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Existential Nihilism: The Only Really Serious Philosophical Problem

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Abstract

Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often seen as a derogative term for a 'life-denying', destructive and perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a long line of philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning, significance and purpose. Inspired by Bojack Horseman and Rick and Morty, two modern existentialist masterpieces, this paper explores the various alternatives that have been offered in how to respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only "really serious philosophical problem" and concludes that the problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and transcending existentialism.
JOURNAL OF CAMUS STUDIES
2018
211
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY
REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL
PROBLEM
Walter Veit
Abstract: Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled
with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often
seen as a derogative term for a ‘life-denying’, destructive and
perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove
existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless
universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall
refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a
view that not only existentialists but also a long line of
philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd
stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the
universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning,
significance and purpose. Inspired by Bojack Horseman and Rick
and Morty, two modern existentialist masterpieces, this paper
explores the various alternatives that have been offered in how to
respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only “really
serious philosophical problem” and concludes that the problem is
compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and
transcending existentialism.
1. Introduction
This paper explores and analyses the only “really serious
philosophical question”, i.e. how to respond to a meaningless life.
Albert Camus clarifies the problem in The Myth of Sisyphus:
“Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the
fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
212
that”.1 For the time being, but not for long, the question of suicide
here coincides for Camus with the question of whether life is
meaningful, as this is what suicidal persons share in their
contemplation. Camus affirms that life is meaningless, but further
declares in the preface “that even within the limits of nihilism it is
possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism.” The absurd
stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the
universe devoid of purpose, man longs for meaning, significance and
purpose anyhow. The structure of this paper follows a clear, linear
fashion: Firstly, I sketch the starting point for existential thinking in
section 2, i.e. existential nihilism and the arguments in its favour. In
section 3, I proceed by analysing how various existential thinkers,
most prominently Albert Camus argue for the absurd following the
premise of existential nihilism and offer a unifying account of the
absurd, incorporating the views of two non-existential philosophers,
i.e. Thomas Nagel and Alex Rosenberg representing the a-priori and
naturalistic approach to philosophy respectively. In section 4, I
finally analyse and contrast the various existentialist and non-
existentialist proposals to cope with the absurd and conclude that the
problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby
genuine and transcending existentialism.
2. Existential Nihilism
Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the
question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often used as a
derogative term for a ‘life-denying’, destructive and perhaps most of
all depressive philosophy, is what drove existentialists to write about
the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This
latter diagnosis is what I refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of
meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a
long line of philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe too. The
absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and
the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning,
significance and purpose. For existential thinkers like Kierkegaard,
1 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, J. O'Brian (tr.), London: H. Hamilton,
[1942] 1955, p. 3.
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Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus this conflict was central to
their philosophy. In the following, I contrast and analyze the various
accounts for the origin of the absurd that have been given, or as
Albert Camus puts it; the only “really serious philosophical
question”2 – whether life is meaningful. Whether the question of
suicide actually coincides with the question of whether life is
meaningful, however, will be postponed until section 4.
Existential nihilism is by no means restricted to existentialist
thinkers and it cannot be – if my argument that the absurd is a
genuine problem transcending existentialism is supposed to be
successful. In his defence of scientism Alex Rosenberg makes the case
that many of “life’s persistent questions” can be answered by science
– among them; “Is there a God? No. […] What is the purpose of the
universe? There is none. What is the meaning of life? Ditto. Why am I
here? Just dumb luck.”3 It is no coincidence that these answers closely
mimic the diagnosis provided by (the atheists among) existentialist
thinkers. When Nietzsche proclaimed that “God is dead” we are
supposed to view science, if not as the murderer than at least, as the
tool that was used to kill God. In an article titled: “Darwin’s nihilistic
idea: evolution and the meaninglessness of life”, Sommers and
Rosenberg argue that “[t]he solvent algorithm [of evolution] deprives
nature of purpose, on the global and the local scale” 4, a point I argue
is closely related to Nietzsche. While Nietzsche is often taken as a
deterrent as to where Darwinian philosophy leads, I argue that
Nietzsche’s Darwinism is better associated with his ideas
surrounding the Death of God rather than the Übermensch. Even
though Nietzsche is often given as an example for a nihilist, most of
his work is directed against the destructive consequences of nihilism,
once God has been replaced by science or more accurately where
science left a hole after getting rid of God. This line of argument is
common in at least the atheistic tradition of existentialism. As
nihilism is commonly used as a derogatory term, even in the works
2 ibid, p. 3
3 Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, 2011.
