Sisyphus & the Rolling Stone - part 4

Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde
Albert Camus © 1942 Éditions Gallimard
Translation © 2011 Ian Vincent Mulder

(PS Column showing the original French added 21st July, after the first 11 comments. Paragraph starts should line up, but unfortunately they don’t in Firefox.)

Original text:
De Jaspers à Heidegger, de Kierkegaard à Chestov, des phénoménologues à Scheler, sur le plan logique et sur le plan moral, toute une famille d’esprits, parents par leur nostalgie, opposés par leurs méthodes ou leurs buts, se sont acharnés à barrer la voie royale de la raison et à retrouver les droits chemins de la vérité. Je suppose ici ces pensées connues et vécues. Quelles que soient ou qu’aient été leurs ambitions, tous sont partis de cet univers indicible où règnent la contradiction, l’antinomie, l’angoisse ou l’impuissance. Et ce qui leur est commun, ce sont justement les thèmes qu’on a jusqu’ici décelés. Pour eux aussi, il faut bien dire que ce qui importe surtout, ce sont les conclusions qu’ils ont pu tirer de ces découvertes. Cela importe tant qu’il faudra les examiner à part. Mais pour le moment, il s’agit seulement de leurs découvertes et de leurs expériences initiales. Il s’agit seulement de constater leur concordance. S’il serait présomptueux de vouloir traiter de leurs philosophies, il est possible et suffisant en tout cas, de faire sentir le climat qui leur est commun.



Heidegger considère froidement la condition humaine et annonce que cette existence est humiliée. La seule réalité, c’est le « souci » dans toute l’échelle des êtres. Pour l’homme perdu dans le monde et ses divertissements, ce souci est une peur brève et fuyante. Mais que cette peur prenne conscience d’elle-même, et elle devient l’angoisse, climat perpétuel de l’homme lucide « dans lequel l’existence se retrouve ». Ce professeur de philosophie écrit sans trembler et dans le langage le plus abstrait du monde que « le caractère fini et limité de l’existence humaine est plus primordial que l’homme lui-même ». Il s’intéresse à Kant mais c’est pour reconnaître le caractère borné de sa « Raison pure ». C’est pour conclure aux termes de ses analyses que « le monde ne peut plus rien offrir à l’homme angoissé ». Ce souci lui paraît à tel point dépasser en vérité les catégories du raisonnement, qu’il ne songe qu’à lui et ne parle que de lui. Il énumère ses visages : d’ennui lorsque l’homme banal cherche à le niveler en lui même et à l’étourdir ; de terreur lorsque l’esprit contemple la mort. Lui non plus ne sépare pas la conscience de l’absurde. La conscience de la mort c’est l’appel du souci et « l’existence s’adresse alors un propre appel par l’intermédiaire de la conscience ». Elle est la voix même de l’angoisse et elle adjure l’existence « de revenir elle-même de sa perte dans l’On anonyme ». Pour lui non plus, il ne faut pas dormir et il faut veiller jusqu’à la consommation. Il se tient dans ce monde absurde, il en accuse le caractère périssable. Il cherche sa voie au milieu des décombres.

Jaspers désespère de toute ontologie parce qu’il veut que nous ayons perdu la « naïveté ». Il sait que nous ne pouvons arriver à rien qui transcende le jeu mortel des apparences. Il sait que la fin de l’esprit c’est l’échec. Il s’attarde le long des aventures spirituelles que nous livre l’histoire et décèle impitoyablement la faille de chaque système, l’illusion qui a tout sauvé, la prédication qui n’a rien caché. Dans ce monde dévasté où l’impossibilité de connaitre est démontrée, où le néant paraît la seule réalité, le désespoir sans recours, la seule attitude, il tente de retrouver le fil d’Ariane qui mène aux divins secrets.


Chestov de son côté, tout le long d’une œuvre à l’admirable monotonie, tendu sans cesse vers les mêmes vérités, démontre sans trêve que le système le plus serré, le rationalisme le plus universel finit toujours par buter sur l’irrationnel de la pensée humaine. Aucune des évidences ironiques, des contradictions dérisoires qui déprécient la raison ne lui échappe. Une seule chose l’intéresse et c’est l’exception, qu’elle soit de l’histoire du cœur ou de l’esprit. A travers les expériences dostoïevskiennes du condamné à mort, les aventures exaspérées de l’esprit nietzschéen, les imprécations d’Hamlet ou l’amère aristocratie d’un Ibsen, il dépiste, éclaire et magnifie la révolte humaine contre l’irrémédiable. Il refuse ses raisons à la raison et ne commence à diriger ses pas avec quelque décision qu’au milieu de ce désert sans couleurs où toutes les certitudes sont devenues pierres.

