Myth Of Sisyphus Research Articles

Etcetera: scale and indifference

ABSTRACTStarting from a NASA infographic which inadvertently highlights how we often understand cosmic objects solely in comparison to Earth and its occupants, this essay foregrounds the idea of human insignificance as one often associated with thoughts about the scale of the universe. Indeed, when looking up, scale seems to go on forever: planet, solar system, galaxy, and on eternally, etcetera. In order to examine this issue, the present argument takes the seemingly oblique route of looking at poetry, specifically Don Paterson’s ‘Scale of Intensity’, so as to expound three issues: (i) whether ‘scale’ and its hierarchies are best understood epistemologically or ontologically; (ii) how certain literary and philosophical works (particularly in terms of nihilism and eliminative ontologies) address the conjoint problems of scale and insignificance, this mostly through a rumination of the philosophical term ‘sub specie aeternitatis’; (iii) and, finally, whether feelings of insignificance necessarily entail ones of indifference. In its concluding movement, this essay looks to Sextus Empiricus’s particular reading of indifference, ultimately turning also to Albert Camus’s ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, which is here understood as offering a rejoinder to the seemingly incommensurable arguments on whether the human race ultimately matters, or not.

“There is No Sun Without The Shadow and it is Essential to Know The Night”: Albert Camus’ Philosophy of The Absurd and Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree

Shaun Tan’s 2001 picture book The Red Tree features a nameless, redheaded protagonist wandering through a series of surreal, strange and overwhelmingly dark landscapes. Tan himself, together with his commentators, has characterised The Red Tree’s contents as “absurd,” yet this term has not been defined, nor have any connections been traced between the themes of the text and one of the most important thinkers of the absurd: the twentieth-century French philosopher Albert Camus, whose notion of the absurd is explicated in The Myth of Sisyphus. This article argues not only that Camus’ notion of the absurd provides insights into Tan’s The Red Tree, but also that Tan’s work can help readers develop an understanding of Camus’ philosophy. It focuses on three significant aspects of Camus’ work that serve to unite these two writers, namely the journey of self-explication one undergoes after sensing the absurd, strangeness, and hope.

Critical race parenting in the Trump era: a Sisyphean endeavor? A parable

This article examines the complicated decisions parents make when they decide to raise critically conscious children. The article argues that critical parenting in US society is often analogous to the Greek myth of Sisyphus. Using Critical Race Parenting, Critical Race Theory, and Critical Whiteness Studies, this critically interpretive parable looks to the election of Donald Trump as US President and the ways whiteness, patriarchy, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, and racism function in social, cultural, economic, and educational spheres. This parable tells the story of Sue Libertad and analyzes how parenting in the era of Trump is Sisyphean. This concludes with a discussion of the importance of talking about race, racism, and heterosexism with our children, which disrupts whiteness, sexism, and patriarchy, and ultimately Trump and his administration.

SA 0.1 - De-escalation of adjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer: the Myth of Sisyphus of the 21st century

SA 0.1 - De-escalation of adjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer: the Myth of Sisyphus of the 21st century

Conciencia, condición y estado trágicos en el pensamiento de Albert Camus

En este artículo nos proponemos mostrar que el punto de partida antropológico en el pensamiento de Albert Camus es el estatus trágico de los hombres, el cual implica el reconocimiento y la conciencia de nuestra condición y estado de seres mortales, limitados y sufrientes. Para exponer nuestro caso recurriremos a cinco de sus obras: El extranjero, en donde se muestra la impronta inmanente y autosuficiente del heroísmo de Meursault; El mito de Sísifo, como un canto al absurdo ante la ineluctabilidad victoriosa del destino trágico de los hombres; La peste, como crónica objetiva de guerra que enuncia la esencia contradictoria de la naturaleza humana, y El hombre rebelde y Las cartas a un amigo alemán, como testimonios de una rebeldía sin concesiones en cuanto lucha contra el absurdo inexorable de la vida humana. Haremos ver que la propuesta final de Camus alcanza su más alto refinamiento ético-estético como posible salvación antropológica en el binomio bondad-belleza arraigado a una búsqueda de justica telúrica.