4 Sommers, Tamler & Rosenberg, Alexander. “Darwin’s nihilistic idea:
evolution and the meaninglessness of life”. Biology & Philosophy, 2003: 18, p. 653.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
214
of Friedrich Nietzsche, it will prove helpful for the purpose of this
paper to take a ‘value-neutral’ view on nihilism and achieve
conceptual clarity of the term nihilism, beyond some sort of ‘life-
denying’ philosophy.
I define nihilism narrowly as the negative and eliminativist
thesis of denying objective values. Moral nihilism, therefore, refers to
the meta-ethical thesis that there is no objective morality, no inherent
goodness or wrongness, a view that many existentialists agree with.
The concern in a paper on the absurd, however, is existential
nihilism, which can be defined as the denial of life being meaningful
and the universe having a purpose. Whether moral and existential
nihilism entail each other is beyond the scope of this paper, but they
at least stand in a close relation.5 Existentialists are by definition,
therefore, all existential nihilists, though not necessarily moral
nihilists or atheists. As is commonly joked about existentialist
thinkers, with the exception of Sartre, they do not appreciate being
labelled as existentialists. Just like moral nihilism is often negatively
associated and equated with immoralism, existential nihilism is often
associated with destructive behaviour and suicide.6 These positions,
however, should not be confused or seen as standing in a necessary
causal relationship. Existential nihilism despite its negative
connotations should therefore not be seen as a label, but rather as
something that is taken as a fact or at least wide-spread view in the
modern world7, from which existential philosophy takes off. The
popularity and critical acclaim of contemporary works such as Bojack
Horseman, True Detective & Rick and Morty exploring existential
nihilism makes it one of the most popular philosophical views in folk
philosophy. Now let me turn to the arguments for said position.
The strongest argument for existential nihilism has been
provided by the naturalist philosopher Daniel Dennett in Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Evolution as a
5 See the works of Camus and Sartre. Sommers and Rosenberg (2003) explicitly
endorse this connection.
6 More on the relation between different forms of nihilism can be found in
Joyce, Richard “Nihilism” In Hugh LaFollette (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Ethics.
Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
7 See Bojack Horseman, True Detective & Rick and Morty for recent
existentialist works in contemporary culture.
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random and blind mechanism involving nothing beyond
reproduction, variation and differential reproductive success is the
fundamental law of biology. Natural selection explains the origin of
life and man, without any reference to purpose. When asked in
school as to what the meaning of life could possibly be, I and my
friends answered ‘reproduction’ seeing this as the natural
conclusion to the truth of evolution. As faulty as this view of me and
my friends was, it was based on the view that the evolutionary
‘purpose’ of life is essentially reproduction. This, however, is usually
not what is asked, when faced with the question of what the meaning
of life is or rather what makes life meaningful. The answer we gave
back then was just stating an essential or the most fundamental
feature of life, at least insofar as contemporary debates in biology and
philosophy go as to what life means. What is asked for, though, is
some kind of higher, eternal purpose for humans. However and here
existentialists get their name from, evolution denies these kinds of
essences that have ‘plagued’ philosophy for since Plato. Everything is
in constant change under the blind and random mechanism of
evolution. There is no essence like rationality or moral sense that we
could attribute to human nature. When Sartre8 famously remarked
that “existence precedes essence” he meant that it is left for humans
themselves to decide who they are. That it is neither nature nor
culture that is responsible for choices. To believe so would be bad
faith, denying our radical freedom to choose. This notion in
existentialism is clearly incompatible with a scientific view of
humans as a product of genes and environment. Though there is no
such a thing as human nature, we cannot deny the influence of our
biology and environment on our choices. But the degree of
compatibility must for now be postponed until section 4.
To sum up: Evolution destroys all notions of teleology in the
biological realm. Sommers and Rosenberg, in their review paper of
Dennett with the fitting title “Darwin’s nihilistic idea: evolution and
the meaninglessness of life” phrase the conclusions of the Darwinian
argument for existential nihilism in the following way: “Darwinism
thus puts the capstone on a process which since Newton’s time has
8 Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism and Humanism. London: Eyre Methuen,
[1945] 1973.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
216
driven teleology to the explanatory side-lines. In short, it has made
Darwinians into metaphysical Nihilists denying that there is any
meaning or purpose to the universe, its contents and its cosmic
history”9. This is where I identify Nietzsche’s philosophy as a
Darwinian philosophy. The theory of evolution dissolves all
purposes in as Dennett puts it “Darwin's universal acid”10 science,
therefore, renders God oblivious and takes away the illusion of
purpose from our lives. Dennett even goes so far to attribute the
origin of existentialism to Darwin: “Friedrich Nietzsche saw—
through the mists of his contempt for all things English—an even
more cosmic message in Darwin: God is dead. If Nietzsche is the
father of existentialism, then perhaps Darwin deserves the title of
grandfather.”11 This in itself should already make us open to the
possibility that naturalism and the problem of the absurd are
compatible after all. William Irwin trying to reconcile existentialism
with libertarianism and evolutionary theory, makes a fitting remark:
Evolutionary theory does not necessarily imply
existentialism, but the two are compatible once
existentialism softens its stance on human nature. And
there are some perhaps-surprising points of coincidence, for
example, the absurdity and pointlessness of life. Evolution
is not teleological.12
As existentialists usually start from existential nihilism as a fact,
not much of an argument for the metaphysical claim itself is offered.
