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espanolEste articulo se trata de un estudio sobre la relacion entre la filosofia del absurdo y el Eros en la obra literaria del escritor frances Albert Camus, con la finalidad de demostrar que ambas concepciones resultan incompatibles. Para ello, los distintos escenarios del absurdo que se presentan en las obras de Camus y sus implicaciones en el Eros fueron analizados. Esta relacion fue abordada a partir de las visiones de los personajes que actuan con presencia o ausencia de Eros EnglishThis articule is a study about the relation between the philosophy of the absurd and the Eros in the literary work of the french writer Albert Camus, with the aim to show how these two conceptions are incompatible. To do this, the different settings of the absurd that are present in the books of Camus and their implications with the Eros were analyzed. This relation was approached with the visions of the characters that act with the presence or ausence of Eros

The philosophical stance about the existence of being and the meaning of life has been a widely discussed subject among philosophers and critics. Existentialism says that a man can construct his own meaning of life by making judicious use of his awareness, free wills and personal responsibilities, but absurdism believes that there is no meaning of life out there. The focus of this study is to explore the absurdist and existential aspects in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis (1915) and The Trial (1925). This is qualitative comparative research, and the data which have been collected for this purpose is through purposive sampling techniques. In this study, Camus' theory of absurdism and theory of existentialism has been adopted as a theoretical framework. The study explores in what ways the traces of absurdism and existentialism are present in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis and The Trial. The findings show that characteristics of absurdism and existentialism are found in both the works of Kafka and are comparable with each other. For future recommendations, a comparative stylistic analysis of these selected novels can be carried out.

Regarding the mini-text Divine Justice belonging to the book Oficios de Noe by the Colombian writer Guillermo Bustamante Zamudio, an attempt is made to parody the legal discourse in order to question the comprehensive processes involved in the mini-fiction reading and thereby reveal themes, strategies and meanings. The purpose is to understand the entire hermeneutical circuit that allows the reader to arrive at possible judgments about the coordinates of the universe sustained in the desacralization, the subversive character and the production of narrative tensions that are debated between the absurd, the uncertainty and the playful as symptoms of an always borderline and unstable text. For the treatment of these aspects, a hermeneutical understanding and a phenomenological approach are used based on the proposals of Piglia and Guillen. As results we have a text judged around the fall of all certainties, which becomes the exercise of a detective reading full of riddles, suspicions and persecutions.

The focus of this article is Yoko Taro’s NieR: Automata in general and its four main characters—androids 2B and 9S as well as machines Adam and Eve—in particular. Following their evolution in the game, I intend to show that they serve its author as a tool with which to propose that the sense of absurd, and the sense of life’s meaninglessness around which their world is created, can be fought with selflessness.

There are striking differences between Camus’s early and late philosophical essays, but Camus often claimed that his works were part of one consistent project. This paper argues that, although Camus had a significant change in his views on the consequences of the absurd, throughout his life he also had a common concern with the relation of the absurd to morality. Showing this requires us to clarify what Camus meant by the “absurd,” and identify at least three different uses of the term by Camus: lacking a purpose; lacking an explanation; and a tension between purpose and purposelessness. Clarifying the meaning of “absurd” allows one to show that Camus’s late argument against suicide, often dismissed as inadequate, is valid. This also illustrates the consistency of his concerns over time.

Human existence is essentially characterised by habit. It is habit that carries us most of the times, from one day to another as our daily activities are mostly routine in nature. As Albert Camus (1942) notes, most of our daily activities are commanded by habit. This is why Camus compares the human condition to that of Sisyphus. Camus submits that like Sisyphus, the same rhythm carries us from one day to another and this makes our actions automatic, if not robotic. Furthermore, Camus notes that habit usually leads to monotony, boredom and meaninglessness of our actions. This is what he refers to as the absurdity of human existence; a feeling of futility we may experience when we become aware of the repetitiveness of our routines and rituals (Craig, 2005); grosso modo, a lack of fundamental meaning in life. In this paper, our analysis of Camus’ play, ‘The Misunderstanding’ (1943) is hinged upon Sartre’s existentialism, which has close affinities with Camus’ philosophical concept of the absurd. In ‘Being and Nothingness’ (1943), Sartre submits that the problem of being is the most important phenomenological problem. According to Sartre, there are essentially, two modes of existence; Being-in-itself and Being-for-itself. Being-in-itself is the type of being that objects in this world have; for example, Being-foritself is the being of human beings. In this article, we have submitted that habit robotises the characters in Camus’ play in that it (habit) transforms them into Being-in-itself whose existence is passive and absurd.

