Well, one paper seems to lead to another:

http://tedsider.org/papers/temporal_parts.pdf



I suppose my initial guess is that I am not my body, but my body is a part of who I am. I am Moliere, and I have a body, rather than am my body.

I started reading this paper last night in response to your inquiry, BC:

Quine's Identity, Ostention, and Hypostasis

But what if you thought neither?

I think that's where the disconnect is. The skeptic doesn't believe either that we are in a dream or that there are independently existing entities. Rather, the skeptic points out that as we have been wrong, entirely, before, we could be wrong again -- and this is just in reference to common uses of the terms, so "being wrong" does not contain an ontological commitment. Hence, due to the possibility of error, we have a reason to doubt.

Granted Aaron R's rendition does say "if I were now dreaming"

I've been making a weaker claim, though. A genuine ground for doubting comes about merely because we choose what we count as real and what we count as not-real, first (how to use the words "dream" and "reality"), and then we have experienced being completely wrong about everything we experience (in what we term "dream" we have believed everything we experience is what we term "reality"), in accordance with how we choose to use those words. If that be the case then we could be completely wrong, once again. Therefore it is possible that I am in dream. That doesn't mean that I am in a dream, only that the possibility is there. The possibility, as I understand the argument at least, is enough to give "genuine grounds for doubting" -- at least as the skeptic has it.

Since the skeptic -- as I am rendering the argument -- is not making a claim about whether or not she is in a dream, much less what that dream is (solipsistic), it's just not the case that you can reduce her position to solipsism, as that is making a claim about reality.

But then I would say you haven't responded to the skeptical argument. The skeptic isn't saying "for all I know I am the only existing entity", even -- but rather using the dream scenario as the "U" in the syllogism, rather than making a claim about reality at all.

And if that's the case, then your reductio ad solipsism wouldn't apply to the argument.

I don't think the argument from the OP leads to solipsism. Looking at it again:

Klein, in his SEP article on skepticism, contends that the Dream argument conforms to the following schema:

1. If I know that p, then there are no genuine grounds for doubting that p.
2. U is a genuine ground for doubting that p.
3. Therefore, I do not know that p. — Aaron R

1. If I know that the object I am holding in my hand exists independently of my mind, then there are no genuine grounds for doubting it.
2. If I were now dreaming, then there would be ground for doubting that the object in my hand exists independently of my mind.
3. Therefore, I don't know that the ball in my hand exists independently of my mind. — Aaron R

Support for P2 being that a dream is not distinguishable from existence, in that we attribute reality to the dream while in a dream, but not when out of the dream.

The power of the dream scenario has more to do with how total it is, I think. When you are in a dream and you do not realize that it is a dream, then literally everything you experience is what, on this side of the dream, we would term not real. And, as @mcdoodle pointed out, we don't even have to term that side of the dream as not real -- we can actually term either side as "real" or "not real". There is a sense in which we've made a decision about reality in order to separate the real from the not real prior to the dream argument. And since what is in a dream seems total, and we've certainly thought that a dream was real before (and hence everything we experience, which we believe to be not real, is believed to be real) -- and so "U" -- we have a genuine ground for doubting p, and hence do not know that everything I experience is real.

But just because I do not know this that does not then imply, because of the character of "U", that I am a solipsist. If I am a skeptic, I would not be a solipsist in the sense that I would not claim to know that I am the only existing entity.

Following the appropriation, only if a person were unable to distinguish between dreaming and non-dreaming would they have grounds to doubt. But, not being able to know when they were in a dream state, they would not have reason to believe that they were ever in a dream! In fact, they would not even know what a dream was - even if you tried to explain it to them (like trying to explain blue to a blind man).

EDIT : After re-reading this, I realized that it might not be clear as to what I was trying to say.

Conclusion : The act of dreaming can never be used as grounds for doubting existence-sans-minds. Either we know the difference between dreaming and non-dreaming and could not logically use dreaming to disprove something about non-dreaming or, we do not know what a dream is and cannot hold it up as evidence for doubt. — Real Gone Cat

I suppose that would depend on how we cash out the terms "grounds for doubt" -- it would seem strange, I think, if a skeptic claimed to know, and on the basis of that knowledge then claimed to have grounds for doubt. The skeptic would claim that they do not know what a dream is -- but we have examples of being wrong about knowing when to appropriately use the word "reality" or "existence". Surely I know how to speak, hence our speaking. But that knowledge does not grant me reality, at least as far as we usually understand reality to not be defined by our speaking.

