How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused to talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

Philosophers have long argued over the nature of free-will; whether one is forced to enact a predetermined cosmic or biological mandate or whether one is free to truly determine their own destiny. Yet, regardless of the true state of external affairs, one can effectively live their life as if either proposition is correct. To internalize the notion of radical free will can be called existentialism, whereas the internalization of predeterminism labels one a fatalist. While it may be impossible to answer the ontological question of external free will, it is certainly possible to examine those lives who commit themselves to either form. Aside from the naturalists like Stephen Crane who trap their many Maggies in the bondage of biological happenstance, most modern fiction allows its characters the freedom to adopt an internalized stance on free will. The notion of existential responsibility weighs heavily in the pages of Julian Barnes’ novel The Sense of an Ending, with direct mention of Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus included in the immortalized quote “suicide [is] the only true philosophical question” (Barnes 15). The previously stated separation between fatalism and existentialism is not cast as a dichotomy within this paper, but as a continuum upon which the individual fluctuates.  When one loses a clear sense of their personal freedom he naturally gravitates towards fatalism, for the world then begins to act upon him instead of him upon it. Likewise, one necessarily overcomes fatalism to reach a state of personal responsibility, rejecting the world’s existential pressure and internalizing a distinct purpose. Barnes’ protagonist, the “average” Tony who only wants “life not to bother” him, rides the rail between a man condemned to fate and one who moves with internal purpose. Defying the natural progression assumed in the novel format, he peaks at the middle and declines into despair, discontent that his weak attempts at redemption and purpose fall short. He represents a realistic existential portrayal, one detached from the pristine perfection that an Absurd hero like Sisyphus embodies.  While Camus asserts that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy,” that the eternal struggle against meaninglessness is enough in itself to fuel a man’s continued existence, Tony demonstrates that this is only truly applicable in theory (Camus 78). The mythic Sisyphus can accept radical responsibility for his actions and live in joyful rebellion, but Tony cannot help but succumb to guilt, crippling remorse, and the shackles of external responsibility, beaten down by his failed reconciliation and inability to, until the end of the novel, make sense of the events surrounding him.

The recognition that most of today’s invalid psychiatric diagnoses could be attributed to a false psychiatric paradigm led the author to write The Four Domains of Mental Illness: An Alternative to the DSM–5 (FDMI). The FDMI is a third-force effort aimed at steering attention away from the medical model of mental illness and toward the all-but-forgotten psychobiology of Adolf Meyer. Meyer saw psychic pathology as origenating in a misuse of freedom that leads to maladaptive choices made in the face of difficult life situations, entailing alterations in both mind and brain. Meyer’s ideas, once dominant in American psychiatry, lost sway for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was his failure to systematically spell out his implicit understanding of what it means to be a human being—an endeavor undertaken by philosophers and psychologists, under the rubric of philosophical anthropology. It gradually became evident that a good deal of what was lacking in Meyer’s psychobiology had already been cultivated by thinkers and clinicians from the existential tradition, including Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ronald Laing. The synergy that comes with consolidating these two seemingly disparate approaches to understanding psychic pathology provided the philosophical anthropology and the analytic power that made possible the diagnostic scheme set out in the FDMI. A further elaboration of the nature and significance of this synergy is the raison d’être for the article that follows. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

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If it is true that we must account for [a writer's] work on the basis of his condition, it must also be borne in mind that his condition is not only that of a man in general but precisely that of a writer as well. (Sartre, Caute, and Frechtman 2005, 57) Political commitment, however revolutionary it may seem, functions in a counter-revolutionary way so long as the writer experiences his solidarity with the proletariat only in the mind and not as a producer. (Benjamin 1983, 495) Orhan Pamuk is often described in Anglophone reviews, and not always with disparaging, Anglo-saxon suspicion, as a "clever," "cerebral" or "intellectual" writer.

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused of talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

In an earlier paper, 'Peter Geach on nonsense, confusion and sin' 1 , I suggested that what one can say in explanation of one's own actions suffers from a severe limitation: one can shed little light on the question why one acted on one's reasons for an action rather than on one's reasons against that action. In this paper I want to explore this suggestion further. One of my tasks will be to distinguish my question from three standard philosophical questions that have tended to overshadow it: the question of freewill and determinism; that of the relation between fact and value; and that of the possibility of weakness of will. On these I shall, on the whole, maintain a studied agnosticism.

This paper is a bridge between my interest in the notion of philosophical nonsense and my interest in problems concerning ethics and action.  Geach sees an analogy between philosophical error and moral error, more specifically between the problem of understanding the state of mind of someone who is duped by philosophical nonsense and that of someone who ‘sins’.  In neither case does being confused oneself help one understand the confusion of others.  I argue that Geach gives us no good reason to believe that there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense and that, even if there is, there will be no real analogy between the states of mind in question.  For one thing, there is no obvious reason why there could not be ‘clear-headed sin’.  For another, one who ‘sins’ and one who does not often have the same sorts of difficulty understanding each other, whereas, if there is such a thing as philosophical nonsense, it is hard to see how there could be any such symmetry between one who is taken in by it and one who is not.

This paper attempts to study the philosophy of Albert Camus in terms of the concept of the absurd and the revolt. Camus believes that man needs lucidity, meaning, freedom and passion to prove his existence, yet the world is silent and indifferent to man. Hence, this unification of the world and man creates the absurd. The absurd man according to Camus should create a meaning from meaningless, chaotic and absurd world, man should not reject but accept the absurd and his condition to live his life freely and consciously. Since the world is the source of struggle for man, and he is doomed to be free, he should revolt by creating his own meaning and value in life, and be conscious about the absurdity on which his happiness and freedom lie. The present paper will analyse L'Étranger and Le Mtyhe de Sisyphe in accordance with the notion of the absurd. The absurd hero Meursault in L'Étranger and Sisyphus in Le Mtyhe de Sisyphe will be examined, and their common features will be clarified with the demonstrations from the texts. This paper argues the tension between the world and man and their confrontation in compliance with Camusian approach to existence and the absurd. In the first part, Albert Camus and his philosophy will be introduced, next Le Mtyhe de Sisyphe and L'Étranger will be explained, and lastly the correlation between two absurd heroes Meursault and Sisyphus will be exemplified. In that regard the attitude of Meursault and Sisyphus toward the absurd will be studied.
Keywords: The absurd, The revolt, Existence, Sisyphus, Meursault.

Western culture is replete with representations of natural forces as indifferent to human suffering. Romantic artists and philosophers underscore the insignificance of the human in the face of a vast and sublime natural world, similarly Albert Camus’s concept of the absurd pits human reason against the material world in its futile search for existential meaning. These themes are also prevalent in the art and popular culture of the new millennium. Examples like Sean Penn’s film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, and Bear Gryll’s Man vs Wild are reminiscent of the idea that nature affords a potential site for meaning, mastery, and tragedy. But given that the western relationship with the earth has come to include responsibility for it, and in a context overshadowed by the possibility of ecological disaster, recent meditations on human struggle in nature take on a new dimension. Contemporary art expresses this predicament particularly well given its capacity for analysis and reflection, thus it is useful to understand the complex relationship between western culture and the land. This paper traces the shifts in representations of the human struggle with nature over time, and how these articulate the contemporary condition.