The present paper provides the first presentation of Jean Hering’s dissertation Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori (1914) in light of Husserl’s assessment of Lotze’s theory of knowledge in the Logik. After a preliminary discussion of some of the main aspects of Husserl’s dismissal of both the metaphysical presuppositions and the absurd consequence of Lotze’s stance on knowledge, the case will be made for considering Hering’s critical approach to Lotze’s view on the a priori as a further development of Husserl’s position. In the conclusion, some remarks will be offered on how Hering elaborates on what he calls the “philosophical concept of the a priori.”

The notion that King Lear can be interpreted through Samuel Beckett’s theatre has now become a critical truism. Peter Brook’s production of the play for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in the e...

Esse artigo visa apresentar duas concepções que apresentam possíveis encontros na análise da narrativa do escritor brasileiro José J. Veiga. Primeiramente, demonstraremos como se desenvolve uma das teorias de análise contemporâneas do fantástico na literatura sob a perspectiva do professor David Roas (2011, 2014). A seguir, através do estudo da obra do filósofo e escritor argelino Albert Camus, em especial seu livro O mito de Sísifo (2019), iremos apontar em linhas gerais as características mais discutidas da chamada filosofia do absurdo defendida pelo escritor. A partir dessas comparações iremos apontar as semelhanças entre os estudos filosóficos de Camus e a teoria da literatura fantástica desenvolvida por Roas e apontar como ambas apresentam pontos de intersecção na literatura do autor brasileiro José J. Veiga, em especial em dois de seus contos “O galo impertinente” e “ Onde andam os didangos?”, ambos do livro A estranha máquina extraviada (2010), conduzindo a uma leitura fantástica-absurda da obra do autor em conexão com uma possível ontologia de mundo.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, clients and therapists alike are apt to experience an increase in existential anxiety. Irvin Yalom formulates existential anxiety as the result of a confrontation with the givens of death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. As a formulation for COVID-19 pandemic anxiety, Yalom’s formulation provides a means to grasp the existential crisis facing the individual wherein the ability to cope with anxiety and despair is overwhelmed. As a prophylactic for the paralyzing existential terror and despair faced through the existential threat of COVID-19, Albert Camus’ concepts of the absurd and the absurd hero are developed as a means to embrace the absurd and tragic character of the COVID-19 pandemic. The absurd and tragic heroes Sisyphus and Dr. Bernard Rieux become role models for the pandemic therapist.

What might be an African response to Albert Camus’ position that our lives are absurd, and would it be plausible? Camus’ absurdism is the view that human existence is not only meaningless, but huma...

Through selected close readings from plays by Arthur Adamov and Samuel Beckett, this article examines how language is herein used against itself to expose the impossibility of meaninglessness. By replacing significance with mere surface sounds, language emerges from these plays as a carrier of unexpected—and inescapable—meaning. Tracing a series of comic reversal techniques common to both Adamov and Beckett, famously grouped together under the moniker Theater of the Absurd, the author demonstrates how the attempt to deprive words of sense-making is repetitiously usurped by other sensory elements which doggedly invest the striving for senselessness with profound ambiguity, against all odds. À travers l’analyse des pièces de théâtre d’Arthur Adamov et de Samuel Beckett, cet article propose d’explorer comment le langage y est utilisé contre lui-même pour démontrer l'impossibilité du non-sens. En remplaçant la signification par de simples sons de surface, le langage apparaît dans ces pièces comme porteur d'un sens inattendu - et inéluctable. Retraçant une série de techniques de renversement comique communes à Adamov et à Beckett, tous les deux regroupés sous le nom de Théâtre de l'absurde, l'auteur illustre comment les tentatives de priver les mots de leur sens sont usurpées de manière répétitive par d'autres éléments sensoriels qui investissent obstinément la recherche du non-sens d'une profonde ambiguïté, contre toute attente.