Camus and modern psychiatry: The Myth of Sisyphus

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Of Competition

Of Competition Brendan Constantine (bio) or “And the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets” The act of throwing a body from a window is calledDefenestration. Saying you know thisis called Showing Off. Whether people are born competitiveis still unknown. However, exhaustive researchhas made one thing abundantly clear; every scientistintent upon proving the existence of a “competition gene”wants to be first. The first time I fell out of a window,I was eight and had just won a race against my brother.Indoors. What can I say, I kept going. The second time,I was ten and thrown out by a bad loser. Some peopleget awfully touchy about being told they’re awfully touchy. I beat David Myers in a bread-eating contest, fair andsquare, so he threw me out of his bedroom window. Ibroke two fingers and a flowerpot shaped like a WoollyMammoth. Natural Selection. A funny thing about competition is most living thingscompete without knowing it.A funny thing about competition is humansare the only animals who keep score.A funny thing about competition is how some people say,“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s where you lay the blame.” My grandmother used to say that. She doesn’t anymore. [End Page 118] Now she says, “There are men under my bed. I hear themall night long. They want to throw me out the window.They want to take my books. Let them try. I’m a light sleeperand I’ve killed a man before.” We’ve told the nurses shedoesn’t mean that last part, but honestly we’re not sure. Just as historians aren’t sure who invented the window.Many now say it was an ancient Roman named Septimus Orthowho first put a square hole in a wall and then covered itwith a pane of glass, sometime during the 100th century ad. The first person to be thrown out of it is believed to bea man named Gaius Publius who, as he fell to earth,famously cried, “Ille rapuit formam meam!” or,“That guy stole my idea!” And then a thousand violinsbegan to play and a thousand golden trumpets did rendthe Roman air. You know the funny thing about competition?In German it’s spelled with a K.A funny thing about competition is it’s lonely.A funny thing about competition is some peoplebelieve competition gets to have its own roomin the brain and doesn’t have to share with anyone. But that may not be true. It may have to sharewith a twin sibling known as caution. Last August, scientists in New Zealand announcedcompetition and caution not only reside togetherin the frontal lobe, they have bunk bedsin the Anterior Cingulate Cortex. It’s tight in there; they fight all the time. And whenthey’re not fighting, they’re racing,racing through the house. [End Page 119] It’s a race to the windows and each time there’s notelling who’ll win. In America, jumping from a window isamong the least common forms of suicide, accounting forjust 2%. Remarkably this puts it just 1% above payinga five-year-old to poke you to death with a cocktail sword. In Hong Kong, self-defenestration is a clear favorite,accounting for over 52%. I don’t mean it’s a competition,but if it were, some might say it’s fixed because they havemore skyscrapers and no guns. The funny thing aboutcompetition is even when it’s fixed, it isn’t certain.For example, Albert Camus who said there was only one philosophical questionthat needed answering: Should I stay or should I go?Albert Camus who gave us The Fall, The Stranger,The Myth of Sisyphus, who preferred to do all his writingwhile standing at a lectern. Albert Camus who was killedin a car wreck on his way to Paris. Before leavingProvence that day, he wrote postcards to his wifeand each of his mistresses, same message four times,“Longing to...

“Everyone Knows It’s About Something Else, Way Down”: Boredom, Nihilism, and the Search for Meaning in David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the “something else” that underlies information-age boredom, according to The Pale King’s “Author,” and analyzes the novel’s representations of boredom to that end. Wallace’s decade-long engagement with the problem of boredom, which ended with his suicide, and The Pale King’s longest section, the story of “Irrelevant” Chris Fogle, are read in context with existentialist philosophies, particularly Viktor Frankl’s and Albert Camus’s contrasting treatments of boredom in Man’s Search for Meaning and The Myth of Sisyphus, respectively. The “something” behind Fogle’s boredom appears in this light as an aimless, default, self-centered nihilism, which he overcomes temporarily by choosing to see meaning in a job that others might view as absurd: working for the IRS. The article concludes by noting that Fogle’s story and The Pale King in general significantly resist closed interpretation due to the open-endedness of Fogle’s narrative, his ongoing drug dependency, and the recursive overall structure of Wallace’s unfinished novel.