One problem with the argument is that dreams are epistemically distinguishable from waking experience, in that they do differ quite a bit from waking experience. It's just that usually our ability to judge is suspended while dreaming, although not always. In lucid dreaming, we do realize we're having a dream, and can take control of it to some extent. It's not like we go to sleep and experience another life just like the one we're having, such that we can't tell which is the real life upon waking. Dreams often don't make sense, they're jumbled up and weird. They don't follow the rules of waking perception. — Marchesk

I used to argue exactly this, but I think it's a mistake in reasoning. We can distinguish between dream and reality, but what this does not do is provide justification for concluding that I know the ball I'm holding exists independently of my mind. Rather, all we are doing when we distinguish between dream and reality is setting how we use the terms "dream" and "reality" -- and applying a lack of coherence to the former and more coherence and rules to the latter. But could it not be the case that there are two types of dreams?

All the dream argument does is show that we are, in some cases, mistaken about how we use "reality" -- in what we term dreams we mistakenly believe they are real. So it is possible to believe something is real when it is not real, even by the mere definition of the terms set forth above. Hence, we have a reason to doubt, and therefore do not know. (via the argument, at least).

3. Mind and world are ontologically dichotomous, with experience being entirely "internal" to the mind (e.g. qualia, ideas, representations, etc.) and the world being entirely "external" to it. — Aaron R

I wonder if this is something the dream argument needs to work. On the surface I would say no. Supposing there is no ontological dichotomy between mind and world, the mere possibility that we are in a dream seems to be enough to make the argument get off the ground. In fact, if we conclude skepticism on these grounds, it would seem to be consistent to simply not have an opinion on the matter.

1. Is it ever ok to remain skeptical of an "absurd" conclusion to a clever argument even when one can't pin-point the exact flaw in the reasoning? — Aaron R

Not only is it ok, it's what I'd expect of a rational person. :D Indeed, wouldn't it actually be kind of irrational (just in the common use of the word) if we knew someone who, upon coming across an argument they hadn't considered before, suddenly abandoned their belief just because they hadn't considered the argument before? But that's at the extreme end, which your following question seems to allude to: (since, given time, it might be irrational to hold onto belief)

2. How long can one hold out in search of a rebuttal before they are transgressing the norms of rational discourse?

This one's harder to answer for me. It's just such a big question, from my perspective.

If we're allowing a general sort of rational discourse, then I'd say that rationality is not about which propositions someone believes, but is rather defined by the process by which they got to those beliefs. As such, I don't think it would make sense to put a time limit on propositional content. It would very much depend on whether or not the person is adhering to some kind of process of thinking which is rational -- it's certainly not the case that wide agreement on a proposition is what makes a belief rational, so a person could, theoretically at least, even hold onto the belief after society has changed until they die and, as long as they are doing so by way of a rational process, the belief could still be considered rational (even if it is, in fact, false! :D )

((Also, because I'm remaining general, I'm putting to one side what that process would be. I'm just drawing the line of rationality away from believing in true propositions, and focusing on the process by which belief is arrived at))

I think it depends on whether said meta-physician admits to having argued this or that based on, in some way, taste. There is nothing wrong with utilizing taste in making choices between beliefs.

But I'd also hastily qualify this and note that taste is not the same as whether or not I prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream. In epistemology we differentiate between knowledge and opinion. I would hazard to say that as knowledge is to opinion in epistemology, taste is to preference in aesthetics (just to coin a term to refer to the ice cream example -- not sure if its the best word). And the diversity of beliefs with respect to aesthetics does not, in and of itself, make dispute somehow non-negotiable in the same way that arguing over whether vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream is non-negotiable.

People argue about aesthetics very frequently, in fact. And it's a really interesting branch of philosophy.

I don't know if I'd say that all metaphysics comes down to aesthetics -- that seems a bit of a stretch. But in many cases we are probably drawn to this or that position on the basis of some sense of taste which we gravitate towards. (and explicating that sense of taste -- or, what we might consider good taste -- would be really quite worthwhile).


If a person is just asserting they belief this or that without having any kind of an explanation, I'd think that that is dogmatism -- but not quite philosophy.

What justifies the legitimacy of these rules? Considering that raw experience consists in a continuous field of relatively-positioned, free standing incongruities, why assume that reality contains anything more than that? — aporiap

I suppose I would question your "considering that raw experience" line, first and foremost. But under the presumption -- I would say that epistemology differs from what I experience. Do we assume reality contains anything more than raw experience, or do we conclude that this is so? I'd gather the latter. And as knowledge is a social-product, it is neither dependent upon my mind or my experience, but rather is an entity produced through social organization.