Camus unreservedly condemned and strictly criticized and rejected suicide and existential leap because suicide is a total surrender to absurdity and a total confession that life is too much on the individual. His interest in existentialism is to explain the meaninglessness of life through his explication of the absurd which is found in human existence; and which continues to torment man until the finality of his existence which is death. The knowledge that life is absurd is already a step towards conquering the meaninglessness of life. For Camus therefore, since absurd has no meaning, man must hold himself apart from it and revolt against it. This is why he suggested philosophical suicide as a solution to reverse the absurdity of life. The question then is, since man’s belief in the absurdity of existence, then how and where should he direct his conduct, does suicide solve this problem? The consequences of Camus’ submissions are enormous; but be that as it may, this work attempts a study of the absurdity inherent in human existence with a view to answering the following questions: How far did Camus achieve the idea of absurdity of life? How realistic is Camus’ attempt to analyze life as meaningless apart from the meaning we give to it? Did Camus actually succeed in his attempt to show that life is absurd? Finally, what are the implications of Camus’ absurdity to philosophy and to life in general? This work will adopt expository and analytic methodological approaches. Here we shall with a detailed and deep reflective inquiry expose the place of absurdity in Camus’ philosophy in order to fully understand his understanding of life.

We do not have an absolute knowledge of why are we exist or what are we living for. Therefore, it is possible that every human being has queryed the meaning of life, living or death at least one time on his life. Why do people live? Or why do people commit suicide? Are we looking for meaning in our lives because we think life will end suddenly? These questions and similars must have come into the mind of one of the prominent names of the 20th century, Albert Camus. Because he draws attention to the concept of suicide as the only and priority problem of philosophy. He considered to make a judgment as to whether life is worth living and the meaning of live as a fundamental and philosophical problem. Camus researched the absurd state that occurs when man is alienated from the world he lives in with Incompatible and he approached it in an attitude which is independent from divine being. The purpose of this study is to focus to death suicide, quest about meaning of life and absurd concepts in the light of Albert Camus’ philosophy. It will be tried to point out whether life is an event that is worth living, whether the life has an absolute value in this world where pessimism, difficulty, despair and even pain prevail with his philosphy., Niçin var olduğumuzun ya da ne için hayatta bulunduğumuzun mutlak bilgisine sahip değiliz. Dolayısıyla her insanın, yaşamının en az bir anında hayatın anlamını, yaşamı ya da ölümü sorgulamış olması muhtemeldir. İnsan niçin yaşar? Ya da insan niçin intihar eder? Hayatın aniden sona ereceğini düşündüğümüz için mi hayatımızda bir anlam arıyoruz? Bu ve benzeri sorular 20. yüzyılın öne çıkan isimlerinden biri olan Albert Camus’nun de aklından geçmiş olacak ki intihar kavramına dikkat çekmiştir. Hayatın anlamını ve yaşanmaya değer olup olmadığı hakkında bir yargıya varmayı esas ve öncelikli felsefi problem olarak görmüştür. Camus insanın, yaşadığı dünyaya ve kendine yabancılaşmasıyla ortaya çıkan absürd durumu incelemiş ve buna tanrısal bir varlığa bağlanmayan bir tavırla yaklaşmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı Albert Camus felsefesi ışığında yaşama dair bir anlam arayışı, ölüm, intihar ve absürd kavramlarına odaklanmak olacaktır. Onun felsefi çatısı altında hayatın yaşanmaya değer bir olgu olup olmadığı, karamsarlığın, zorluğun, umutsuzluğun hatta acının hüküm sürdüğü bu dünyada yaşamın mutlak bir değer taşıyıp taşımadığı hususuna değinilmeye çalışılacaktır.