The experience of strangeness in education: Camus, Jean-Baptiste Clamence and the little ease

When The Myth of Sisyphus describes those who live in the ‘rarefied air of the absurd’ (p. 86), Camus uses the word fidelity. This signals a recognition of both defeat and the demand for struggle. This suggests a humility. Education can be said to have this characteristic; it is constantly in service to the new and yet understands these come with limits. And these limits are overcome as education develops the mind to see differently and change the world we live in. This type of education has fidelity to the absurd because of its cognisance of both aspiration and failure: it is aware of its useful potential to help make sense of the world, and yet it understands this requires disjuncture from what has come before. It promises the Sisyphean climb and return. Education does this consciously and deliberately. Education, in some ways, is therefore absurd. Or at least, from time to time it finds itself in the rarefied air. If this is the case then how should practitioners interpret or care for the absurd experience and what exactly might this look like in educational contexts. This article chooses The Fall for the purpose of better understanding the experience of absurd anxiety in the context of education. It uses, as an original device, the imagery of the ‘little ease’ to explore this feeling and the forces underpinning it.

The Longevity of Roman Opałka

Between 1965 and his death in 2011, the Polish artist Roman Opalka completed one work of art, which he understood as synonymous with his life. It involved painting every number from one up to infinity on identically-sized canvases, and, over the ensuing forty-six years, he covered 233 paintings with minute white digits. This unprecedented project has generally been seen as an existential engagement with lived time, but in this essay I also consider Opalka’s practice in relation to historical time, as a vehicle of personal self-formation. His ongoing work enabled him to cultivate a sense of integrity; its extreme rigour was a conscientious response to his contemporary society. I argue that this model of defiant self-affirmation closely resembles that which Albert Camus articulated in his absurdist manifesto, The Myth of Sisyphus. As with the mythological figure of Sisyphus, Opalka’s self-worth was maintained through the unrelenting persistence of an action.

The Sisyphean myth, negative capability and societal relevance

Different forms of literature over the years have expressed mankind’s views, thoughts, notions, beliefs, and inclinations. The feelings of futility, negativity, absurdism, nihilism expressed in the myth of Sisyphus is just one of the numerous representations that literature can offer. But not all literary expressions are posers of questions and problems. Certain concepts such as Keats’ Negative Capability suggest solutions to Camus’ Sisyphean problem and its ilk. This paper explores this problem-solution relationship and finds complementarity and possibility feasible.

Sisyphus, happiness and transcendence

What is the relation between transcendence and happiness? What type of transcendence can still be part of the concept happiness in our modern age? To answer these questions, I analyse the myth of Sisyphus from the existentialist perspective of Albert Camus, and investigate whether Sisyphus is (or can be) ‘truly’ happy and what role transcendence plays in this kind of happiness. This prompts a question about the relation between the concepts transcendence, meaning of life, and happiness. Taking Sisyphus as an exemplar, I argue that, although our contemporary culture has a flattening tendency regarding transcendence, various types of transcendence remain inextricably related to happiness.