De tous peut être le plus attachant, Kierkegaard, pour une partie au moins de son existence, fait mieux que de découvrir l’absurde, il le vit. L’homme qui écrit : « Le plus sûr des mutismes n’est pas de se taire, mais de parler », s’assure pour commencer qu’aucune vérité n’est absolue et ne peut rendre satisfaisante une existence impossible en soi. Don Juan de la connaissance, il multiplie les pseudonymes et les contradictions, écrit les Discours édifiants en même temps que ce manuel du spiritualisme cynique qu’est Le Journal du Séducteur. Il refuse les consolations, la morale, les principes de tout repos. Cette épine qu’il se sent au cœur, il n’a garde d’en assoupir la douleur. Il la réveille au contraire et, dans la joie désespérée d’un crucifié content de l’être, construit pièce à pièce, lucidité, refus, comédie, une catégorie du démoniaque. Ce visage à la fois tendre et ricanant, ces pirouettes suivies d’un cri parti du fond de l’âme, c’est l’esprit absurde lui-même aux prises avec une réalité qui le dépasse. Et l’aventure spirituelle qui conduit Kierkegaard à ses chers scandales commence elle aussi dans le chaos d’une expérience privée de ses décors et rendue à son incohérence première.

Sur un tout autre plan, celui de la méthode, par leurs outrances mêmes, Husserl et les phénoménologues restituent le monde dans sa diversité et nient le pouvoir transcendant de la raison. L’univers spirituel s’enrichit avec eux de façon incalculable. Le pétale de rose, la borne kilométrique ou la main humaine ont autant d’importance que l’amour, le désir, ou les lois de la gravitation. Penser, ce n’est plus unifier, rendre familière l’apparence sous le visage d’un grand principe. Penser, c’est réapprendre à voir, à être attentif, c’est diriger sa conscience. c’est faire de chaque idée et de chaque image, à la façon de Proust, un lieu privilégié. Paradoxalement, tout est privilégié. Ce qui justifie la pensée, c’est son extrême conscience. Pour être plus positive que chez Kierkegaard ou Chestov, la démarche husserlienne, à l’origine, nie cependant la méthode classique de la raison, déçoit l’espoir, ouvre à l’intuition et au cœur toute une prolifération de phénomènes dont la richesse a quelque chose d’inhumain. Ces chemins mènent à toutes les sciences ou à aucune. C’est dire que le moyen ici a plus d’importance que la fin. Il s’agit seulement « d’une attitude pour connaître » et non d’une consolation. Encore une fois, à l’origine du moins.

Comment ne pas sentir la parenté profonde de ces esprits ! Comment ne pas voir qu’ils se regroupent autour d’un lieu privilégié et amer où l’espérance n’a plus de place ? Je veux que tout me soit expliqué ou rien. Et la raison est impuissante devant ce cri du cœur. L’esprit éveillé par cette exigence cherche et ne trouve que contradictions et déraisonnements. Ce que je ne comprends pas est sans raison. Le monde est peuplé de ces irrationnels. A lui seul dont je ne comprends pas la signification unique, il n’est qu’un immense irrationnel. Pouvoir dire une seule fois : « cela est clair » et tout serait sauvé. Mais ces hommes à l’envi proclament que rien n’est clair, tout est chaos, que l’homme garde seulement sa clairvoyance et la connaissance précise des murs qui l’entourent.

Toutes ces expériences concordent et se recoupent. L’esprit arrivé aux confins doit porter un jugement et choisir ses conclusions. Là se place le suicide et la réponse. Mais je veux inverser l’ordre de la recherche et partir de l’aventure intelligente pour revenir aux gestes quotidiens. Les expériences ici évoquées sont nées dans le désert qu’il ne faut point quitter. Du moins faut-il savoir jusqu’où elles sont parvenues. À ce point de son effort, l’homme se trouve devant l’irrationnel. Il sent en lui son désir de bonheur et de raison. L’absurde naît de cette confrontation entre l’appel humain et le silence déraisonnable du monde. C’est cela qu’il ne faut pas oublier. C’est à cela qu’il faut se cramponner parce que toute la conséquence d’une vie peut en naître. L’irrationnel, la nostalgie humaine et l’absurde qui surgit de leur tête à tête, voilà les trois personnages du drame qui doit nécessairement finir avec toute la logique dont une existence est capable.