Especially after the horrors of WW2, it is only reasonable to ask how
anyone could continue to believe that there is a God or purpose to
our lives. To quote Camus’: “One kills oneself because life is not
worth living, that is certainly a truth yet an unfruitful one because it
is a truism.”13 Much of existential thinking boils down to the fact,
9 Sommers, Tamler & Rosenberg, Alexander. “Darwin’s nihilistic idea:
evolution and the meaninglessness of life”, p. 653.
10 Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of
Life. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995.
11 ibid, p. 62
12 Irwin, William. The free market existentialist. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2015, p.
90.
13 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 7.
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that there is no God and hence, no one to give the universe purpose
and meaning to our lives. But in the face of evil and chaos, it is
questionable whether, even with the existence of a supposed deity
our lives are bestowed with any meaning. Theistic existentialists like
Kierkegaard, Shestov and Jaspers would deny such. Thomas Nagel
offers a thought experiment, of humanity realizing that the human
race and our whole planet were created for by some creatures to farm
and eat human flesh.14 Clearly, he argues, this doesn’t give us the
purpose we ask for when asking for the meaning of life. Would the
analogy change if it was God who created us for some purpose rather
than a powerful alien race? Camus suggests that this may not work
either: “I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is
impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside
my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”15
Even if God exists and has some purpose for us in mind, we cannot
grasp it. As my aim in this paper is to salvage as much as possible of
Camus’ notion of the absurd by making it compatible with a
naturalistic and scientific world-view, the preceding arguments
prove sufficient for my purpose. With the metaphysical conclusion of
existential nihilism reached, one may drop the case as closed.
However for the existentialists more has to be said, in fact, their
whole philosophy is based on the realization that life has no inherent
meaning or purpose. In the following section, I sketch the problem of
the absurd, that is the conflict of man with existential nihilism, and
contrast various existential thinkers and non-existential thinkers
arguing for the thesis that the absurd condition is genuine.
3. The Absurd
“MOST people feel on occasion that life is absurd, and some feel it
vividly and continually” is how Thomas Nagel opens his paper ‘The
Absurd’, yet “they could not really explain why life is absurd.16 Why
then do they provide a natural expression for the sense that it is?”
14 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012,
p. 721.
15 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 34.
16 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos, p. 716.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
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This explanation will be the target of the following section. I provide
a unified account of the absurd following Camus, Nagel and
Rosenberg and contrast how their explanations and accounts of the
absurd differentiate.
What then is the absurd? As Albert Camus is most often
associated with the term the absurd, I will begin with his account. He
begins by illustrating the common uses of the word absurd and gives
the example of a virtuous man, who we accuse of desiring his sister.
Naturally, he would respond in shock: “That is absurd!” Thereby
appealing to the “contradictory” and “impossible” notion of the
accusation, like a man attacking a group of gunmen with a sword.17
The intention of the action clashes with the harsh reality, thereby
rendering the whole endeavour absurd. For Camus, the “absurd is
born of this confrontation between the human need [for meaning and
reason] and the unreasonable silence of the world.”18 The feeling of
the absurd therefore stems from two realizations taken together, first,
man’s realization that life is meaningless and the universe
purposeless and secondly, man’s desire for meaning and purpose.
The absurd, however, transcends the feeling of absurdity for man
need not know that life is meaningless. For those having become
aware of the absurdity of human existence will see the futile struggle
for purpose of those trying to escape the problem as the prime
illustration of the absurd. The absurd only requires man to search for
meaning in a meaningless world. This is how Karen Carr sees the
term nihilism used in Nietzsche’s work; a “condition of tension, as a
disproportion between what we want to value (or need) and how the
world appears to operate."19 The absurd is the futile search for
meaning. It is neither existential nihilism that is absurd, nor the
human search for meaning, but the comparison, the conflict, that
arises between them. Following this interpretation, I now reinforce
Camus’ notion of the absurd with two non-existential philosophers
who provided further arguments for the absurd, i.e. Thomas Nagel
and Alex Rosenberg.
17 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 22.
18 ibid, p. 20
19 Carr, Karen L. The Banalisation of Nihilism, State University of New York
Press 1992, p. 25.