Ankyloglossia (n. Tongue-tie) ',Insect, multiple, trunk, word, form tongue-tie, worm, maggot, repeat, negate, monstrous, branch, causation, compress, shape, shift, site, sense, will, agency, society, adapt, cellular, function, fear, pile, sort, cold, cold, reconfigure, joint, test, abstract, formulate, reconfigure, dysfunction, perspective, darkness, convergence, interconnected, relation, articulate, mechanism, define, categorize, topple, no matter, twig, repeat, stone, sand, whistle, wind, drop, dribble, pour,

Abstract Ankyloglossia manifests as multiple systems of categorization. A series of films, 'Systems for: Base, curl, foot, free, out, pile, shake, stack', focus solely on a thigh, calve, an arm and three fingers. These fractions are piled and sorted, at times functioning as distinct and separate characters, and in others emphasized as a whole. They fold into one another to allude to the Exquisite Corpses of the Surrealists, or Donna Haraway's 'Many-Headed Monsters'. A series of text collages are arranged by the order in which the physiological, philosophical and psychological words were removed from the original source, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus (1956). The texts are arranged in entomological boxes, each word separated by an individual entomology pin. A series of photographs are adorned with digitally printed limbs, and presented alongside Raku-fired limbs in Petri-dishes, a collection of parts arranged on tabletops as evidence of an absurd research.

Brave genius: a scientist, a philosopher, and their daring adventures from the French resistance to the Nobel Prize

I really thank Sean Carroll, himself a scientist and educator, for his accessible and scholarly book, dealing with an intellectually unique interaction of two exceptional individuals during 30 years of the 20th century: the philosopher and writer Albert Camus and the biologist Jacques Monod. All readers, whatever their main interest in politics, history, or contemporary evolution of metaphysical concepts and bioscience research, may learn a lot and enjoy this fascinating and passionate account of a critical period when ideologies, biological discoveries, and their occasional confrontations evolved so much. My invitation to review this book for The FASEB Journal is warmly appreciated. Perhaps I was asked, because when I was very young—before I became a research physician and biochemist —I was a member of the French Resistance in the Francs Tireurs et Partisans Francais (FTPF), a fighting organization. Therefore, I had the privilege to be directly in contact with several matters that Camus and Monod approached and greatly influenced but not to say decisively. As Monod and Camus were born in 1910 and 1913, respectively, the book deals with most important political and economical aspects of the 20th century: the development of Communism and Fascism, the second World War, and the following years, featuring the violent and complex relationship between the French and German people. After World War II, audacious French moralists and philosophers, such as Albert Camus, were at the forefront of their field, as were great scientists, particularly those who, like Jacques Monod, revolutionized the basic foundations of biology. They publicly elaborated and discussed revolutionary concepts. Each published a book, creating an intellectual breakthrough: Le mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) by Camus and Le hasard et la necessite (Chance and Necessity) by Monod; these books are introduced to us by Sean Carroll. Camus and Monod, both French and active resistants during the German occupation of France, met after the war; they became mutual admirers of each other and sincere friends. Monod had to work experimentally for many years before being able to speak openly on the significance of his biological discoveries with reference to questions and suggestions of Camus (such as “What is worth living for?”). Monod was the son of an American mother, and his father was a free-thinking painter. Jacques, a cellist and aspiring conductor, was encouraged to be a professional musician and did not make a definitive choice of career in biology until he completed his Ph.D., even though he had visited the laboratory of the pioneer geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan. He married a specialist of Asian art, Odette Bruhland, and they had twin sons, born in 1939. Monod had not yet been conscripted into the army (a consequence of childhood poliomyelitis), but he managed to support the regular armed forces. After the Armistice, he was demobilized in July 1940, and in Paris with his family, he finished his doctorate on bacterial growth. Opportunities for obtaining food were difficult, but more importantly, the collaborationist French government of Vichy developed an antiSemitic policy (Statut des Juifs, or Status of Jews), and so, Monod sent his family to a suburban area. He himself became rapidly very active in the nascent Resistance, writing and distributing clandestine publications. Progressively, he played an important role in underground networks and was promoted to the

Suicide: an existentialist reconceptualization.

