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The Absurd Author(S): Thomas Nagel Reviewed Work(S): Source: the Journal of Philosophy, Vol Journal of Philosophy, Inc. The Absurd Author(s): Thomas Nagel Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 20, Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Oct. 21, 1971), pp. 716-727 Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024942 . Accessed: 19/08/2012 01:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Journal of Philosophy, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy. http://www.jstor.org 7i6 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY The formerstands as valid only if we can findcriteria for assigning a differentlogical formto 'allegedly' than to 'compulsively'.In this case, the criteriaexist: 'compulsively'is a predicate, 'allegedly' a sentenceadverb. But in countless other cases, counterexamplesare not so easily dismissed.Such an example, bearing on the inference in question, is Otto closed the door partway ThereforeOtto closed the door It seems clear to me that betterdata are needed beforeprogress can be made in this area; we need much more refinedlinguistic classificationsof adverbial constructionsthan are presentlyavail- able, ifour evidenceconcerning validity is to be good enough to per- mit a richerlogical theory.In the meantime,Montague's account stands: thereis no reason to thinka morerefined theory, if it can be produced, should not be obtainable within the frameworkhe has given us. RICHMOND H. THOMASON Yale University THE ABSURD * M OST peoplefeel on occasionthat life is absurd,and some feel it vividly and continually.Yet the reasons usually offeredin defense of this conviction are patently in- adequate: they could not really explain why life is absurd. Why then do they provide a natural expressionfor the sense that it is? I Consider some examples. It is oftenremarked that nothingwe do now will matterin a millionyears. But if that is true, then by the same token,nothing that will be the case in a millionyears matters now. In particular,it does not matternow that in a millionyears nothingwe do now will matter.Moreover, even if what we did now were going to matter in a million years, how could that keep our presentconcerns from being absurd? If theirmattering now is not enough to accomplish that, how would it help if they mattered a millionyears fromnow? Whether what we do now will matter in a million years could make the crucial differenceonly if its matteringin a millionyears depended on its mattering,period. But then to deny that whatever * To be presentedin an APA symposiumon The Meaningof Life, December 29, 1971. Co-symposiastswill be RogersAlbritton and WilliamRichardson; neither of theirpapers are availableat thistime. THE ABSURD 7I7 happens now will matter in a millionyears is to beg the question against its mattering,period; for in that sense one cannot know that it will not matter in a million years whether (for example) someone now is happy or miserable,without knowing that it does not matter,period. What we say to convey the absurdityof our lives oftenhas to do with space or time: we are tinyspecks in the infinitevastness of the universe; our lives are mere instantseven on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evidentfacts can be what makeslife absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived forever;would not a lifethat is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitelyabsurd if it lasted througheternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filledthe universe (eitherbecause we werelarger or because the universewas smaller)? Reflectionon our minutenessand brevityappears to be intimately connectedwith the sense that lifeis meaningless;but it is not clear what the connectionis. Another inadequate argument is that because we are going to die, all chains of justificationmust leave offin mid-air: one studies and works to earn money to pay for clothing,housing, entertain- ment,food, to sustain oneselffrom year to year, perhaps to support a familyand pursue a career-but to what finalend? All of it is an elaborate journey leading nowhere. (One will also have some effect on other people's lives, but that simply reproduces the problem, forthey will die too.) There are several replies to this argument. First, life does not consist of a sequence of activitieseach of which has as its purpose some later member of the sequence. Chains of justificationcome repeatedlyto an end withinlife, and whetherthe processas a whole can be justifiedhas no bearing on the finalityof these end-points. No furtherjustification is needed to make it reasonable to take aspirin for a headache, attend an exhibitof the work of a painter one admires,or stop a child fromputting his hand on a hot stove. No larger context or furtherpurpose is needed to prevent these acts frombeing pointless. Even if someone wished to supply a furtherjustification for pursuingall the thingsin life that are commonlyregarded as self- justifying,that justificationwould have to end somewheretoo. If nothingcan justifyunless it is justifiedin termsof somethingoutside itself,which is also justified,then an infiniteregress results, and no chain of justificationcan be complete. Moreover, if a finitechain of reasons cannot justifyanything, what could be accomplishedby 7I8 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY an infinitechain, each link of whichmust be justifiedby something outside itself? Since justificationsmust come to an end somewhere,nothing is gained by denyingthat theyend wherethey appear to, withinlife- or by tryingto subsume the multiple,often trivial ordinary justifi- cations of action under a single,controlling life scheme. We can be satisfiedmore easily than that. In fact, throughits misrepresen- tation of the processof justification,the argumentmakes a vacuous demand. It insiststhat the reasons available withinlife are incom- plete, but suggeststhereby that all reasons that come to an end are incomplete.Tlis makes it impossibleto supply any reasons at all. The standard argumentsfor absurdity appear thereforeto fail as arguments.Yet I believe they attempt to express somethingthat is difficultto state, but fundamentallycorrect. II In ordinarylife a situationis absurd when it includesa conspicuous discrepancybetween pretension or aspirationand reality: someone gives a complicatedspeech in supportof a motionthat has already been passed; a notorious criminal is made president of a major philanthropicfoundation; you declare your love over the telephone to a recordedannouncement; as you are beingknighted, your pants fall down. When a person finds himself in an absurd situation, he will usually attempt to change it, by modifyinghis aspirations,or by tryingto bringreality into betteraccord withthem, or by removing himselffrom the situation entirely.We are not always willingor able to extricate ourselves from a position whose absurdity has become clear to us. Nevertheless,it is usually possible to imagine some change that would remove the absurdity-whether or not we can or will implementit. The sense that lifeas a whole is absurd arises when we perceive, perhaps dimly, an inflatedpretension or aspirationwhich is inseparablefrom the continuationof human life and whichmakes its absurdityinescapable, short of escape fromlife itself. Many people's lives are absurd, temporarilyor permanently,for conventionalreasons having to do with theirparticular ambitions, circumstances,and personal relations. If there is a philosophical sense of absurdity, however,it must arise fromthe perceptionof somethinguniversal-some respectin which pretensionand reality inevitablyclash forus all. This conditionis supplied, I $hall argue, by the collision between the seriousnesswith which we take our lives and the perpetual possibilityof regardingeverything about whichwe are seriousas arbitrary,or open to doubt. THE ABSURD 719 We cannot live human lives without energy and attention,nor withoutmaking choices which show that we take some thingsmore seriouslythan others.Yet we have always available a point of view outside the particularform of our lives, fromwhich the seriousness appears gratuitous.These two inescapable viewpointscollide in us, and that is what makes life absurd. It is absurd because we ignore the doubts that we know cannot be settled,continuing to live with nearly undiminishedseriousness in spite of them. This analysis requiresdefense in two respects: firstas regardsthe unavoidabilityof seriousness; second as regards the inescapability of doubt. We take ourselves seriouslywhether we lead serious lives or not and whetherwe are concernedprimarily with fame, pleasure, virtue, luxury, triumph, beauty, justice, knowledge, salvation, or mere survival. If we take other people seriouslyand devote ourselves to them,that only multipliesthe problem.Human life is fullof effort, plans, calculation, success and failure: we pursue our lives, with varyingdegrees of sloth and energy. It would be differentif we could not step back and reflecton the process, but were merelyled fromimpulse to impulse
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