Inmersa en una época influenciada por la corriente filosófica del existencialismo, la obra de Saramago entra en un diálogo irónico y descarado con el lector de una sociedad que se aleja de la iglesia, porque siente que Dios todopoderoso cohíbe al hombre de una elección libre por el miedo del castigo. En Memorial del Convento, se destaca el sufrimiento a través del castigo injusto y cruel de la Santa Inquisición, compuesta por hombres tan pecaminosos o más que otros, provocando la interrogación en el lector sobre su relación con un (im)posible divino. La narración demuestra la naturaleza humana corruptible, inseparable del pecado de la carne, y el absurdo de un dios que crea al hombre con un cuerpo pecaminoso. Se evidencia un dios que castiga el amor verdadero cuando este debería ser el protagonista de la religión cristiana.)

portuguesO artigo preconiza a relevância pedagogica da filosofia da nao-significacao de Albert Camus, especialmente em O Mito de Sisifo. O eixo argumentativo segue a ultima frase deste livro: “E preciso imaginar Sisifo feliz”. A certeza da existencia e a estranheza de se inserir num cenario de catastrofe, sem esperanca, suscita em estudantes, especialmente da rede publica, um “sentimento da absurdidade”, mas esse estado nao ha de ser visto como maldicao. A liberdade paradoxalmente advem quando se assume o absurdo como meio de se afirmar a vida, contra os suicidios fisico e filosofico, tornando Sisifo o “heroi absurdo”. Camus atribui ao pensamento de Soren Kierkegaard a proposta do suicidio filosofico como sacrificio do intelecto pelo salto kiekegaardiano da fe porque ele entende a felicidade encontrada na vida eterna como uma superacao e cura da doenca mortal do desespero. O esforco dialetico de autorreflexao da consciencia entre o finito e o infinito faz da resignacao infinita uma preparacao para o salto da fe. Para nosso autor, porem, o pior mal e nao ter sofrido desespero, pois e a partir dele que imaginativamente o absurdo, como potencia existencial, transfigura-se numa “revolta metafisica” — uma posicao a ser desenvolvida no processo de ensino-aprendizagem em Filosofia. EnglishThe article praises the pedagogical relevance of Albert Camus’ philosophy of meaninglessness, especially on The Myth of Sisyphus. The argumentative axis follows the last sentence of this book: “One has to imagine Sisyphus happy.” The certainty of existence and the strangeness of being inside in a catastrophic scenario, without hope, arouses in students, chiefly of the public school system, a “feeling of absurdity”, but this state of affairs is not to be seen as a curse. Freedom paradoxically comes when one assumes the absurd as a means of affirm life, against physical and philosophical suicides, making Sisyphus the “absurd hero.” Camus attributes to Soren Kierkegaard’s thought the proposal of philosophical suicide, which would be an intellectual sacrifice through the leap of faith because he understands the happiness only can be found in eternal life as an overcoming and cure of the deadly disease of despair. The dialectical effort of self-reflection of the consciousness between the finite and the infinite makes infinite resignation a preparation for the leap of faith. For our author, however, the worst evil is not to have suffered despair, because it is departing from him that the absurd, as an existential power, is imaginatively transformed into a “metaphysical revolt” – a position to be developed in the teaching-learning process on Philosophy.