The second being 'semantically'. Clearly the rules ascribe meaningfulness to certain arrangements of features? But is that 'meaningfulness' intrinsic to reality itself? Or is it just something that carries meaning only in reference to minds?

I don't think meaning is either intrinsic to reality, nor strictly mind-dependent. First, 'meaning' is a slippery word in that it means several things. This only makes 'meaningfulness' just as difficult as 'meaning'. In some sense I gather you mean -- as in intend -- that collections of experience mean -- as in indicate -- objects. But when you say 'meaningfulness' I wonder what it is you mean -- as in what is the use said word is being put to, and what is the meaning of the term with respect to your questions and thinking process.

Second, 'intrinsic to reality' is a problematic phrase. What would it mean, for instance, for color (as one of your granted parts of reality) to be extrinsic to reality? And if that isn't well defined, then how can anything be intrinsic to reality? Or perhaps a better line of questioning -- what is the difference between something being real and something being intrinsically real (mind-dependent and mind-independent are my best guesses here)?

Third, and this is just a bit of a guess given your use of 'raw experience' and 'only in reference to minds' -- but if we only come to know something through the mind, then there would be no way of knowing whether this or that phenomena is mind-dependent or mind-independent. At which point you could either conclude that agnosticism on the topic of meaning being a part of external reality or internal reality is the most rational position, or you could posit that there is something other than knowledge that you're making this determination on (but one which is somehow better than opinion, since clearly we can all have an opinion, but there is no sorting between opinions).

Third question. It looks like there can be two different varieties of realism.. One that is with respect to objects and the other that is with respect to just raw experience. On a realist view of objects, these gestalt principles allow us to recognize objects 'out there'. In other words, undifferentiated, shapes are actually 'there', in reality. And they correspond to physical objects. On a realist view of 'raw experience', that uncharacterized, continuous field of sensation is what's 'actually there' and objects would be derivative and the product of mental process. Which do you take to be legitimate? — aporiap

Between the two I take the former to be more legitimate, in the usual way of disproving the opposing view -- which isn't exactly satisfactory, but I'm trying to stay within your lines of questioning, rather than introducing something new or oppositional. "Raw experience", 'uncharacterized, continuous field of sensation', and 'continuous field of incongruous color. Each discernible intensity of color is spatially positioned with respect to other color-intensities' all strike me as the products of analysis. First there's the reification of experience and then there follows the breaking experience apart into component parts. But to name 'experience' and subsequently name its component parts is to already categorize the world into objects -- perhaps not objects as we think of them, but objects in the way you're using the word 'object' -- i.e. any 'thing'. As such it seems more consistent to me to say that both views of realism believe there are objects which compose the world, they merely disagree upon which objects populate the world, and therefore the first position is more legitimate because both positions of realism are the same in that they ascribe reality to nominations.

So there is a perception of anger that is not separate from being angry, and yet is not itself angry. Does this make any sense? That there is always a calm at the centre of the storm of feeling. Now if one can start to notice that, perhaps it will grow. Perhaps one can live from that, and not from one's periphery. — unenlightened

Yes, that makes sense to me. From the brief description I don't find myself able to really grasp what he means by love-anger, myself -- but the other three seemed to make sense to me (at least, in a concrete sense -- abstractly it makes sense, but I don't think I know what it is like). I don't think I would even classify anger solely along his lines, but there was some sense to it too.

To perceive anger we must be angry -- that makes sense too. At least, to perceive ourselves as angry.

I like the notion you put forward of "growing", because that fits in with my experience of anger. Starting with just noticing that you're angry and accepting you're angry is a starting point from which you begin to notice another place, another way to accepting -- or perhaps even "expressing" anger, even though the end steps are in a sense a redirection of anger, and not expressing in the traditional sense.

I hate work. It's something I must do. And I've had a lot of jobs of various degrees of cool and suck, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter what I'm doing -- whether I love it or find it boring. It's the fact that I have to be there that I dislike. In the grand scheme I have made peace with the fact. But if you gave me the option I wouldn't do it.

When I've been unemployed I have always had more energy and been more involved with projects and people. I read, I write, I visit people, I volunteer, I exercise. I do all those things still, but in a limited way, and I don't always get to them all because I'm just tired at the end of the day.

I tend towards the view that desire is primary and is productive, and lack is secondary. Lack comes about because the object of desire has been produced, individuated, or somehow become attached to. We feel a lack upon losing said object of desire, but it is possible to abnegate the lack by abnegating the desire. This would include even very basic things, such as food or water. In the most extreme circumstances we are able to adjust because of this, and in the most pampered circumstances we are able to fret and worry because of this.

Given the function of desire I tend to think that the latter is easier than the former, at least in terms of scaling back from forward. it's easy to "give in" to desire because it produces itself, in many ways. The desire for some thing is often followed by the desire for novelty, or the confusion between the desire for the thing and the desire for novelty or the desire for extremity. In this manner desire is also productive in that it reproduces itself and feeds back into itself to hunger for more, at least if we are not attentive to these tendencies within ourselves and actively work against them (out of a desire for, say, peace and tranquility).


I say desire simply is the self because of a hypothetical, more than anything. What would a self be if it does not desire? What would it do? What characteristics could we attribute to it? A rock is the characteristic object used to contrast with persons -- and it seems to fit said hypothetical. And clearly a rock doesn't have a self. (even abnormally, because 'the self' is largely a normative concept of both ourselves and others and who or what we include in it)

Now, I will say there are difficulties in differentiating other parts of nature from this self if desire is both necessary and sufficient. Perhaps this overreaches a bit. (plants, in some respects, as Aristotle notes, follow appetitive desires, for instance). I think these difficulties could be overcome by understanding how it is that people are able to place other desires above appetitive desires (as in the case of fasting, or hunger strikes, or simply wanting to find happiness when you don't have enough to satisfy these desires).

Seems to me to begin with desire.

We don't even need continuity of self. Wanting something now is enough.

Granted he may not state it, but I think the presumption is implicit in his view. — John

I would put it like this -- the view of materialism is one view which is compatible with absurdism, given certain perimeters to that materialism (such as being a non-realist on moral truths, for instance, which isn't a necessary given), but I wouldn't assent to say that it is the only metaphysical view consistent with absurdism.

Anti-realism, as a whole, seems to fit. Really any metaphysical picture which does not believe eternal values can give aid to humanity would probably fit (so, perhaps they could exist, but be beyond knowing, for instance).

The declaration that it is legitimate to wonder whether life has a meaning is precisely the declaration that the question should be asked and answered by the discursive rational intellect, rather than by intuition and the leap of faith. — John

Heh. This is responded to as well. The leap of faith, from Camus' perspective, is no better or worse off than hoping or having a nostalgia -- it's guaranteed to kill the absurd by simply accepting it. It eliminates one of the terms which grants the absurd. The absurd man clings to reason because he has no such intuitive faculty, that you mention later. Just to make that clear, that isn't to say that there is no such faculty. Perhaps others are different. After all, people get by in there own ways. But this is what the absurd man does.

I don't find this convincing. I think there is a metaphysical presumption of the indifference of the universe or the Real, that is based on the demand that if it were not indifferent that it then should be obvious to the rational intellect that it is not indifferent, and that since such a situation is not obvious at all, that it must be concluded that the Real is indifferent and that we should henceforth live our lives in a kind of radical rebellion against this absurdity, in the light (or darkness) of the nihilism produced by that purported 'insight', rather than capitulating to believing what we are understood to have no evidence for; a capitulation that is seen as 'giving in to wishful thinking'. — John

I would say that the absurd man uses rational intellect not on the basis that this is some kind of criteria of reality, but because it is all the absurd man has. Further, I would caution against attributing nihilism. The whole book is against nihilism, or overcoming nihilism even in the face of nihilism. You may believe that this preconditions the conclusion that reality has no meaning for people. But the absurd man has no other means for grasping the problem.

The absurd man just sees no solution to the absurd in faith. All it does is eliminate the absurd rather than confront the absurd -- and the absurd man is convinced of this alone, that there is an absurd reality born from human desire and the knowledge that reality will never fulfill that desire.

For me it is ultimately an adolescent and facile conclusion, and an utterly artificial 'solution' to a pseudo-problem that has come about due the modern obsessive embrace of objectified rational conceptualization and the abnegation of our intuitive and mytho-poetic faculties.

I think you're holding back. Come on. this is a friendly space. Tell us how you really feel. ;)

I tend to think of Nietzsche as a pragmatist on truth (if we had to place him in a category, at least). That which is true is that which is useful, more or less -- and perspective as well as context changes with what is useful. (Though take it with a grain of sand -- I've just read a few of his books, and that was some time ago too.)