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In the analytic tradition, many have disputed that the world is
unreasonable, and that logic and science can indeed satisfy our
“desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and
cohesion”20, though Camus denied science being able to do so. Let us
now take a look at an analytical philosopher, i.e. Thomas Nagel and
his paper “The Absurd”. Nagel, too, starts from the notion of the
absurd in ordinary life, giving a similar analysis to Camus’, stating
that it “includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or
aspiration and reality”21, like someone giving a complex speech on a
vote that has already been cast. This is akin to the analysis Camus
gives for the common use of the word ‘absurd’. Nagel continues
analysing the call for action that springs out of the absurd: “When a
person finds himself in an absurd situation, he will usually attempt
to change it, by modifying his aspirations, or by trying to bring
reality into better accord with them, or by removing himself from the
situation entirely”22, the latter being a euphemism to refer to suicide.
Almost everyone, so Nagel regularly encounters situations where
one feels the notion of absurdity. A philosophical notion of
absurdity, in contrast to the feeling of absurdity, however, must
according to Nagel lie in “something universal-some respect in
which pretension and reality inevitably clash for us all” and that is a
“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.”23 While his account differs
slightly from the account Camus’ defends, one could complain that
Nagel doesn’t give sufficient credit to Camus, in a sense plagiarized
him. Searching for meaning in one’s life is certainly a way of taking it
seriously while believing in existential nihilism might undermine the
arbitrary notion of our seriousness. But Nagel's account is weaker in
that doubt, i.e. some kind of scepticism rather than outright denial of
purpose would be sufficient for the absurd to arise. The conditions
for the absurd Nagel gives seem therefore to be easier satisfied.
However and here Nagel finally mentions Camus, criticizes his
20 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 51.
21 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos, p. 718.
22 ibid,p. 718
23 ibid,p. 718
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
220
notion of the absurd for implying that our search for meaning could
be satisfied if only the world was different. He invites us to consider
the complaint that we are insignificant specks of dust in the universe
and everything we do will make no difference in a million years.
Would a smaller universe or larger bodies equip our lives with
meaning? Nagel denies this and here I agree with him, the mere
scope of reality does not necessarily make our lives meaningless. The
fact that ants and other animals under our observation seem to live
their lives devoid of any of meaning or purpose illustrates this. We
see ourselves as taking part in some grander scheme imbued with
importance requiring us to take our lives seriously. We have goals
and search for justifications for our actions, such intentions
seemingly lacking in other creatures. Nagel then considers whether
somethings not mattering in a million years renders our actions in
the present meaningless. He accuses this claim of question-begging
as we cannot know whether our actions will matter in a million years
or not. Here I must side with the naturalist position Rosenberg
illustrates. Given the second law of thermodynamics, the heat death
of the universe is inevitable. If someone complains, that nothing he
does will matter in a million years, he complains about the fact that
none of his actions truly change anything in the grand scheme of
things. Rather than question-begging, this is a fact of science. I agree,
however, with Nagel when he argues that immortality wouldn’t
make our lives more meaningful either. Nagel goes on to offer an
alternative explanation that stands in close relation to the common
complains of our insignificance in space and time. Nagel notices that
when we ask for meaning and purpose, what we ask for is some kind
of final justification after which no further reason is required. But if
we deny the existence of such a final reason, then this in effect leaves
all our justification chains as being either circular or ungrounded.
This, however, doesn’t explain the absurd, given that in our lives we
often do not require a further reason, and here Nagel offers examples
like taking “aspirin for a headache, attend an exhibit of the work of a
painter one admires, or stop a child from putting his hand on a hot
stove”24, though moral nihilists would deny the latter. For
existentialists like Kierkegaard reason cannot help us here, for there
24 ibid, p. 717
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cannot be an ultimate reason without committing to a leap of faith.
As an analytic philosopher, that is not an option Nagel can take
seriously. The seriousness, by which Nagel means time and effort,
with which we live our lives, however, imbues at least some of the
choices we make in life with some kind of assumptions of higher
purpose and meaning. As one might argue goes, “why struggle, if
the struggle doesn’t amount to anything?” This question is unique
for humans, in that only they have the ability to take a step back and
look at themselves from a grander point of view, which is seemingly
impossible for animals. From this perspective, our lives must appear
“sobering and comical.”25 As Nagel says:
We step back to find that the whole system of justification
and criticism, which controls our choices and supports our
claims to rationality, rests on responses and habits that we
never question, that we should not know how to defend
without circularity, and to which we shall continue to
adhere even after they are called into question.26
Our aims and goals must from this perspective appear arbitrary.
They are in the end, so small and insignificant, that one can only
wonder why we put so much energy into achieving our life goals.
