Syracuse Philosophy Meetup

You strive and strive to achieve your goals. Once achieved, you move on to the next goal.

Again.

And again. And again.

Is all of this just an endless and ultimately meaningless treadmill? Or can we construct a meaningful existence out of our daily struggles?

Sisyphus was a figure from Greek mythology who incurred Zeus' wrath and was condemned to eternally push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down each time. Albert Camus, the great French existentialist philosopher and writer of the mid-twentieth century, wrote a philosophical essay about this myth, trying to make sense of its absurdity.

Join the Syracuse Philosophy Meetup as we look at Albert Camus' take on the Myth of Sisyphus. We'll look at his analysis and his final take on how one can create meaning in a seemingly absurd universe.

We'll also look at other answers to the problem of absurdity, including Thomas Nagel's article The Absurd, and Friedreich Nietzsche's poetic description of Eternal Recurrence.

For Camus' work, it's a chapter in part of a larger book, and I do NOT recommend reading the whole book. Go here:

https://ia800406.us.archive.org/6/items/persepolis_202107/The%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus%20-%20Albert%20Camus.pdf

and scroll down to page 95 where it starts with the heading "THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS". It's only 4 pages.

Nagel's article is relatively accessible, and can be found here:
https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absurd%20-%20Thomas%20Nagel.pdf

Finally, for Nietzsche, it's just one paragraph, which I have reproduced here from Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy:
'The heaviest weight. — What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but
every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the
same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal
hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your
teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, 'Do you
want this agam and innumerable times again?” would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?'

You can find the text online here: https://ia800908.us.archive.org/29/items/livrospdf/Friedrich%20Nietzsche%20-%20The%20Gay%20Science%20%5BEnglish%5D.pdf

Happy thinking and hope to see you guys there!!

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus