Editing Absurdism (section)

=== Practical and theoretical ===
An important component of the absurd on the practical level concerns the seriousness people bring toward life. This seriousness is reflected in many different attitudes and areas, for example, concerning fame, [[pleasure]], [[justice]], knowledge, or survival, both in regard to ourselves as well as in regard to others.<ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Bertman1971"/><ref name="Hamer2020"/> But there seems to be a discrepancy between how seriously we take our lives and the lives of others on the one hand, and how arbitrary they and the world at large seem to be on the other hand. This can be understood in terms of [[Importance#Nihilism, absurdism, and existential crisis|importance]] and caring: it is absurd that people continue to care about these matters even though they seem to lack importance on an objective level.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Benbaji |first1=Yitzhak |title=The Moral, the Personal, and the Importance of What We Care about |journal=Philosophy |date=2001 |volume=76 |issue=297 |pages=415–433 |doi=10.1017/S0031819101000365 |jstor=3751779 |s2cid=143737564 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3751779 |issn=0031-8191|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kahane |first1=Guy |title=If Nothing Matters |journal=Noûs |date=2017 |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=327–353 |doi=10.1111/nous.12146 |s2cid=146890471 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KAHINM|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The collision between these two sides can be defined as the absurd. This is perhaps best exemplified when the agent is seriously engaged in choosing between arbitrary options, none of which truly matters.<ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Pölzler2014"/>

Some theorists characterize the [[ethical]] sides of absurdism and nihilism in the same way as the view that it does not matter how we act or that "everything is permitted."<ref name="Bertman1971"/> On this view, an important aspect of the absurd is that whatever higher end or purpose we choose to pursue, it can also be put into doubt since, in the last step, it always lacks a higher-order justification.<ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Gordon1984"/> But usually, a distinction between absurdism and nihilism is made since absurdism involves the additional component that there is a conflict between man's desire for meaning and the absence of meaning.<ref name="Pölzler2018">{{cite journal |last1=Pölzler |first1=Thomas |title=Camus' Feeling of the Absurd |journal=The Journal of Value Inquiry |date=1 December 2018 |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=477–490 |doi=10.1007/s10790-018-9633-1 |s2cid=171870246 |language=en |issn=1573-0492|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Hamer2020"/>

On a more theoretical view, absurdism is the [[belief]] that the world is, at its core, indifferent and impenetrable toward human attempts to uncover its deeper reason or that it cannot be known.<ref name="Baltzer-Jaray2014"/><ref name="Blomme2013"/> According to this theoretical component, it involves the [[epistemological]] problem of the human limitations of knowing the world.<ref name="Baltzer-Jaray2014"/> This includes the thesis that the world is in critical ways ungraspable to humans, both in relation to what to believe and how to act.<ref name="Baltzer-Jaray2014">{{cite book |last1=Baltzer-Jaray |first1=Kimberly |title=Journal of Camus Studies 2013 |date=14 August 2014 |publisher=Camus Society |isbn=978-1-291-98484-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1RIYBwAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=1. Absurdism: The Second Truth of Philosophy}}</ref><ref name="Blomme2013">{{cite journal |last1=Blomme |first1=Robert J. |title=Absurdism as a Fundamental Value: Camusian Thoughts on Moral Development in Organisations |journal=International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy |date=2013 |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=116 |doi=10.1504/IJMCP.2013.055720 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BLOAAA|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This is reflected in the chaos and irrationality of the universe, which acts according to its own laws in a manner indifferent to human concerns and aspirations. It is closely related to the idea that the world remains silent when we ask why things are the way they are. This silence arises from the impression that, on the most fundamental level, all things exist without a reason: they are simply there.<ref name="Baltzer-Jaray2014"/><ref name="Vörös2017">{{cite journal |last1=Vörös |first1=Sebastjan |title=Wrestling with the Absurd: Enaction Meets Non-Sense |journal=The Journal of Mind and Behavior |date=2017 |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=155–165 |jstor=44631535 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44631535 |issn=0271-0137}}</ref><ref name="Aronson2011"/> An important aspect of these limitations to knowing the world is that they are essential to [[human cognition]], i.e. they are not due to following false principles or accidental weaknesses but are inherent in the human cognitive faculties themselves.<ref name="Baltzer-Jaray2014"/>

Some theorists also link this problem to the [[Münchhausen trilemma|circularity of human reason]], which is very skilled at producing chains of justification linking one thing to another while trying and failing to do the same for the chain of justification as a whole when taking a reflective step backward.<ref name="Nagel2012"/><ref name="Hamer2020"/> This implies that human reason is not just too limited to grasp life as a whole but that, if one seriously tried to do so anyway, its ungrounded circularity might collapse and lead to madness.<ref name="Nagel2012"/>