This is the absurd condition we cannot escape. Asking for a higher
purpose must then seem as a potential escape to the absurd. We
must, therefore, acknowledge that the “absurdity of our situation
derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world,
but from a collision within ourselves.”27 I don’t agree with Nagel, in
his claim to provide a superior account to that of Camus. If anything,
Nagel reinforces Camus’ argument. For Camus as for Nagel, the
search for final justifications in God, religion, power, family or the
state is just as futile, for their purposes must appear just as absurd if
we take a step back. They are no more than an escape from the
absurd, not a solution. Their legitimacy will be evaluated in section 4.
For now, it seems, as if Camus notion of the absurd is compatible
25 ibid, p. 720
26 ibid, p. 720
27 ibid, p. 722
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
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with contemporary analytical philosophy after all. What, however,
becomes of the absurd, when we accept the conclusions of science?
Following Rosenberg, I argue that the absurd remains steadfast
even in the face of science, more so gains an unexpected ally. As
argued in section 2, it was science in the first place that undermined
God and thereby gave rise to the absurd. Absurdism in the face of
scientism is in fact, the whole premise of the critically acclaimed,
popular, adult animated series Rick and Morty about the scientist Rick
Sanchez and his grandson Morty. Rick, who is the smartest person in
the entire universe, is aware of the fact that there is no meaning or
purpose to life and makes this clear to this grandson Morty and the
rest of his family on ample occasions. Rather than escaping the
absurd by creating his own meaning, Rick embodies Camus’ struggle
with the absurd and the contemplation of suicide. Many of the series’
jokes are directly based on the absurd struggle to find meaning in a
meaningless world. Would Camus live today, he would grant the
main character Rick Sanchez the title of an absurd hero, embracing the
meaninglessness of it all but revolting and enjoying life anyway akin
to Don Juan and Sisyphus. To quote the Wisecrack breakdown of
Rick and Morty: “It’s not just that Rick and Morty evade meaning, the
writers seem to get a perverse joy in playing with our desire to search
for hope and meaning. As if Camus was making his point in the style
of an internet troll.”28 Another animated series, Bojack Horseman
explores dark themes relating to the search of meaning in our lives.
The title character is rich and famous but attempts to fill a hole in his
life that cannot be fixed. A show entirely based on the only really
serious problem in philosophy, i.e. how to respond to existential
nihilism. Both shows illustrate that nothing matters and that failure
to find happiness lies merely in our inability to recognize that
whatever goal or desire we are attempting to satisfy it will not
provide our lives with meaning. The existentialists may have been
right in their view, novels are the best way to convey philosophical
ideas after all. Nowadays, this may even extend to animated series’
for adults. But that of course, doesn’t relieve the philosopher from
the task to provide his ideas and arguments in the clearest form
possible, in the first place.
28 “Rick and Morty: The Philosophy of Szechuan Sauce – Wisecrack Edition”
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Alex Rosenberg, a proponent of ‘scientism’, argues that science is
the only reliable guide to reality, and many philosophical questions
should be answered by looking at the sciences. He provides a
scientistic account of what Camus labels the absurd: “Introspection
can’t provide a good reason to go on living because there isn’t any.
This is the one thing that at least some of the existentialists [e.g.
Camus, Sarte] got right. But introspection keeps hoping, looking,
trying to find a reason to go on. Since there really isn’t one, those
who look hard eventually become troubled.”29 Camus agrees in that
“[b]egging to think is beginning to be undermined”30 analysing how
people reach the conclusion to commit suicide. Indeed, when
discussing the meaning of life, many people state that there has to be
a reason, a purpose or a deeper meaning, ‘otherwise – What’s the
point? & Why not commit suicide?’ Whether these are valid options
when facing the absurd will be analysed in section 4. Rosenberg,
who follows the Humean tradition, however, illustrates that the
absurd remains a philosophical problem even with the expiration of
existentialism, having become a historical rather than a
contemporary movement in philosophy. Can science also provide an
explanation as to why we search for meaning and purpose in our
lives? Rosenberg argues, it can and continues providing an
evolutionary account for the illusion of ‘purpose’. As the
fundamental ‘design problem’ our ancestors faced was to predict the
behaviour of our fellows, i.e. to think about their intentions and
purposes of their action, “the human brain has been shaped by
millions of years of natural and cultural selection to be addicted to
stories.” In fact, “[t]hey are almost the only things that give most of
us relief from the feeling of curiosity.”31 Man’s desire for meaning,
purpose and significance is nothing more than an evolutionary by-
product of the beneficial adaption to explain and predict. This
suggests that our human desire for narrative and understanding
makes the absurdist condition, in fact, inescapable and a genuine
feature of ‘human nature’. Evolution has shaped humans into
29 Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, p. 280.
30 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 5.