Critics of organ donation after circulatory death (DCD) argue that, even if donors are past the point of autoresuscitation, they have not satisfied the “irreversibility” requirement in the circulatory and respiratory criteria for determining death, since their circulation and respiration could be artificially restored. Thus, removing their vital organs violates the “dead-donor” rule. I defend DCD donation against this criticism. I argue that practical medical-ethical considerations, including respect for do-not-resuscitate orders, support interpreting “irreversibility” to mean permanent cessation of circulation and respiration. Assuming a consciousness-related formulation of human death, I then argue that the loss of circulation and respiration is significant, because it leads to the permanent loss of consciousness and thus to the death of the human person. The DNR request by an organ donor should thus be interpreted to mean “do not restore to consciousness.” Finally, I respond to an objection that if “irreversibility” has a medical-ethical meaning, it would entail the absurd possibility that one of two individuals in the same physical state could be alive and the other dead—an implication that some think is inconsistent with understanding death as an objective biological state of the organism. I argue that advances in medical technology have created phenomena that challenge the assumption that human death can be understood in strictly biological terms. I argue that ethical and ontological considerations about our nature bear on the definition and determination of death and thus on the permissibility of DCD.

The structure of feeling that has been called the absurd suggests a placeless and irrational world. Yet such a structure of feeling is sometimes produced in response to quite a specific context. This essay considers the way absurdity arises and is treated within Anna Seghers’s Transit, a novel about the plight of refugees from Nazi Germany trying to leave unoccupied France after the signing of the Armistice between France and Germany in June 1940. The essay explores the treatment of space and time in the novel and suggests that there is a significant distinction between absurdity as resignation and absurdity as dissent. The essay also claims that absurdity is explicitly countered in the novel in the pursuit of a politics of responsibility and a resistance in solidarity.

I begin with a not so empathic inquiry into Camus’ fictional character Mersault, examining the extent to which I think it is primarily the character’s Absurdist (and therefore amoral) philosophy th...

In the paper, the author has provided the hermeneutical analysis of the play “The Dresser” (1980) by English playwright Ronald Harwood. It has been investigated that in this literary work, the writing of which was finalized in postmodernism, there are philosophical features of postpostmodernism. The role of Shakespearean intertext in the play has been outlined. A number of provisions on the features of post-postmodernism in English literature of 1980s has been clarified, as well as features of connection between postmodernism and neo-fabulism as one of the directions of post-postmodern literature. In the aspect of the development of B. Shalahinov’s literary approaches regarding the specificity of the interaction of two metaforms of world culture – carnival and mystery – in the play “The Dresser” has been spotlighted. The representation of existentialistic features in the outlook of the main actor (Sir) in the play, as well as King Lear, played by Sir, has been revealed. It is emphasized the explication of Shakespearean masks system as intertextual manifestations in order to counter the absurd reality and lift above it. The features of the humanistic worldview in the outlook of the main actors of the play have been described.

Many instances of art are valuable. Where is this value located? And how is it to be justified? In this paper I reconstruct and critically assess Albert Camus’ answers to these questions. Camus’ theory of the value of art is based on his “logic of the absurd”, i.e., the idea that the human condition is absurd and that we therefore ought to adopt an attitude of revolt. This idea entails that art lacks any intrinsic value. Rather, Camus argues, art is valuable only insofar as it promotes creators’ or recipients’ awareness of the absurd and their attitude of revolt. The main problem with this theory is that it exaggerates the significance of the logic of the absurd for art. Even if the human condition is absurd and we ought to revolt, artistic value cannot plausibly be reduced to these facts.

