre of the Absurd
The Sickness Unto Death by S;ren Kierkegaard
References
 Kuiper, Kathleen. "The Myth of Sisyphus". Encyclop;dia Britannica. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
 Zaretsky, Robert (2013). A life worth living: Albert Camus and the quest for meaning. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0-674-72837-0. OCLC 862746155, cited in Robert Kirsch, Adam (20 October 2013). "Why Albert Camus Remains Controversial". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
 Camus, Albert (1955). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 123. ISBN 0-679-73373-6.
 ZARETSKY, ROBERT (7 November 2013). A Life Worth Living. Harvard University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt6wpp9f. ISBN 978-0-674-72837-0.
 Sherman, David (10 October 2008). Camus. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781444303278. ISBN 978-1-4051-5930-2.
 Evans, C. Stephen; Walsh, Sylvia, eds. (2006), "Chronology", S;ren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. xxxi–xxxii, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511809712.002, ISBN 978-0-511-80971-2, retrieved 26 August 2025
 Gordon, Jeffrey (1984). "Nagel or Camus on the Absurd?". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 45 (1): 15–28. doi:10.2307/2107324. ISSN 0031-8205. JSTOR 2107324.
 Baird, Forrest E.; Kaufmann, Walter (8 June 2023), "Friedrich Nietzsche", Philosophic Classics, Volume IV, New York: Routledge, pp. 447–498, doi:10.4324/9781003419761-13, ISBN 978-1-003-41976-1, retrieved 26 August 2025
 Br;e, Germaine (31 December 1964). Albert Camus. Columbia University Press. doi:10.7312/bree90214. ISBN 978-0-231-87762-6.
 Nagel, Thomas (21 October 1971). "The Absurd". The Journal of Philosophy. 68 (20): 716–727. doi:10.2307/2024942. ISSN 0022-362X. JSTOR 2024942.
 Gray, Kevin (2005). "Camus & Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended ItRonald Aronson Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, x + 291 pp., $32.50". Dialogue. 44 (4): 800–802. doi:10.1017/s0012217300000160. ISSN 0012-2173.
 "The Myth of Sisyphus". Sparknotes. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
 "The Myth of Sisyphus". Britannica. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
 Sleasman, Brent (2011). Albert Camus and the Metaphor of Absurdity. Salem Press. ISBN 978-1-58765-825-9.
Sources
The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays, Albert Camus, Alfred A. Knopf 2004, ISBN 1-4000-4255-0
Camus, Albert (1955). The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-73373-6.
Sagi, Avi (2011). Is the Absurd the Problem or the Solution?. Salem Press. ISBN 978-1-58765-825-9.
External links
Complete original text (French)
English text
Chapter 4 of the essay The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
SparkNotes on The Myth of Sisyphus
Suicide and Atheism: Camus and The Myth of Sisyphus at the Wayback Machine (archived 12 October 2007) by Richard Barnett
vte
Albert Camus (works)
Authority control databases Edit this at Wikidata
Categories: 1942 non-fiction books1942 essaysBooks about metaphorsBooks with atheism-related themes;ditions Gallimard booksEssays by Albert CamusFrench non-fiction booksHamish Hamilton booksPhilosophy essaysExistentialist books

888

Albert Camus – Zum Gl;ck hat das Leben keinen Sinn!
Albert Camus hat als Denker des Absurden die Philosophiegeschichte gepr;gt. Seine Grundfrage lautete: Ist ein Leben ohne Sinn ;berhaupt lebenswert? Vor hundert Jahren wurde er geboren.

Autor: Yves Bossart

06.11.2013, 23:24 Uhr
Aktualisiert 07.11.2013, 06:49 Uhr

Teilen
Teilen
Sisyphos mit dem Stein auf den R;cken auf einem Gem;lde von Tizian.
Legende:
Er rollt und rollt den Stein den Berg hoch und soll, nach Camus, doch «gl;cklich» sein: Sisyphos.
Wikimedia
Camus ist am 7. November 1913 im heutigen Algerien auf die Welt gekommen. Er wuchs in ;rmlichen famili;ren Verh;ltnissen auf, studierte sp;ter Philosophie, arbeitete als Reporter, engagierte sich politisch, schrieb B;hnenst;cke, Romane und philosophische Essays. Seine Philosophie ist wild, lebensnah, bildhaft und intuitiv. Leider enth;lt sein Werk auch viele Unklarheiten, Fehlschl;sse und Widerspr;che.

An existenzieller Tragweite mangelt es jedoch selten. So beginnt «Der Mythos des Sisyphos» – Camus’ bekannteste philosophische Schrift – mit den Worten: «Es gibt nur ein wirklich ernstes philosophisches Problem: den Selbstmord. Sich entscheiden, ob das Leben es wert ist, gelebt zu werden oder nicht, heisst auf die Grundfrage der Philosophie antworten.»