New English translation:
From Jaspers to Heidegger, Kierkegaard to Shestov, phenomenologists to Scheler, we find a kindred of minds, connected by the same quest in logic and ethics, divided only by their different approaches. These philosophers have set siege to the great highway of reason, in order to reclaim the strait path of truth. I’m supposing here that they had such thoughts in mind, and lived by them. Whatever ambitions they may have possessed, they all set out from one starting point: a world where contradiction, anguish and helplessness hold sway. And what they had in common is precisely those themes which have been outlined here. For them too, what matters most was the conclusions they drew from these discoveries, whose importance is so great that we ought to examine them one by one. But first let’s look at their discoveries and how they made them. I do this to show how they are all in agreement. It might be presumptuous to try and cover their philosophies, but it’s possible and indeed sufficient to convey a sense of the common space they occupy.



Heidegger takes a cold look at the human condition and pronounces it “humiliated”. Concern (Sorge in German) is the only reality, across the entire range of beings. For man, lost in the world and its distractions, this angst is a brief and fugitive fear. But when this fear becomes conscious of itself, it turns to anguish, perpetual state of a clear-sighted man discovering his own existence. This professor of philosophy writes without trembling, in the most abstract language possible, that “the finite and limited character of human existence is more primordial than man himself”. He takes an interest in Kant, but only to acknowledge the narrow horizon of his “pure Reason”; and to conclude, in the terms of his own analysis, that “the world has nothing more to offer to the anguished man”. To him, this concern (or care) so far exceeds the categories of reason that he thinks and speaks only of himself. He counts its various aspects: boredom at the ordinary man’s attempt to flatten or numb him; terror at the idea of death. He too makes no separation between consciousness and the absurd. Awareness of death is the call of concern, and “existence calls to itself directly, through the mediation of consciousness”. Existence is the very voice of anguish, and charges existence to “return to itself from being lost in anonymous ‘humanity’”. For him too there’s a duty not to sleep, but but to keep vigil till all is fulfilled. He holds himself upright in an absurd world, lamenting its perishability. He picks his away amongst the ruins.



Jaspers despairs of any ontology. According to him, we have lost our “naivety”. He knows we won’t get anywhere beyond the perishable world of appearances. He knows that when mind comes to an end, we are lost. He goes painstakingly through the history of the sacred, ruthlessly pointing out the flaw in each system, the all-rescuing illusion, the undisguising sermon. In this ravaged world, where impossibility of knowing is laid bare, where nothingness seems the only reality and despair has no remedy, he seeks to follow an Ariadne thread which will lead us to divine secrets.



Shestov for his part, in an oeuvre of admirable singlemindedness, ever drawn towards the same truths, never stops showing that the tightest system, the most universal rationalism, must forever impinge against the irrational in human thought. Nothing escapes him—no trace of irony, no trivial contradiction, nothing which belittles the role of reason. Nothing interests him but the exception, whether in the realm of heart or mind. Dostoyevsky’s analysis of the condemned man, Nietzsche’s fervid probing, Hamlet’s maledictions, Ibsen’s aristocratic venom—he tracks them all down, puts them under the bright gaze of his magnifying-glass, revealing man’s revolt against the inexorable. He denies any reasonableness to reason. The only direction he goes with any certainty is to the middle of a bleached-out desert, where every certainty has turned to stone.

Kierkegaard, perhaps the most attractive of them all, goes further than merely discovering the absurd. He lives it, at least for part of his existence. The man who writes, “The surest stubborn silence is not to hold one’s tongue, but talk” starts from the point that no truth can be absolute, nor can it turn an impossible existence into a tolerable one. A Don Juan of the understanding, he accumulates pseudonyms and contrary views, writes his Edifying Discourses in parallel with his manual of spiritual cynicism, The Seducer’s Diary. He refuses all consolation, ethics, easy ideas. He feels a thorn in his heart but does nothing to ease its pain. No, he even incites it. In the desperate joy of one content to be crucified, he draws out piecemeal elements of daylight, disavowal, comic posturing, like someone possessed. His face at once tender and sneering, his pirouettes followed by a cry from the depths of his soul—this is the Absurd itself grappling with a reality beyond its grasp. And the spiritual adventure which draws Kierkegaard into his precious scandals? It starts in the chaos of an experience stripped of context, restored to its inchoate origin.