Which is why I believe conviction is something he would castigate sincerely (as not all of his verses cohere together). Conviction would stop one from questioning, stop one from considering alternatives or different or new ways of looking at a question and answer. It is something which keeps one sticking to an answer in spite of what may come.

I agree with @Wosret with respect to the second quote.

Not necessarily, of course. There are things one let's go. But belittling someone or some condition strikes me as the sort of thing which people shouldn't do. Especially if it is a serious condition.

How does that square away with this:

But I'm not contending Camus and others shouldn't philosophically contemplate suicide. — Ciceronianus the White

if it's any consolation, I'm still an American, even if I might contribute to the sentiments so referenced.

Something I've always struggled in being able to clearly differentiate is between the empirical ego and the transcendental ego. As I'm reading the introduction it seems that this distinction is being brought up once again.

I have guesses, but they feel very much like guesses and are vague. In Kant I know why I have these guesses, but I also know that these are very far from central to his philosophy. They're important but not the "meat", so to speak.

I'd be very appreciative of anyone still following the thread if they could give their take on this distinction between psychology and transcendental consciousness or ego. (and if there's even a distinction there, too)

CI as people currently use it seems more 3 than 1 these days. — apokrisis

Perhaps I fell into an odd camp, then. Though I learned it more from the Chem side than the physics side, though physics was part of it, so that might be why.

We went along with collapse was real, and it was the "observation" which made it real. But we didn't attach much significance to "observation", hence why I tend to go back to both H and B -- they both had different takes on it.

I never really saw CI as instrumentalist. Though I mostly take it along the lines of Heisenberg and Bohr -- who never saw eye to eye. Heisenberg was something of a mathematical literalist and a formalist at the same time, from my reading. He didn't particularly seem to care that the findings of QM ran in contradiction to other physical sciences -- he seemed to believe that this was just another question to ask and answer. Whereas Bohr definitely took CI in a more idealist direction, with complementarity forming the core of his interpretation (of, after that, not just QM but everything)

These are just my impressions though, and impressions from memory at that. We always differentiated between instrumental interp from CI, though.

(EDIT: Not really challenging you, just asking for a comment)

You were, however, contending that to do so is to belittle suicide, no?

Without some shared agreement on what is useful I don't know if we could actually productively argue over whether this or that is useful. What, after all, would you say philosophy is useful for at all?

There are suicides, each of them different as they involve different individuals and circumstances. Perhaps a scientific investigation into suicides may provide some insight. But I personally feel that very few of them result from philosophical contemplation, as it seems Camus himself realized, so I wonder just how philosophical contemplation would be useful in that case.

I would say that your wondering how is still not an argument against. There are clearly things we all don't understand -- but that's not a reason to exclude someone from a topic using a particular style of writing.

I doubt those who seriously consider suicide would benefit at all from the philosophical contemplation of suicide. — Ciceronianus the White

How would you measure such benefit or lack thereof, considering that you propose science as the path to possible usefulness, and that each suicide is actually terribly specific?

You doubt -- but what is your reason for doubt?

They would more likely benefit from medical/psychological contemplation and action than being told by some philosopher that they want to kill themselves because life is absurd.

I don't think you'd find anyone here who would disagree with that.

The above is also why I don't think ennui is exactly an appropriate description of the emotion from which the essay is written, either. Camus was a part of the resistance. The unsatisfied desire is the desire for justice, and the realization that what we might consider evil, what we would consider unjust was winning the day.

In our own day we have a war fought on an invented casus belli, and we know that the perpetrators of said lies will never be brought to justice, as well as a financial crisis for whom the same can be said, and a right-wing populist who -- even if his campaign was all bluster -- certainly helped to organize hate-groups.

I wouldn't say that the topic of suicide is exactly the result of listlesness, but the genuine wondering at whether all the pain of life is worth going through when you know what you consider to be evil will dominate and win.

But where does Camus state that the universe is brutely material in essence and origin?

I would say that the context in which the essay is written explains more how the universe appears indifferent. 1940 France is when Paris was taken by the Fascists. In 1955 Camus states:

For me "The Myth of Sisyphus" marks the beginning of an idea which I was to pursue in The Rebel. It attempts to resolve the problem of suicide, as The Rebel attempts to resolve that of murder, in both cases without the aid of eternal values which, temporarily perhaps, are absent or distorted in contemporary Europe. The fundamental subject of "The Myth of Sisyphus" is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face teo face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate. Written fifteen years ago, in 1940, amid the French and European disaster, this book declares that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed beyond nihilism

In the opening paragraph to the essay, so written around 1940 he writes:

But it is useful to note at the same time that the absurd, hitherto taken as a conclusion, is considered in this essay as a starting-point. In this sense it may be said that there is something provisional in my commentary: one cannot prejudge the position it entails. There will be found here merely the description, in the pure state, of an intellectual malady. No metaphysic, no belief is involved in it for the moment. These are the limits and the only bias of this book.

