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Food for Thought

Sisyphus Rocks!

Tim Madigan looks at the meaning of life for Albert Camus.

“Sisyphus, it will be recalled, was condemned by the gods to roll a stone to the top of a hill, whereupon it would roll back to the bottom, to be moved to the top once more by Sisyphus, then to roll it back again, and so on, over and over, throughout eternity. Here, surely, is existence reduced to utter meaninglessness.” – Richard Taylor

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” – Albert Camus

It would be hard to find two more contrasting passages than those above, taken respectively (and respectfully) from Richard Taylor’s book Metaphysics (1963) and Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (1942). For Taylor, the Ancient Greek myth exemplifies futility; for Camus, joyfulness.

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