On a different plane altogether, that of method, Husserl and the other phenomenologists by their very excesses restore to the world its diversity and deny the transcendent power of reason. Through them, the spiritual universe is hugely enriched. A rose petal, a milestone or a human hand—these have as much importance as love, desire or the laws of gravity. With them, to think is no longer a way to find unity, by familiarising appearances in the light of an overarching concept. To think is to learn afresh how to see, to pay attention, direct your consciousness; it’s to turn every idea, every image, into a privileged place, à la Proust. Paradoxically, everything is privileged. What justifies thought is its extreme consciousness. Whilst being more positive than Kierkegaard’s or Shestov’s, Husserl’s approach starts by rejecting classical reason, disappointing hope, opening up the intuition and heart to a whole abundance of phenomena whose richness is almost beyond human. Such roads lead to all the sciences, or none. In other words, the means is more important than the end. It’s simply about “an attitude for understanding”, not finding consolation. At least, that’s the start-point, as I said.




How can we fail to sense a profound kinship between these minds? How can we fail to see that they cluster around a privileged, bitter place where there’s no room for hope? Let everything be explained, or nothing—that’s what I want. Faced with this cry from the heart, reason is powerless. Enlivened by this need, the mind seeks yet finds nothing but contradictions and lack of sense. Anything I fail to understand lacks sense. The world is full of things which make no sense. Taken on its own, the world lacks a single meaning, constitutes a vast absence of sense. To be able to say just once “That’s clear”—all would be saved. But these men vie with each other in expressing that nothing is clear, all is chaos: man can call nothing his own but his clear sight of the walls which hem him in.

These experiences all harmonize and tally. A mind reaching its own limits must make a judgement and reach its own conclusions. That’s where you find suicide and people’s reaction to it. But I want to reverse the direction of research, stop following the intellectual trail, return to more mundane affairs. The experiences evoked above were born in the desert: we should not turn our backs on them. At least we should know how far they reached. At this point in his effort, man faces senselessness head on. He feels a longing for happiness and meaning. The absurd is born from this confrontation between human need and the world’s unreasonable silence. Let’s not forget this. Let’s hold fast to it, because the rest of our lives may depend on it. Unreasonableness, human yearning and the absurd which results from their collision: these are the three characters in a a drama whose outcome must necessarily be as logical as existence is able to be.

Justin O’Brien’s 1955 translation:
From Jaspers to Heidegger, from Kierkegaard to Chestov, from the phenomenologists to Scheler, on the logical plane and on the moral plane, a whole family of minds related by their nostalgia but opposed by their methods or their aims, have persisted in blocking the royal road of reason and in recovering the direct paths of truth. Here I assume these thoughts to be known and lived. Whatever may be or have been their ambitions, all started out from that indescribable universe where contradiction, antinomy, anguish, or impotence reigns. And what they have in common is precisely the themes so far disclosed. For them, too, it must be said that what matters above all is the conclusions they have managed to draw from those discoveries. That matters so much that they must be examined separately. But for the moment we are concerned solely with their discoveries and their initial experiments. We are concerned solely with noting their agreement. If it would be presumptuous to try to deal with their philosophies, it is possible and sufficient in any case to bring out the climate that is common to them.

Heidegger considers the human condition coldly and announces that that existence is humiliated. The only reality is “anxiety” in the whole chain of beings. To the man lost in the world and its diversions this anxiety is a brief, fleeting fear. But if that fear becomes conscious of itself, it becomes anguish, the perpetual climate of the lucid man “in whom existence is concentrated.” This professor of philosophy writes without trembling and in the most abstract language in the world that “the finite and limited character of human existence is more primordial than man himself.” His interest in Kant extends only to recognizing the restricted character of his “pure Reason.” This is to conclude at the end of his analyses that “the world can no longer offer anything to the man filled with anguish.” This anxiety seems to him so much more important than all the categories in the world that he thinks and talks only of it. He enumerates its aspects: boredom when the ordinary man strives to quash it in him and benumb it; terror when the mind contemplates death. He too does not separate consciousness from the absurd. The consciousness of death is the call of anxiety and “existence then delivers itself its own summons through the intermediary of consciousness.” It is the very voice of anguish and it adjures existence “to return from its loss in the anonymous They.” For him, too, one must not sleep, but must keep alert until the consummation. He stands in this absurd world and points out its ephemeral character. He seeks his way amid these ruins.