So I would say there's even reason to believe that the indifference of the universe is posited not on the basis of a metaphysical outlook, since he eschews metaphysics in the opening -- and that, given the events in which the essay was written in, there's also reason to believe that the indifference of the universe is acutely felt due to said events. (And it is even admitted that eternal values may only be temporarily absent or distorted).

I don't see a problem with being hip or in vogue. Even if something is hip or in vogue, that doesn't stop it from being what it is. Lady Gaga is a musician, whether she is hip today or not so tomorrow. What does it matter if someone is self-aware that they are revolting against the absurd, that they are smiling, that they reference Nietzsche, that they think of themselves in a Sisyphean manner? How does that take away from the Absurdists revolt?

I don't think there's some kind of real revolt to uphold people to. I think that this is the solution to the problem, the result of the absurd reasoning. It seems to me that you're saying a person has to hide that they feel a certain way from themselves, and purposefully go against the "status quo" in order to revolt. For one, I'm rather uncertain that absurdism is the status quo. But just granting the premise, if it were -- the revolt isn't predicated against numbers or others. It's a revolt against the absurd. So insofar that you follow the absurd reasoning, then the act of revolt is a way to be joyful.

On a side note -- hope is one of those terms frequently spoken against in The Myth of Sisyphus. Hope is a form of nostalgia which one gives into to nullify one of the two terms which results in the absurd, at least as it is used in the essay. I mean, you're free to posit what you want obviously, but it struck me as odd to say that Camus hopes and feels very hip and cool about hoping when he speaks explicitly against hope, at least.

Now, I gather that your revolt may not be Camus' revolt. But from what I can tell you're not an absurdist, either -- you're not following the absurd reasoning, or at least not believing in it. So, insofar that you're not the absurd man, that you don't feel that your desires can not be met by the world and you continue to desire anyways, that the world has meaning (if a pessimistic one) -- the result of all of this would amount to saying: "I don't just disagree with your reasoning, but the premise upon which your reasoning starts". Which, of course, I don't see a problem with that, but I don't see it as a strike against Camus either. After all -- the absurdist can say the same to you, since they started their premise with the absurd.





The concept of "quantity of experience" is one of those that I'm rather uncertain on in the essay. He uses the example of 40 vs 60 years. But I am rather prone to think there is a depth of life, myself. So it's a part of his argument that I find hard to either follow or buy into, and actually wonder what he's getting at (after all, how does one measure quantity of life? Just in years? But then why the number of women being emphasized, the number of characters you play, the number of foes you vanquish? Not quite sure what to make of it. Though the same sort of questions could apply to depth, too)

Certainly addressing a particular case of suicide requires context, and generalizing to understand the motives for suicide requires one to reference the context (since the reasons are many, after all).

But I don't see how that's a reason to exclude suicide from philosophical contemplation. I don't see how you could argue Camus' essay belittles suicide, even if we could imagine that there are ways of belittling suicide by way of philosophical reflection.

I don't know. I realize that suicide is very serious. But I'd say that it helps to have ways of thinking about serious problems.

I mean, what's the way of thinking about suicide now? Isn't it actually pretty complex? And it's mostly placed within a medical context, too -- thereby depriving the victim of much say in the cure. That isn't to say that it shouldn't be done, but I wouldn't exclude it from the realm of philosophy either tout court.

Perhaps he does. But, even so, it's worth noting that he's speaking about Kierkegaard from the perspective of the absurd man. They are legitimate to themselves, but -- according to Camus -- they negate the absurd, which the premise of the essay (Can we, and if so how, do we live with an absurd world?)

Mystical thought has familiarized us with such devices. They
are just as legitimate as any attitude of mind. But for the moment I
am acting as if I took a certain problem seriously. Without judging
beforehand the general value of this attitude or its educative power,
I mean simply to consider whether it answers the conditions I set
myself, whether it is worthy of the conflict that concerns me

...