The phenomenon of suicide is one of the primary concerns for mental health professions. The health-care literature is dominated by discussions that focus variously on local and national suicide prevention policies, on the assessment of those individuals judged to be at risk of committing suicide as well as the appropriateness and efficacy of interventions for those who express suicidal ideation and display suicidal behaviours. What appear less frequently in the literature, however, are critical analyses of the concept of suicide and, in particular, critical reflections on the manner in which the concept of suicide has been, and continues to be, understood or 'framed'. In an attempt to respond to this apparent omission, this paper will suggest that the work of Albert Camus, and his philosophical work The Myth of Sisyphus in particular, can be understood as providing a significant reconceptualization and reframing of suicide. In doing so, it will be suggested that Camus's work not only challenges how the concept of suicide has traditionally been situated within the context of mental illness, but can also be understood as challenging the efficacy of the interventions that have been associated with an understanding of suicide within that context.

A life worth living: Albert Camus and the quest for meaning

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Albert Camus declared that a writer's duty is twofold: refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance against oppression. These twin obsessions help explain something Camus' remarkable character, which is the overarching subject this sympathetic and lively book. Through an exploration themes that preoccupied Camus--absurdity, silence, revolt, fidelity, and moderation--Robert Zaretsky portrays a moralist who refused to be fooled by the nobler names we assign to our actions, and who pushed himself, and those about him, to challenge the status quo.Though we do not face the same dangers that threatened Europe when Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger, we confront other alarms. Herein lies Camus' abiding significance. Reading his work, we become more thoughtful observers our own lives. For Camus, rebellion is an eternal human condition, a timeless struggle against injustice that makes life worth living. But rebellion is also bounded by self-imposed constraints--it is a noble if impossible ideal. Such a contradiction suggests that if there is no reason for hope, there is also no occasion for despair--a sentiment perhaps better suited for the ancient tragedians than modern political theorists but one whose wisdom abides. Yet we must not venerate suffering, Camus cautions: the world's beauty demands our attention no less than life's train injustices. That recognition permits him to declare: It was the middle winter, I finally realized that, within me, summer was inextinguishable.

On a happy journey?

Matka beautifully re-envisions Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus (1955), raising questions of burdens and fulfilment. Matka is an existential exploration of the human spirit, that here is contextualized by potential limits.

The Spies’ Guide to Cyberspace

After the news broke about the National Security Agency's (NSA) eavesdropping tactics, I read the agency's declassified document Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research, (1) and remembered a scene from The X-Files. Mulder explains to Scully his theory of some mind-bogglingly nefarious government conspiracy. Scully looks at him patiently and says, Mulder, you're talking about people who can't even balance the budget. Listening to the latest news on the NSA, I feel like Mulder: these people are capable of anything. Reading the initial sections of Untangling the Web, I feel like Scully, and ask myself, who are these people? I was shocked at how embarrassingly basic some of the tips are (Browsers assume the prefix 'http://' unless you tell them otherwise [p. 28]). Others are painful cliches (When you do a search, you are going through more information in less than 30 seconds than a librarian could probably scan in an entire career thirty years ago [p. 12]). The aforementioned are the sort of facts included in computer literacy classes for senior citizens. The argument can be made that a guide to Internet research needs to be comprehensive and cover all the basics. But how basic does one need to get? Apparently quite basic, although I can't imagine for whom could the brief explanatory section titled Why Do We Need to the Internet? conceivably be necessary. This section of Untangling the Web illustrates the painful truth that most Internet users think they are better searchers than they actually are, and the authors are simply doing what good reference librarians should always do: adjust their instructions and assistance to the level of guidance the patron needs. Furthermore, that the authors felt the need to write about the web at such a basic level illustrates the ubiquity of illiteracy. I've had to explain to supposed digital natives the difference between an email address and a website URL. Apparently, even in the inner rooms of the Puzzle Palace, illiteracy abounds. Much of the actual search advice is less embarrassing but nothing that a decent reference librarian doesn't already know, thus making an unintended argument for the continued necessity of librarians in the age of the search engine--even at the NSA. For example, use more than one search engine; depending on the type of information you want, a database may be a better source than Google; and--my favorite--consider the accuracy and currency of information before using (p. 26). Brilliant. Anyone who reads Untangling the Web with the hope of learning how to spy on the neighbors--a hope encouraged by silly and inaccurate news coverage (e.g., from Wired.com, Use These Secret NSA Google Search Tips to Become Your Own Spy Agency) (2)--will be gravely disappointed, for the most part. The fact that a Freedom of Information Act request was necessary to make Untangling the Web public is a telling indication of the federal government's post-September 11 mania for secrecy and the ludicrous lengths it can reach. After reading Untangling the Web, I can be sure of one thing: I missed a possible career path. Liberal arts majors frequently wonder what they can do for a living postcollege (yours truly was a history and English double major), and the authors of Untangling the Web probably have bachelor's degrees in English or comparative literature. (3) In the first twenty pages, I encountered references to Borges, Freud, Karl Popper, the myth of Sisyphus, Daedalus and Proteus, the tenth-century bibliophile Abdul Kassem Ismail, and Tristram Shandy. So, English majors of America: along with going to law school, getting an MLS, or signing up for AmeriCorps, you can consider becoming a spy--or at least working with them. Untangling the Web was written in 2007 and is at times touchingly dated (at least to IT nerds). The author predicts that Ask.com has a shot at giving Google serious competition and recommends the now-defunct Pandia for metasearching. …