V razpravi primerjamo dve drami: poetično filozofsko dramo Antigona Dominika Smoleta (1929–1992), ki je leta 1960 imela premiero na Odru 57 in je usodno zaznamovala razvoj slovenske drame, in satirično igro Děvka z města Théby (Prostitutka iz mesta Teb) češkega dramatika Milana Uhdeta (roj. 1936) iz leta 1967, ki so jo samo kratek čas izvajali v praškem in brnskem gledališču, potem pa so jo zaradi ruskega vdora na Češkoslovaško in totalitarnega režima prepovedali. Med dramama ni realne povezave in ne moremo govoriti o možnih vplivih, razkrivajo pa se neverjetno podobna medbesedilna izhodišča in idejne povezave: obe se motivno in tematsko navezujeta na Sofoklovo in Anouilhovo Antigono (ta je imela na Češkem po vojni še večji uspeh kot v Sloveniji). Oba dramatika filozofsko izhajata iz eksistencializma in absurdne dramatike (prav te oznake se pojavljajo tudi pri poznejših analizah njunih dram). Češki filozof Patočka je izpostavil tezo, da v 20. stoletju dominira problem Kreonta in tudi v obravnavanih dramah Kreon postaja osrednji protagonist oz. antagonist. V analizi se osredotočamo na lik Kreonta, ki v obeh dramah postaja glavni »igralec« v dramskem dogajanju in tudi osrednja figura, ki se giblje na območju zla, kar razkriva njegov diskurz in dinamika odnosov z drugimi postavami. Njegova osebnost se v dramskih situacijah pogosto oblikuje v nasprotjih in njegova dejanja izražajo notranji konflikt. Kreon je v obeh dramah zanimiv tudi zaradi političnih konotacij: njegov problem lahko razlagamo kot tipičen problem socialističnega oblastnika.

O presente artigo pretende analisar o conceito de “lei” na obra de Franz Kafka, suas múltiplas interpretações, bem como a dificuldade dos personagens kafkianos em compreender a função e significado da “lei”. Diante das inúmeras dificuldades dessa investigação, analisaremos os processos de angústia, culpa e agonia que surgem dessa tarefa contínua, bem como de que maneira tais afetos são também, em grande medida, formas de expressão da “lei”. Analisaremos ferramentas de enfrentamento dessa dificuldade em identificar tanto a regra quanto a ação correta, bem como buscaremos compreender os impasses desse contínuo método de produção do significado, no jogo da significação e da construção simbólica do mundo. Por fim, diante da contínua e inesgotável necessidade de identificação da “lei” e de interpretação de seus significados, analisaremos a possibilidade de uma interpretação literária presente na filosofia de Albert Camus para interpretar a angústia do homem kafkiano, na luta por reencontrar ou reconstruir o espaço da plenitude “metafísica” perdida. Ao final, concluímos que, diante da agonia inevitável da incessante necessidade de identificação e interpretação da “lei”, é viável, no plano filosófico, a interpretação de Albert Camus sobre o esforço absurdo, para dar sentido à tarefa de viver de acordo com regras.

A majority of humans possess innocuous minds, preoccupied by hopes, beliefs and absurd imagination (Fig. 9.1), yet susceptible to misconceptions and lies, denoted by Chomsky and Hermann 1995 as manufactured consent.

In my essay, I present my own work as a playwright, which stands at the intersection between surrealism, the absurd and pataphysics. I establish esthetic and philosophical distinctions between these three literary schools and movements. But I also stress the fact that they are never mutually exclusive: instead, they complement each other in the creation of an original language that exceeds the narrow boundaries of realism and rationalism. I then study the issue of ludics by showing that it holds a definite power of transgression. This transgression is both of a linguistic and of a political nature. In my perspective, ludics necessarily includes a form of critical thinking that engages the theatrical text within the community and radically questions the values and the norms of both the social order and mainstream culture.

Shakespeare’s dramatization of villainy in Richard II is an enthusiastic accumulation of the seeds of iconoclastic rebellion that will appear in Nietzsche’s theory of the unhistorical man next to the irrationality of the theater of the absurd, precisely with Brecht. Shakespeare’s new idea of history seems to be contingent on disconcerting the teleological impression about his text as an English chronicle with a view to reconnect with the human beyond conformity. It is in this light that Richard II displays the importance of villainy as sine qua non for the subversion of the enduring Christian time-consciousness. Shakespeare’s history drama therefore permeates a philosophical performance of a subjective time-consciousness which transcends the overthrow of English kings into a larger irony about the repressive will of their socio-political world.