What is perceptible in Leo Chestov will be perhaps even more
so in Kierkegaard. To be sure, it is hard to outline clear
propositions in so elusive a writer. But, despite apparently opposed
writings, beyond the pseudonyms, the tricks, and the smiles, can be
felt throughout that work, as it were, the presentiment (at the same
time as the apprehension) of a truth which eventually bursts forth
in the last works: Kierkegaard likewise takes the leap. His
childhood having been so frightened by Christianity, he ultimately
returns to its harshest aspect. For him, too, antinomy and paradox
become criteria of the religious. Thus, the very thing that led to
despair of the meaning and depth of this life now gives it its truth
and its clarity

...

It is not for me to wonder to what stirring preaching this
attitude is linked. I merely have to wonder if the spectacle of the
absurd and its own character justifies it

Also, while Camus is certainly a rationalist, I don't find any good reason to attribute scientism to his philosophy. One can conclude that the world is absurd without attributing metaphysical status to scientific propositions, and Camus doesn't rely upon science to sketch absurdity in the beginning or to define it directly thereafter.

What makes you say otherwise?

I'm mostly just focusing in on the text, in this case, rather than cultural affect of Camus' writing.

I sometimes wonder about the particular lives he uses to elucidate the absurd man. My take on it was that he's using extreme cases which are counter to the general attitudes of moral living in order to demonstrate that the absurd man, while it is a kind of ethic, is not the sort of ethic which many are concerned with. He does, though I grant that it's curious that all of his examples are rather romantic, say:

Do I need to develop the idea that an example is not necessarily an example to be followed (even less so, if possible, in the absurd world) and that these illustrations are not therefore models?...A sub-clerk in the post office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them. All experiences are indifferent in this regard

So, just at his word, at least, he's speaking against the notion that one must follow the examples he uses. In addition, he states explicitly that complacency is exactly what the absurd man does not allow -- this is his criticism, in a way, of both suicide and existentialism. They are ways of escape from the absurd, ways towards complacency with the absurd world -- whether that be through the church, the knife, or plunging into the irrational.

This looks to me like you haven't read the essay, or at least missed the part near the beginning where he makes a distinction between people who kill themselves due to distress, and suicide as the result of a process of thought.

Furthermore, he's arguing against suicide -- arguing that it is possible to find joy even in a world without meaning. So it wouldn't matter that "he's not really going to kill himself!" -- he's arguing the extreme circumstance that it is not logical to do so.

Remember, he broadly falls into the existentialist camp (though he tried to renounce this label). — schopenhauer1

While I agree that he falls broadly into the existentialist camp, it's also fair to say he's writing in response or as critical of existential philosophies (as he defines the term, of course). So it's also fair to say he is not an existentialist. On one hand you have the broad historical category where we group some authors together because they have similar themes or moods, but on the other you have a crisper definition offered by Camus which he is critical of.

Still pondering the rest, but on your closing -- I agree that there is a cyclical process. But I don't think the solution is to restart the cycle as much as it is to disrupt the cycle -- the discovery of differance, in this case through the sign and through Husserl's phenomenology, is that concept which is meant to stop the cycle from repeating itself.

It could be, sure. But that's why I'm saying that it's just the introduction to the essay. He even remarks that times may change and that his essay may not be relevant in other times, but that it seems relevant in his time. It's not so much an essay about "This must be the first question in philosophy", as it is an essay about confronting a world seemingly without meaning, as well as wondering if, logically speaking, that would indicate that death is preferable to continuing to live.

Why?

I mean, it's just an introduction to the essay. If you disagree then maybe you can still find insight in the essay, or perhaps you could just put it down and read something else. If you agree, then you'll read it.

It seems to me that one would just support this as the one truly philosophical problem by saying: "If you answer in the affirmative, then all the other problems of philosophy are never addressed, and in the negative, then you may take up the other problems knowing that life is worth living"

I will say -- at parts of the text I feel like, even just to understand the argument, I just need to be more familiar with Husserl than I am. I did my best with my passing familiarity, which includes selections from the Logical Investigations but not Time Conscsiousness, but there was a lot of presumed understanding in the arguments -- which seems to almost always be the case anytime I read Derrida. (For Of Grammatology I had to stop and read Saussure, for instance)

So, to the end now -- as always, guess work is involved, and this is provisional. I think I get the gist, though the reasoning of the paragraph on page 87, where you were referring @Metaphysics Undercover I'm still smudgy on.



Starting where I just left off:
"How does difference give itself to be thought?" What does all this mean?


