The Meaning of Life

Critical reflection on: Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd” and Jeffrey Olen, “The Meaning of Life”

The two readings being brought into immanent conversation converge in their interest in the absurd and the meaning of life, as their respective titles suggest. They share the view that human existence is essentially absurd and deny that life is ultimately meaningful, while affirming that our response to this alleged profound truth is what really matters, such that life really is what you make of it. On the other hand, they differ in their evaluation of particular approaches our absurd situation. Olen finds religion to be a “satisfactory answer to many of us” (p. 440) while also praising the defiant heroics of Sisyphus, whereas Nagel dismisses religion as merely one competing form of service to higher ends among many (whose ultimate justifications are also in question) and urges us to “approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair” (27). Olen and Nagel explore various understandings of the question of meaning and responses to meaninglessness, trying to offer rationally defensible arguments for finding meaning in absurdity, the fundamental fact of human existence (Olen, 434).

As Olen and Nagel describe it, the absurd is essentially a fundamental incongruity “between the universe and our own aspirations” (Olen 434). The world we inhabit does not meet our demand for it to provide us with meaning (Nagel 24). Nagel proceeds further and emphasises the sense of “transcendent awareness” – the ability to perceive ourselves as if from the outside. This “backward step” does not give us a true outside perspective (this is impossible), however, only enough information to see the strange seriousness with which we pursue what can be regarded as essentially mundane and indeed arbitrary and futile activities (22). Nagel finds absurdity in the application of a “transcendent consciousness into the service of an immanent, limited enterprise like a human life” (26). Further, the potential for overwhelming doubt negates the possibility of the demand for meaning ever being satisfied. Where Camus’ definition of absurdity turns on a contrast between “our expectations and the world” (24), for Nagel, absurdity arises from a “collision within ourselves” (24). Philosophical absurdity is a contrast between experience and “a larger context in which no standards can be discovered.” (24). Thus, it is impossible to expect ultimate grounding in the form of a view from nowhere in order to be required to justify meaning.

Both Nagel and Olen address the question of the larger purpose to determine whether this is a sufficient justification for providing meaning. This position assumes that the purpose of our lives are not sufficient in themselves, and the larger purpose to which our lives are necessary to provide us with the elusive sense of purpose. However both Nagel and Olen are quick to point out that such appeals to “higher causes” and “the greater good” also need further justification in favour of their ends as well. Nagel and Olen differ in response to this. Nagel, operating with an a priori assumption that life is meaningless automatically rules this option out (23), whereas Olen is more willing to consider the appeal to God for life’s meaning alongside (like Nagel) the denial that life is ultimately meaningful (437).

Nagel is critical of the appeal to higher purpose, and attacks it on the grounds of scale. Absurdity as taking seriously something that is “small and insignificant and individual” (23), merely begs the question of the significance of the larger enterprise or higher purpose. All are subject to scepticism – the all-seeing eye of certainty. The endlessly recursive chain of justification only finishes when we are “content” to have them end and do not find it “necessary” to look further (23). The search for meaning in a higher purpose becomes emotionally, rather than logically, exhausted. Taking the transcendental step also exposes the self-referential nature of our justifications in our search for ultimate meaning.

Olen’s assessment encourages us to rethink questions about the meaning of life by questioning their legitimacy. Citing the work of J. L. Austin, such questions are classified as those such about things in general. These “pseudo-questions” (436) commit the fallacy of asking about “nothing-in-particular” (436), and thus can have at best only “pseudo-answers” (437). While Olen emphasises the strength of the desire to find answers to such questions, he directs us to pay attention to the particularity of life and doing ordinary things. By doing so, the problem of the larger context is solved by avoidance – bury yourself in the minutiae of everyday life and the big picture questions won’t drive you to therapy or worse.