31 Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, p. 310.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
224
“conspiracy theorists”, thereby creating a desire for purpose and
religion. To summarize the absurd in Camus’ own words:
[T]hese two certainties—my appetite for the absolute and
for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a
rational and reasonable principle—I also know that I cannot
reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying,
without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing
within the limits of my condition?32
Camus was right then, the human desire for ‘unity’ and meaning
is deeply entrenched in human existence. The only really serious
philosophical problem remains steadfast even in the face of science,
more so gaining an ally in the naturalistic scientific world-view. An
ally Camus would not have anticipated to be coming to his aid. The
answers, the sciences provide will never be fully satisfactory given
our evolutionary history and addiction to stories. Science cannot give
purpose to our lives, because there is none. Let me therefore now
finally turn to the solution of how to face the absurd.
4. Responding to Existential Nihilism
In section 2 I proposed a definition for existential nihilism that I will
continue to use here: Life being meaningless and the universe being
devoid of purpose. In now asking how to respond to this
metaphysical position one may ask, what then the purpose of section
3 on the absurd is. This is precisely the question Camus raised when
arguing for the claim that the problem of suicide coincides with the
question of whether life is meaningful. It is the question of whether
this existential claim has any bearing on the lives we are living. For
the existentialist tradition, this question was answered in the
affirmative and as I argued in section 3, the absurd, is a genuine
problem transcending existential philosophy. The question I want to
answer now is how to respond to the absurd.
In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus argues that suicide is no solution
to the absurd as it doesn’t solve the problem, it just gets rid of one of
32 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 34.
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225
two premises from which the conclusion, the absurd follows. Rather
than escape the absurd, one must revolt in the face of
meaninglessness. He criticizes other existentialists like Kierkegaard
and Sartre, but also novelists like Kafka and Dostoevsky for deifying
“what crushes them and find[ing] reason to hope in what
impoverishes them”33, which is why he doesn’t want to be labelled as
an existentialist. In contrast to physical suicide as a response to the
absurd, Camus refers to the existential escape from the absurd as
philosophical suicide. Though he claims that this isn’t a judgement, it
must appear as a slight to other existentialist thinkers. Camus thinks
it an appropriate term for “the movement by which a thought
negates itself and tends to transcend itself in its very negation”34,
thereby enabling a leap of faith and escaping the absurd. This leap of
faith is not restricted to Kierkegaard and other theistic existentialists,
but Camus intends it to apply to all existentialists including Sartre
calling the negation of reason their ‘God’, even when they see
themselves as atheists. Though Camus doesn’t see himself as a
philosopher and rejects philosophical systems, he does not reject
logic and refutes existentialism precisely on grounds of that. Those
who “hope of another life one must [‘]deserve[‘] or trickery of those
who live not for life itself but for some great idea that will transcend
it, refine it, give it a meaning and betray it, [i.e. life itself].”35 Aronson
sees the origin of Camus’ idea in Nietzsche, who argued that hope
lets people devalue their lives in the expectation of a life beyond.
There is no great purpose by which we could transcend our
insignificance. It is only once we accept that there is nothing beyond
this life that we can “fully experience—feel, taste, touch, see, and
smell—the joys of our bodies and the physical world.”36 To hope,
therefore, is to commit philosophical suicide. There is nothing beyond
the life and the reality we got, reason and science make that
abundantly clear. It turns out that in failing to provide a better
33 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 22.
34 ibid, p. 28
35 ibid, p. 8
36 Aronson, Ronald. "Albert Camus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/camus/. Web. 18 March
2018.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
226
account of the absurd, Nagel at least accomplished a better counter-
argument to the escapism through hope that is undertaken by a leap
of faith:
What makes doubt inescapable with regard to the limited
aims of individual life also makes it inescapable with regard
to any larger purpose that encourages the sense that life is
meaningful. Once the fundamental doubt has begun, it
cannot be laid to rest.37
This argument provided by Nagel makes it much clearer and in
fact justified for Camus to refer to such irrational options as
philosophical suicide. For Camus and in fact Nagel, the right response
to the absurd must, therefore, lie somewhere else. In arguing for an
alternative, Camus’ solution begins with a criticism of Sartre’s notion
of radical freedom. Where scientism and existentialism most obviously
clash, is the denial of free will and commitment to determinism on
the one hand and denial of determinism and freedom of choice on
the other. Holding on to the former with respect to our own choices
is what Sartre calls “bad faith”, to live authentically requires us to
recognize our radical freedom. For a compatibilist account of radical
freedom and Darwinism, one should take a look at William Irwin’s
work (2015). Contra Sartre, Camus argues that the notion of radical
freedom is mistaken, for “[h]owever far one may remain from any
presumption, moral or social, one is partly influenced by them and
even […] adapts one’s life to them. Thus the absurd man realizes that
he was not really free.”38 The authentic man in Sartre’s view becomes
according to Camus, a slave to his belief in freedom. Denying Sartre
outright, Camus offers an alternative to radical freedom, i.e. absurd
freedom:
[D]eath and the absurd are here the principles of the only
reasonable freedom: that which a human heart can
experience and live. This is a second consequence. The
absurd man thus catches sight of a burning and frigid,
transparent and limited universe in which nothing is
37 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos, p. 721.
