Philosophical Dictionary

Today we are once again the meme! Join us as we discuss Santa and Sisyphus in light of Albert Camus's work on the absurdity of existence.

The final par of the "Philosophy Carol" series. Meeting the Ghost of Philosophy in an eternal cafe brings you to an epiphany.

Explore the profound relationship between cosmic nihilism and entropy in this philosophical examination of universal indifference. Discover how thermodynamic laws shape existence and how thinkers like Nietzsche provide frameworks for finding meaning in an uncaring cosmos.

Camus ends a book about suicide with a man pushing a rock forever and calls him happy. Here is what “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” really means, the Greek myth behind it, what the French original says, how painters from Titian onward showed Sisyphus, the best objections from Taylor and Nagel, and why the meme says “asymptomatic”.

Nihilism is the view that life, morality or knowledge have no solid foundation. Here is what that means in plain English, how a 1799 insult and a Russian novel made the word famous, what Nietzsche really meant by “God is dead”, the difference between existential, moral, epistemological and cosmic nihilism, whether nihilism is real or dangerous, and what Camus, the existentialists, Buddhism and Viktor Frankl offer as a way out.

Absurdism says we keep asking the universe what it all means, and the universe never answers. Camus called that clash “the absurd” and refused both easy exits: giving up and inventing comforting answers. Here is what absurdism actually means, where it comes from, how it differs from nihilism, existentialism and Stoicism, what Thomas Nagel and the theatre of the absurd added, and how to live as an absurdist without becoming insufferable.