In order to avoid Austin’s fallacy, the point of something is needs to be placed in its larger context or purpose – one which particular actions serve. The argument runs that unless our actions serve a larger purpose, then neither does our lives, and if this is so, then our lives have no meaning (437). Olen is returning to the theme examined the context of ultimate importance, that is, from a perspective external to us (435). Olen fields the argument that against the background of the universe as a whole, we do not matter, and thus an individual’s contribution to humankind also does not matter. To accept this though is to commit the fallacy of scale deplored by Nagel (21). Olen agrees, but from an emotional angle, wondering about the validity of letting such questions “affect our feelings about life’s worth” (439).

Olen also considers accepting the possibility of a God, who has a larger plan and purpose in which the universe, human history and the individual have their part, and thus is far more sympathetic than Nagel to finding ultimate answers in religion. He quotes Ecclesiastes as providing an authoritive answer in this regard, “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” (434). For Olen, this response is reserved for those who can take Kierkegaard’s leap of faith (440). For those who can’t, Olen appeals to our ordinary needs and wants as sufficient to propel is into the future. Olen’s conclusion is self-admittedly “banal” (440) – keep yourself busy with ordinary everyday concerns because the concerns about ultimate meaning are irrelevant. He appeals for meaning to the “purposes of individual actions” (44) – but this only returns us to question the larger context in which they fit. Despite this, things can be referenced to the immediacy of the moment – we sweat the small stuff because they matter to us now.

Olen also asks if questions about the meaning of life really lead us either to commit suicide or to join the church (438). For those happy few, religion settles their disquiet. What of the suicide solution? Both Olen and Nagel consider the response of suicide to the absurdity of our existence. While Camus believed suicide to be “the central philosophical question” (Olen 437), Olen and Nagel’s interpretation of how Camus answers this issue differ. Olen accepts the view of Camus that life is a series of experiences. Although we are unable to evaluate the relative merit of any of these, we should attempt to have as many of these as we can, and live them heroically (438). Olen then gives an overview of the five absurd heroes, outlining in detail the myth of Sisyphus. By realising the futility of their lives, the absurd hero is able to live in “freedom and revolt” (438). Thus the response to absurdity is not suicide but rebellion – in the role of the doomed hero, futile yet valiantly defying the fates.

For Nagel, suicide is also escapist but in a different sense. For suicide to be any kind of feasible “solution” it must be posed in response to an accepted “problem”. But is the absurdity of existence a problem that inevitably compels the suicide solution? (26). If the issue is problematised in this way, and suicide ultimately rejected as escapist, is a self-consciously defiant tragic heroism acceptable as an alternative response? Nagel is not convinced. He calls it not an exercise in (existential) courage but “romantic and self-pitying” (26). According to Nagel, our response to absurdity need not be an agony ending in suicide nor a contemptuous defiance of fate like the absurd hero of Camus (26). This “betrays a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation” (27).

Olen and Nagel broadly agree that universe is meaningless and accept the absurdity this entails for the conduct of our lives. Through rejecting the dilemma of suicide or God, both arrive at a similar conclusion: We make our own meaning. Each tries to offer a rationally defensible argument for finding meaning in a meaningless life. As Nagel observes, “If a sense of the absurd is a way of perceiving our true situation, then what reason can we have to resent or escape it?” (26). However, it does not necessarily follow that if this rationally accepted, it should be emotionally acceptable.

Olen admires the absurd hero as an example of the adage “life is what you make it” (441). He also offers a fascinating yet mysterious Zen-like silence as an alternative. Nagel’s weapon of choice in the face of absurdity is irony. He returns to the transcendent theme, asserting that “If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.” (27). While superficially comforting, if applied to itself irony must be just as good (or bad, as the case may be) as heroism or despair.

Irony has its advantages, if only as a sanity saving device, as Nagel suggests, “if we tried to rely entirely on reason… our lives and beliefs would collapse [into] madness” (25). The self-conscious ironist recognises the absurdity of the situation, yet maintains a commitment to the fiction of meaning. This fiction is recognised as necessary and the absurdity appreciated. Perhaps this is a retreat into quietism, the sublime mystery of silence alluded to by Olen. In the end, we return to our lives, as we must.