Husserl, according to the previous, makes Derrida believe that he never believed in the achievement of an absolute knowledge as presence nearby to itself -- but Derrida also states that even though this is the case, that even though sense and the sign are not anchored by wanting to say-the-truth, the metaphysics of presence weaves its way through Husserl's project and tries to make the sign, difference, derived from presence.

The indefiniteness of differance appears only by way of the positive infinity previously discussed, the telos of language. And, likewise, the Ideal as infinite differance is only produced in relationship to death (generally speaking) -- where said Ideal is the infinite differance of presence, in the case of my-death.

Comparing the ideality of the positive infinite to the relation between my-death and the Ideal (as infinite differance) makes this realtion between my-death and the Ideal finite, an empirical matter. So once infinite differance appears, it is finite, rather than infinite. Differance is the finitude of life as the essential relation to itself as to its death. "The infinite differance is finite" -- a contradiction, of course, but a contradiction meant to elucidate differance as play between oppositional concepts -- finite:infinite, absence:presence, negation:affirmation.

If differance appears between, outside, or points to a place that is not dominated by these oppositions, by the metaphysics of presence, then the metaphysics of presence is the end of history. Or, perhaps a better way of saying it, it is a closed history whereupon we master it as we master an object. And, furthermore, even "history" has this quality of mastering, of knowledge as a relation to an object, and is the production of the being in presence.

And full presence is meant to go to infinity to where we have absolute presence to itself -- where we achieve absolute knowledge. But this is only possible in an ideal sense. Hence the oppositional categories which "passes over" ((to use a Heideggerian phrase)) differance and the play between. Metaphysics is wanting-to-hear-itself speak (autoaffection). And this voice, being without differance, is both alive and dead.

2nd paragraph, page 88: Seems to me to be speculating on what this outside of a closure would mean, and acknowledges that if we were to encounter such a question it would sound unheard-of, that it would not be either knowledge or not-knowledge, and that it would seem as if we were wanting to say nothing. I believe the reference to "old signs" is the sort of phenomenological etymology that Heidegger practices, but clearly Derrida believes something more must be done in order to escape this closure. It seems to me that this paragraph acknowledges that we must use signs such as "knowledge", "objectivity", "affirmation:negation", "absence:presence", "finite:infinite" because these oppositions structure our very way of thinking. But there is some hope that through differance we can "break free" of these hierarchies.

Since this is the case we don't know when using these old signs if they are used in the metaphysics of presence or in some novel way. We do not know if the classical distinctions which we have inherited are actually true, or if they are a way of suppressing the truth (since they are so totalizing of our way of thinking, but differance shows us that this totalization, to be cryptic about it, is not total).

The concluding paragraphs seem to be wrapping up these conclusions through metaphore, and noting that, yes, we must speak, yes, we are engaging philosophy in the same manner as it has always been engaged, through the opposition of these concepts -- but what Derrida is after is outside of the concepts of intuition and presentation, outside of sense and non-sense. In fact, given what was just said, it would sound like non-sense.

And though Husserl is the foil through which we are able to see this, he, like others in the philosophical tradition, makes a choice and secures the thing itself -- when the thing itself is infinitely deffered and in each deferal there is a difference from it, something which defines it. Therefore, "the look" (present-at-hand) cannot "remain" (itself a sign steeped in the metaphysic of presence).

Taking me to the top of 87, and adding some of my own connections along the way that I'm making --

It seems to me that the argument here is to focus in the living-present as the founding concept of phenomenology as metaphysics, because this is the common matrix of all the concepts which have, thus far, been put to the test.

And this concept of the living-present is deferred to infinity, in the sense that Kant states we are approximating the truth -- and that this concept lives on a play between, at least in this demonstration (and I presume elsewhere) ideality and non-ideality -- between objectivity and subjectivity, between Bedeutung and wanting-to-say.

This is important because "In its ideal value, the whole system of the 'essential distinctions' is therefore a purely teleological structure" -- hence, metaphysical. It is teleological in that our goal, our objective is the ideal, and an ideal that is never realized at that.

Which, so it seems to me, is elucidating the concept of erasure. We have the moment prior, where the meaning is objective and divorced from the truth, and the moment after, where language -- though it be divorced from truth -- is always reaching for truth, and is thereby still following a notion of the sign determined as sensical only by the form "S is P" -- so the original insight of language, the sign, having meaning regardless of who is speaking, is erased by this infinite deferal, and the phenomenology of the sign shows in what way differance is the origin of this presence (that we choose to focus on presence).