38 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 39.
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227
possible but everything is given, and beyond which all is
collapse and nothingness. He can then decide to accept such
a universe and draw from it his strength, his refusal to
hope, and the unyielding evidence of a life without
consolation.39
According to Thomas Nagel, this explanation for how one
should cope with the absurd seems rather “romantic and slightly
self-pitying.”40 Camus draws three consequences from the absurd
which illustrate his solution to the only really important problem in
philosophy, i.e. “my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the
mere activity of consciousness, I transform into a rule of life what
was an invitation to death—and I refuse suicide.”41 To make the
reader understand what he means, Camus elaborates on the absurd
hero Don Juan, who conquers the heart of women but leaves for the
next upon their profession of love for him, in fact, Camus calls this
calls his ‘revolt’, i.e. Don Juanism. For some people love is the
solution to the absurd. For Camus, this cannot be true and he refers
to Don Juan as a case study as an absurd hero. Akin to Sisyphus who
is condemned by the Gods to push a boulder up a mountain only to
watch it roll down again once he reaches the peak and being forced
to repeat this act in all eternity. Just like Sisyphus, Aronson argues,
“humans cannot help but continue to ask after the meaning of life,
only to see our answers tumble back down”42 thereby illustrating the
absurd. Why should we imagine Sisyphus happy according to
Camus? Because he is constantly aware and conscious of the
meaninglessness of his task, and he carries it out regardless. When a
girl professes her love for him, Don Juan can only laugh in the face of
the absurd. Rather than despair or hope for more in life, he revolts
against the rules of the society and the absurd, accepts his
meaningless fate and lives out his passions. Camus’ rather lyrical
writings and references to the heroes in other stories have a deeper
purpose. According to Aronson, they aim “to demonstrate what life
means and feels like once we give up hope of an afterlife so that in
39 ibid, p. 40
40 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos, p. 726.
41 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 42.
42 Aronson, Ronald. "Albert Camus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
228
reading we will be led to [‘]see[‘] his point.”43 These are the
conclusions Camus has drawn as the solution to the question of
suicide. One has to accept that life is meaningless and death
inevitable, but the consciousness of this, only makes life worth living
to begin with.
As Camus limits himself to analysing other existentialist
philosophers, I will now introduce the solutions to the absurd, which
Thomas Nagel and Alex Rosenberg provide. For both Rosenberg and
Nagel, man’s search for meaning and purpose doesn’t stop when
accepting reason and science as a guiding principle. Still the reader
may question whether existentialism and a naturalistic world-view
are in any way compatible. Rosenberg doubts that, stating that:
Martin Heidegger built a whole metaphysics out of the
conviction that physics and the rest of science can’t ever
explain the subjectivity of experience. He argued that
subjectivity is the most important fact about us, that science
can’t explain it, and that we, therefore, have to reject science
as the correct description of reality. We need to build our
picture of reality up from the nature of subjective
experience. Heidegger is scientism turned upside down.44
Though scientism and existentialism seem fundamentally
opposed, the absurd still arises in both of them. Rosenberg’s solution
to this existential problem, for those accepting existential nihilism, is
simple: “Take two of whatever neuropharmacology prescribes.”45 An
option that to be fair was not available when Camus wrote The Myth
of Sisyphus and hence, doesn’t necessarily invalidate his arguments.
However, there is no necessary connection between depression and
the absurd. It is an open question, whether anti-depressants dissolve
the feeling of absurdity. Existential despair might nevertheless
disappear. With prescription rates of such drugs reaching new
heights Camus, however, may have been right to suggest that it is the
only really serious philosophical problem. Thomas Nagel explaining
why he is an atheist claims that he "lack[s] the sensus divinitatis that
43 ibid
44 Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, p. 231.
45 ibid, p. 282.