The theme of death has always been present in the history of philosophy and is also present in Sartre's existentialist texts. The main work that deals with death is: “The being and the nothingness” of 1943, on which this article is concentrated. In this work, death is seen as the limit for nadification. However, the important conception of atheistic existentialism in the work “Existentialism is a humanism” also stands out, in which death is presented as an end, without the postmortem perceptions of Christianity. It will also deal with the text “Nausea”, as a way of thinking about death and its absurdity. The theme of the absurd is also described in the work “The being and the nothing”, and it is the first key for reading this phenomenon of the limit of life, but which is still life. One last issue to be addressed, and no less important, is being-for-another, the conception of my death faced by the other, and how this other reacts and underlies, in a sense, my own death.

My essay focuses on one of Tennessee Williams's least critically analyzed play and probably his less staged one, Camino Real (1953.) The play has often been interpreted as an expressionist and/or an existentialist play. Moreover, it was mostly rejected by critics and audiences alike when he was first performed in the 1950s, mostly due to its unrealistic quality. Remarkably, some of the attributes that the critics used to describe the play are the same used to describe absurdist dramas: "anti-drama", "anti-theatre.” The reason for the failed success of Camino Real lies precisely, in my opinion, in the lack of recognition of the absurdist element in it: the "organized meaninglessness" (Adorno, 120) that allowed Williams to represent the irrational quality of the modern human condition. Using as critical tool Theodor Adorno’s essay “Trying to Understand Endgame ”, my aim will be to show that the play is successful in taking on the themes and techniques of absurdist theatre in the manner of Samuel Beckett. In "Trying to Understand Endgame " Adorno mentions Camino Real and identifies the motif of rubbish as central in both Beckett's Endgame and Camino Real underlying in this way a sort of continuity between the two plays. In my contribution I am going to analyze Camino Real using some of the tools Adorno applies to his study of Endgame and I will try to show the characteristics that in my opinion make Camino Real an absurdist play.

espanolPara quienes somos no solo ciudadanos de una sociedad material sino tambien seres metafisicos, es imposible reducir el rol de la filosofia -como querria el marxismo- a una revuelta contra la injusticia economica, etica o politica, o incluso -como Kant y Husserl- a un conocimiento racional de los primeros principios o a una ciencia formal. Explorando la angustia y el absurdo, la filosofia existencial aborda las causas de la conciencia desdichada de lo existente singular: la muerte, la necesidad y la irrealidad. Es un acto de rebelion, una tentativa de superar las evidencias y de descubrir las posibilidades del vivir. EnglishIf we are not only members of a material society, but also metaphysical beings, it is impossible to reduce the role of philosophy -like Marxism- either to a revolt against our unfair economical, ethical or political situation or -like Kant or Husserl- to a rational knowledge of first principles or to a formal science. The existential philosophy, which explores the anxiety and the absurd, deals with the causes of the existing individual‘s unhappy consciousness: death, necessity and unreality. It is an act of rebellion, a tragic attempt to overcome self-evident truths and find the possibility of living.

Imagination and belief are obviously different. Imagining that you have won the lottery is not quite the same as believing that you have won. But what is the difference? According to a standard view in the contemporary debate, they differ in two key functional respects. First, with respect to the cognitive inputs to which they respond: imaginings do not respond to real-world evidence as beliefs do. Second, with respect to the behavioural outputs that they produce: imaginings do not motivate us to act as beliefs do. I argue that this view is mistaken in one important respect. The distinction between imagination and belief does lie at the functional level; but the relevant functional difference does not concern behavioural outputs – since, in spite of appearances, imaginings and beliefs motivate us to act (and react) in the same ways. To see the difference, we need to focus on the inputs side – and, relatedly, on the sorts of inferential relations that imaginings and beliefs bear to each other. I show that this view does not have the absurd consequences that it may prima facie seem to have; on the contrary, it has important implications for our understanding of how the mind works.