Jaspers despairs of any ontology because he claims that we have lost ‘naïveté.’ He knows that we can achieve nothing that will transcend the fatal game of appearances. He knows that the end of the mind is failure. He tarries over the spiritual adventures revealed by history and pitilessly discloses the flaw in each system, the illusion that saved everything, the preaching that hid nothing. In this ravaged world in which the impossibility of knowledge is established, in which everlasting nothingness seems the only reality and irremediable despair seems the only attitude, he tries to recover the Ariadne’s thread that leads to divine secrets.

Chestov, for his part, throughout a wonderfully monotonous work, constantly straining toward the same truths, tirelessly demonstrates that the tightest system, the most universal rationalism always stumbles eventually on the irrational of human thought. None of the ironic facts or ridiculous contradictions that depreciate the reason escapes him. One thing only interests him, and that is the exception, whether in the domain of the heart or of the mind. Through the Dostoevskian experiences of the condemned man, the exacerbated adventures of the Nietzschean mind, Hamlet’s imprecations, or the bitter aristocracy of an Ibsen, he tracks down, illuminates, and magnifies the human revolt against the irremediable. He refuses the reason its reasons and begins to advance with some decision only in the middle of that colorless desert where all certainties have become stones.

Of all perhaps the most engaging, Kierkegaard, for a part of his existence at least, does more than discover the absurd, he lives it. The man who writes: “The surest of stubborn silences is not to hold one’s tongue but to talk” makes sure in the beginning that no truth is absolute or can render satisfactory an existence that is impossible in itself. Don Juan of the understanding, he multiplies pseudonyms and contradictions, writes his Discourses of Edification at the same time as that manual of cynical spiritualism, The Diary of the Seducer. He refuses consolations, ethics, reliable principles. As for that thorn he feels in his heart, he is careful not to quiet its pain. On the contrary, he awakens it and, in the desperate joy of a man crucified and happy to be so, he builds up piece by piece—lucidity, refusal, make-believe—a category of the man possessed. That face both tender and sneering, those pirouettes followed by a cry from the heart are the absurd spirit itself grappling with a reality beyond its comprehension. And the spiritual adventure that leads Kierkegaard to his beloved scandals begins likewise in the chaos of an experience divested of its setting and relegated to its original incoherence.

On quite a different plane, that of method, Husserl and the phenomenologists, by their very extravagances, reinstate the world in its diversity and deny the transcendent power of the reason. The spiritual universe becomes incalculably enriched through them. The rose petal, the milestone, or the human hand are as important as love, desire, or the laws of gravity. Thinking ceases to be unifying or making a semblance familiar in the guise of a major principle. Thinking is learning all over again to see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image, in the manner of Proust, into a privileged moment. What justifies thought is its extreme consciousness. Though more positive than Kierkegaard’s or Chestov’s, Husserl’s manner of proceeding, in the beginning, nevertheless negates the classic method of the reason, disappoints hope, opens to intuition and to the heart a whole proliferation of phenomena, the wealth of which has about it something inhuman. These paths lead to all sciences or to none. This amounts to saying that in this case the means are more important than the end. All that is involved is “an attitude for understanding” and not a consolation. Let me repeat: in the beginning, at very least.


How can one fail to feel the basic relationship of these minds! How can one fail to see that they take their stand around a privileged and bitter moment in which hope has no further place? I want everything to be explained to me or nothing. And the reason is impotent when it hears this cry from the heart. The mind aroused by this insistence seeks and finds nothing but contradictions and nonsense. What I fail to understand is nonsense. The world is peopled with such irrationals. The world itself, whose single meaning I do not understand, is but a vast irrational. If one could only say just once: “This is clear,” all would be saved. But these men vie with one another in proclaiming that nothing is clear, all is chaos, that all man has is his lucidity and his definite knowledge of the walls surrounding him.

All these experiences agree and confirm one another. The mind, when it reaches its limits, must make a judgment and choose its conclusions. This is where suicide and the reply stand. But I wish to reverse the order of the inquiry and start out from the intelligent adventure and come back to daily acts. The experiences called to mind here were born in the desert that we must not leave behind. At least it is essential to know how far they went. At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten. This must be clung to because the whole consequence of a life can depend on it. The irrational, the human nostalgia, and the absurd that is born of their encounter—these are the three characters in the drama that must necessarily end with all the logic of which an existence is capable.