Das Leben ist absurd
Beitr;ge zum Thema
Albert Camus zum 100. Geburtstag (Passage, 1.11.2013)
«Die Gerechten» von Albert Camus (H;rspiel, 9.11.2013)
«Das Missverst;ndnis» von Albert Camus (H;rspiel, 1.11.2013)
Camus beschreibt in dem Essay «Der Mythos des Sisyphos» die menschliche Existenz als hoffnungslose Absurdit;t. Gott sei tot und das Leben insgesamt sinnlos. Wir w;rden in einer hoffnungslosen Welt leben und dennoch so tun, als h;tte alles einen Sinn. Der sinnsuchende Mensch im sinnleeren Weltall.

Diese absurde Kombination sei zugleich der Ausgangspunkt jeder redlichen Philosophie. Wir Menschen gehen Tag f;r Tag unserer Arbeit nach, erledigen unsere Pflichten und nehmen uns wichtig – als w;ssten wir nicht, dass wir alle bald sterben werden und unser Treiben v;llig vergebens ist. Dieser unangenehmen Tatsache m;ssen wir Camus zufolge mit Mut ins Auge blicken. Immer und immer wieder. Alles andere sei unaufrichtig, feige oder illusorisch. Camus wirft Philosophen wie Kierkegaard, Jaspers oder Heidegger vor, sie seien vor dem Absurden gefl;chtet.

Die Entdeckung der Freiheit
Die allumfassende Gleichg;ltigkeit ist f;r Camus weder ein Grund zu verzweifeln, noch in Illusionen zu fl;chten oder gar Selbstmord zu begehen. Im Gegenteil: Wir sollten unser Dasein in all seinen Z;gen auskosten und das Hier und Jetzt m;glichst intensiv leben. Das Bewusstsein der Absurdit;t ist zugleich eine Entdeckung unserer Freiheit. Wir erkennen, dass wir nichts zu verlieren haben. Regeln, Pflichten, Pl;ne und Sorgen werden bedeutungslos. Sie wirken beliebig – wie alles andere. Wir allein bestimmen, wo’s lang geht. Wir nehmen unser Schicksal endlich in die eigene Hand. Und das f;hlt sich verdammt gut an. Hier ist Camus ganz Existenzialist.

Der gl;ckliche Sisyphos
Camus vergleicht uns Menschen mit der mythologischen Figur des Sisyphos. Dieser arme Kerl muss einen schweren Stein immer aufs Neue einen Berg hinaufrollen. Der Stein rollt n;mlich stets wieder hinunter, sobald Sisyphos oben angekommen ist. Unser Leben gleicht nach Camus also einer «Sisyphusaufgabe», einem sinnlosen Unterfangen, ohne Zweck und ohne Erfolg. Nun aber kommt der Clou. Camus meint n;mlich: «Wir m;ssen uns Sisyphos als einen gl;cklichen Menschen vorstellen».

Wie bitte? Warum zum Teufel soll dieser Sisyphos gl;cklich sein, fragt man sich. Camus meint, Sisyphos erkenne, dass der Fels allein seine Sache ist: «Sein Schicksal geh;rt ihm». Darin bestehe sein Gl;ck. Dasselbe gelte f;r uns Menschen: In einem gottlosen Universum gibt es keinen Plan, ausser wir Menschen schmieden ihn. Der bewusste Mensch ist, wie Camus schreibt, «Herr seiner Tage» und seines Schicksals Schmied.

Albert Camus in einer Portr;taufnahme. Im Mantel an einem Tisch sitzend, mit Zigarette im Mund.
Legende:
Sich der Absurdit;t des Lebens bewusst zu werden, war f;r ihn auch die Entdeckung der Freiheit: Albert Camus, 1957.
Wikimedia / Robert Edwards
Und wo bleibt die Moral?
Der absurde Mensch lebt selbstbestimmt, hellwach, leidenschaftlich, neugierig und intensiv. Und er lehnt sich immer wieder gegen sein absurdes Schicksal auf: «Es gibt kein Schicksal, das durch Verachtung nicht ;berwunden werden kann», schreibt Camus. In dieser revoltierenden Haltung bestehe «die einzige W;rde des Menschen».

Zugleich ist die Revolte das Fundament von Camus’ gef;hlsbasierter Ethik der Menschlichkeit: Die Emp;rung angesichts von Unmenschlichkeit und Leid f;hre den Menschen aus der Einsamkeit heraus zur Solidarit;t mit seinen Mitmenschen. In der Revolte werde der Mensch vom «solitaire» zum «solidaire» und k;mpfe f;r etwas, das ihn mit allen Menschen verbindet – die menschliche W;rde.