The article deals with the definitions of the term «absurd», the paradigm of commedia dell’arte from a psychological point of view. It was shown that the role of the absurd in Shakespeare’s plays was outlined. It was noted that the term «absurd» came from the Latin: «absurdus» is «nonsignificance», «nonsense». The absurdity, on the one hand, is connected with the «skepticism» of Socrates (I know that I do not know anything), and, on the other hand, with Socratic irony (do not isolate anything completed, finished, forever given and unchanged). It was noted that already in the ancient art the absurd was used to reach the understanding of unknown things and actions. In particular, in the anthology, pantomime, the clown appears as moros or stupidus; his absurd behavior is a result of his inability to understand the simplest logical connections of things. It was stressed that thanked to the absurdity, W. Shakespeare opened new faces, new depths and, at the same time, the tragedy in Renaissance dualism. It was noted that the official status of the Person W. Shakespeare considered unreal, temporary; the negative characters in his drama were people who seek to conquer or strengthen their official status. Such a life goal is false, perverse, leads eventually to a vital defeat. In order to achieve their deceptive purpose, such people often have drown in natural feelings or sacrifice natural links, that is, in such a way, they are killing their natural essence. Given the absurd frames, explicated in the plays of W. Shakespeare, the article highlights the psychological mechanisms of the expression of the absurd meaning by a writer. These are such mechanisms as: the explication of absurd frames existing in the consciousness of the individual; the images of absurd in terms of random details, archetypes, metaphorical contexts; the explication of the absurdly hidden nature of causal relationships that appear to be evident as a result of the usage of certain lexical units by the author, lexicalstylistic means, etc.; the presentation of a play of an absurd tie by the author; the presentation of the context of deciphering the play by the author with an absurdly displaced center. The article emphasized that it was necessary to pay attention, first of all, to the fact that the understanding of the absurdity was arising as a result of unexpected for the reader transforming the tense context of the play into quite obvious semantic frames. According to such conditions, the witty absurdity will include the fact that the reader first perceives a play for the truth that misleads him, and then turns into persistent absurd frames that are fixed, fixed in the consciousness of the individual. Such frames, in turn, can be understood by the reader as containing nonsense, senselessness, can lead to the creation of stable cliches (built on the principle of «game of ideas»), which, in turn, become structural components of human consciousness

In this piece I will focus on what I think is a central aspect of Albert Camus’s thinking, embodied in the distinction he makes in The Rebel between rebel and revolutionary. His is a philosophy of rebellion and he thinks that revolutions are a distorted expression of our need to rebel against that which we cannot accept. His views should serve as a counterpoint to those who think that an all-or-nothing approach to social change is desirable (those who, for instance, are too quick to justify murderous campaigns allegedly aimed at justice). And the issue here is not that embodied crudely in the reactionary (or conservative)/radical dichotomy. Rather, it is a defence of the need to rebel within limits, not so much to preserve the old against the threat of the new but, instead, to preserve basic human decency from the dark side of outrage, without dismissing what is crucial about outrage and emancipatory struggles.

2018 marks one hundred and fifty two years since the birth of the Russian religious existential thinker Lev Shestov (1866–1938), whose name is counted amongst the most influential European philosophers of the 20th century. A paradoxical and provocative writer, Lev Shestov searched for ways to diminish the burden of psychological and existential suffering in the life of the individual. His parable about receiving ‘the mysterious gift’ of ‘a new pair of eyes’ from the Angel of Death engaged the existential problems of facing uncertainty, the unknown and death with the possibility of a creative transformation, which could allow an individual to see things outside the law of reason and ‘preconceived self-evident truths.’ Drawing on Shestov’s analysis of Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, as well as Camus and Lovtsky’s observations, I argue that Shestov’s interest in the human psyche manifested in his writing, in which he often strove to ‘psychoanalyse’ his characters, found common ground with the psychoanalytical approach. However, unlike Freud’s psychoanalysis, which was grounded in reason and analytical systematisation, Shestov’s philosophy aspired to find a cure to enable an individual to withstand the pressure of the absurd reality of human existence by breaking free from the constraints of rational thought.

This article focuses on the issue of the solitude of a creative personality by drawing from writings of Ivan Turgenev. It argues that Turgenev has in part been misunderstood as a result of a stereo...