WALTER VEIT
229
enables—indeed compels—so many people to see in the world the
expression of divine purpose as naturally as they see in a smiling face
the expression of human feeling."46 One might argue that the absurd
condition indeed only arises for a subset of the population, or is
absent in those accepting the scientific world-view, i.e. devoid of
purposes. If so, then there could be an easy solution, however, I
argue that the problem is genuine. Science neither claims to give life
meaning or purpose, such questions have either nothing to do with
science or are negated by the metaphysical commitments of the
scientific practice. Both approaches, however, do not qualify as
philosophical suicide, for they leave the absurd conflict intact. So even
if Rosenberg is right and we accept the claims of scientism, the
absurd condition of human existence, Camus and others diagnosed
may remain steadfast. For even if science discovers general laws of
nature, they have nothing to do with reason and might on the most
fundamental level, i.e. quantum physics, be entirely random. In an
indifferent universe where our existence is merely an accident,
existential nihilism cannot be denied (neither by committing physical
or philosophical suicide). When Camus proclaims: “One does not
discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of
happiness”47, Rosenberg’s answer in the light of existential dread
makes more sense. How can one be happy while being dissatisfied
with what the world has to offer while being world-weary? Anti-
depressants might truly be at least part of the solution.
Unfortunately, we will never know how Camus would have
responded to the arrival of such medication. The illusion that there is
more to life and the universe then what the sciences tell us doesn’t
cease, even when we accept the claims of science. But that is just
what evolutionary theory would predict, given our addiction to
narrative. Our introspection, however, is faulty and as the title of the
tenth chapter of Rosenberg’s book is profoundly termed: “YOU’VE
GOT TO STOP TAKING YOURSELF SO SERIOUSLY”. Considering
Nagel’s argument for the absurd, this is perhaps the first step to
avoid the fall into existential despair.
46 Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012,
p. 12.
47 Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus, p. 77.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
230
Reconciling Camus with the analytic tradition and science seems
to eliminate much of existential thinking, but it is here that Camus
returns to the existential tradition: The “absurd man feels released
from everything outside that passionate attention crystallizing in
him. He enjoys a freedom with regard to common rules. It can be
seen at this point that the initial themes of existential philosophy
keep their entire value.”48 To conclude, the absurd stems from the
fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of
purpose, man still searches for meaning, significance and purpose. In
short, the truth of existential nihilism and man’s desire for more than
existential nihilism has to offer. In the end, it remains an open and
empirical question whether one’s revolt in the face of the absurd can
be successful. As Camus stated in the preface of The Myth of Sisyphus:
“[E]ven within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to
proceed beyond nihilism.” That it is possible is, of course, no
guarantee, that one will be able to do so, as Camus’ rather tragic
novels illustrate. If Rosenberg is right and men’s desire for meaning,
purpose and significance is a by-product of the human desire for
narrative and understanding then the absurdist condition is in fact
inescapable. Even the most advanced scientific explanations, i.e.
rational explanations of the universe won’t be able to satisfy our
desire for more. In the end, nothing we do will amount to anything.
There is but one thing that is certain, and that is the heat death of the
universe. Nothing matters. But on the bright side, the question of
suicide can be detached from the question of how one should live in
the face of existential nihilism. Rosenberg offers conciliation with the
fact that we also evolved to get out of bed. If we do not manage to do
so, Prozac might, in fact, be the best solution. The philosophical way
to face the absurd then might be a combination of irony and “your
favourite serotonin reuptake inhibitor”49, revolting and thereby fully
enjoying life, not despite, but because of it being meaningless! In
short: Don Juanism, laughing at and thoroughly enjoying one’s brief
and meaningless existence. The only really serious philosophical
problem is therefore genuine. In this realization, Camus’ work truly
transcends existentialism.
48 ibid, p. 39.
49 Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, p. 315.
WALTER VEIT
231
Acknowledgements
This paper is the result of my very own personal search for meaning
and happiness in a meaningless world. I would like to thank all the
people who talked with me about serious topics such as meaning of
life, happiness, suicide and depression. Further thanks go to the
creators of Bojack Horseman i.e. Raphael Bob-Waksberg & Rick and
Morty, i.e. Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, for their modern tales of
absurd heroes, facing a meaningless and indifferent universe, works
that inspired the creation of this paper. Furthermore, I would like to
thank Lomi Hack, Nils Jonas Hein and Peter Kroschewski for
encouraging me to write on nihilism. Finally, I would like to thank
Renāte Berga for discussions in a café in the centre of Helsinki on
how to live in a meaningless world. Sittings one could imagine to
have taken place between Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir
themselves. When I finished my work she exclaimed: "Why are you
so happy all of a sudden?" suggesting that my search for happiness
in a meaningless world has been successful after all. I hope this paper
helps others in the way it helped me.
EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM: THE ONLY REALLY SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
232
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Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print. ---. "The Absurd" Journal of Philosophy, 1971: 68, pp. 716-727.
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  • Alexander Rosenberg
Rosenberg, Alexander. The Atheist's Guide to Reality, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011. Print.
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Wisecrack. "Rick and Morty: The Philosophy of Szechuan Sauce -Wisecrack Edition" Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 15 April 2017. Web. 18 March 2018.