The Fall by Albert Camus

The question of the meaning of life has boggled humanity for perhaps as long as we have had the ability to communicate. Of course, we can always take a blind leap of faith across the abyss into just choosing a meaning to our lives among the many dogmatic options which humanity presents to us. But what if we are unable to delude ourselves into believing that which we attempt to have faith in? If we cannot muster the clay to build the necessary cognitive dissidence then how do we deal with the problem of meaning? It is this paradox and the anxiety it produces which Camus wrestles with in his philosophy of Absurdism. The absurd is the realization that there is no ultimate meaning to life and yet we all take life so seriously everyday and seem to produce some type of meaning for ourselves nonetheless. In this week we continue the theme from our reading of The Stranger by tackling The Fall. Join us as we discuss this work together and grapple with the paradox of the human condition.

Participants should read the entire reading before attending this in person meeting. I will be reading from this version here and a free copy can be found here. We will read the entire book for this week (p. 3-147).

For questions please send me a message or post to meetup.

Best,

Brian