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Position:Home>Philosophy> Is there a formal philosophy that endorses accepting and embracing the absurd?Question: Is there a formal philosophy that endorses accepting and embracing the absurd!? For those of us who take comfort in the fact that very little makes sense and "it's all absurd" seems as good of an explanation as any, is there a formal name for that type of philosophy!.
If so, what is it called and please expand for a person who thinks about this kind on thing a lot but has never bothered studying philosophy, because, you guessed it, it all seems absurd to me!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The philosophy current you are looking for is called "existentialism", and it has as its greatest exponents to name a few, and not in any order whatsoever: Kierkegard, Sartre, Dostoievsky, Kafka, Nietzsche, Camus, deBeavoir, Edmund Husserl!. Exsistentialism's basic tenet is that individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives rather than being defined by, limited by outter reality!. These philosophers have in common that all of them felt an "ennui" or Angst in the face of the absurd they perceived in life, in reality, in the capacity of men to live but also to foresee their death, and their practical impotence in determining their single one thing men possessed most evidently and valuated above all: His own life!. in the face of this absurd, the existentialist valuated the own existence more than anything and that it was to human beings as such to give and find meaning in themselves, in their identity, in their life opposing the absurd and the irrationality they perceived in reality!. Some concepts of existentialism really make you think deep, while others I kindly disagree for reasons that are too short here to number, but mainly because I am one of those that thinks that reality and the cosmos around us is ordered, behaves in intelligent manner, and is not an absurd mess, if it was so, then there would have been no science possible of anything!. However I do agree with them that is to us essentially the responsability to make our own lives and give them meanings, although not selfishly but always transcending our own finite nature!. it is then that we become trully free, no matter how absurd we feel reality is around us!. I like Kierkegard a lot, and Albert camus makes you think a lot too!. But you definitely gotta read the Brothers Karamazov, by Fedor Dostoievsky , that masterwork is existentialism at its maximum expression!. I recommend you stay away from Nietzche at least after you have read these two, because Nietzche can make you feel like the ground under your feet is gone if you don't have a firm ground to hold on to!. Cheers and happy enquiry for you, I admire your sense of questioning the meaningful aspects of reality, those that trully matter!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Discordianism!.!.!.!. inspired by Robert Anton Wilson among others!.!.!.!. I'll try to give a link below!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Yeah, it's called religion!.Www@QuestionHome@Com GonzoWww@QuestionHome@Com |