Eluding Meaninglessness: A Note to Self in Regard to Camus, Critical Care, and the Absurd

Here I present a medical narrative, as a catharsis, regarding Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus in an attempt to elude meaninglessness in my difficult everyday practice of critical care medicine. It is well documented that physicians who practice critical care medicine are subject to burnout. The sense of despair that occasionally overwhelms me prompted my rereading of Camus’s classic text and caused me to recount his arguments that life is meaningless unless one is willing to take a leap of faith to the divine or, alternately, to commit suicide. This set up the examination of his third alternative, acceptance of a life without prima facie evidence of purpose and meaning, a view that may truly have some bearing on my professional life in the intensive care unit.

What if the rock of Sisyphus became lighter?

Sisyphus was born to Aeolus (the Greek god of the winds) and his wife Enarete (the progenitor of Greeks). According to Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and craftiest of men. However, he was condemned by the Zeus (the master of Olympus) because he revealed Olympian wrongdoings. Eventually, Hades (the Greek god of the Dead) punished him with the eternal task of rolling a rock up a mountain, which, upon reaching the top, would roll down again, forcing Sisyphus to start anew. However, although temporarily, Sisyphus was allowed to take a rest during the performance of Orpheus (a legendary musician in Greek mythology). The myth of Sisyphus has become famous, and the subject of many scholarly works, including Camus's philosophical essay1 on existentialism. Camus tells us that discovering the absurdity of society is like being aware of ourselves living Sisyphus's life. From this point of view, he suggests two choices. One is to escape the absurdity by committing suicide, and the other is to find the meaning of life through the expenditure of effort, mirroring Sisyphus's sincere labor. If the rock of Sisyphus were to become lighter, what would change? We may ask whether the rock could be divided into two or more pieces, or if we could cut and chisel the rock into a small, round shape. In the former case, Sisyphus has to seek somebody else who can share ups and downs with him. However, his painful task of rolling a rock could be shared with his faithful companion. In the latter case, if there are many companions sharing the eternal task one by one, Sisyphus might enjoy more mental and physical freedom than before. For the last four years, I have been ascending the hill, pushing a rock called Korean Journal of Orthodontics (KJO) publishes good papers. with the help of the competent members of our editorial board. Additionally, I have endeavored to chisel and smoothen the rock to make it smaller and rounder. Under any circumstances, we retain the initiative in our lives. Our life will always be beautiful so long as we are alive. We recognize ourselves as living a life like Sisyphus when we encounter the absurdity of the world. Although we have faced the harsh truth, we should prepare for the future. Thus, we will equip ourselves with the opportunity to establish the KJO as an international peer-reviewed orthodontic journal.