This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(October 2015) |
Absurdity is the state or condition of being unreasonable, meaningless, or so unsound as to be irrational. "Absurd" is the adjective used to describe absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at the absurd situation." [1] It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning "out of tune". [2] The Latin surdus means "deaf", implying stupidity. [1] Absurdity is contrasted with being realistic or reasonable [3] In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with nonsense, meaninglessness, fancifulness, foolishness, bizarreness, wildness. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Absurdism is a concept in philosophy related to the notion of absurdity.
The term absurdity has been used throughout history regarding foolishness and extremely poor reasoning to form beliefs. [4] In Aristophanes' 5th century BC comedy The Wasps , his protagonist Philocleon learned the "absurdities" of Aesop's Fables, considered to be unreasonable fantasy and not real. [5]
The Classical Greek philosopher Plato often used "absurdity" to describe very poor reasoning, or the conclusion from adopting a position that is false and thus reaching a false conclusion, called an "absurdity" (argument by reductio ad absurdum). Plato describes himself as not using absurd argumentation against himself in Parmenides. [6] In Gorgias, Plato refers to an "inevitable absurdity" as the outcome of reasoning from a false assumption. [7]
Aristotle rectified an irrational absurdity in reasoning with empiricism using likelihood, "once the irrational has been introduced and an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the absurdity. [8] He claimed that absurdity in reasoning being veiled by charming language in poetry, "As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it... But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes unnoticed." [8] In Aristotle's book Rhetoric, he discusses the situations in which absurdity is employed and how it affects one's use of persuasion. According to Aristotle, the idea of a man being unable to persuade someone by his words is absurd. [9] Any unnecessary information to the case is unreasonable and makes the speech unclear. If the speech becomes too unclear; the justification for their case becomes unpersuasive, making the argument absurd. [10]
Michel de Montaigne, father of the essay and modern skepticism, argued that the process of abridgement is foolish and produces absurdity, "Every abridgement of a good book is a foolish abridgement... absurdity [is] not to be cured... satisfied with itself than any reason, can reasonably be." [11]
Francis Bacon, an early promoter of empiricism and the scientific method, argued that absurdity is a necessary component of scientific progress, and should not always be laughed at. He continued that bold new ways of thinking and bold hypotheses often led to absurdity, "For if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity." [12]
Thomas Hobbes distinguished absurdity from errors, including basic linguistic errors as when a word is simply used to refer to something which does not have that name. According to Aloysius Martinich: "What Hobbes is worried about is absurdity. Only human beings can embrace an absurdity, because only human beings have language, and philosophers are more susceptible to it than others". [13] Hobbes wrote that "words whereby we conceive nothing but the sound, are those we call absurd, insignificant, and nonsense. And therefore if a man should talk to me of a round quadrangle; or, accidents of bread in cheese; or, immaterial substances; or of a free subject; a free will; or any free, but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say he were in an error, but that his words were without meaning, that is to say, absurd". [14] He distinguished seven types of absurdity. Below is the summary of Martinich, based on what he describes as Hobbes' "mature account" found in "De Corpore" 5., which all use examples that could be found in Aristotelian or scholastic philosophy, and all reflect "Hobbes' commitment to the new science of Galileo and Harvey". This is known as "Hobbes' Table of Absurdity".
According to Martinich, Gilbert Ryle discussed the types of problem Hobbes refers to as absurdities under the term "category error".
Although common usage now considers "absurdity" to be synonymous with "ridiculousness", Hobbes discussed the two concepts as different, in that absurdity is viewed as having to do with invalid reasoning, [13] [14] while ridiculousness has to do with laughter, superiority, and deformity. [15] [16] [17]
G. E. Moore, an English analytic philosopher, cited as a paradox of language such superficially absurd statements as, "I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe it". They can be true and logically consistent, and are not contradictory on further consideration of the user's linguistic intent. Wittgenstein observes that in some unusual circumstances absurdity itself disappears in such statements, as there are cases where "It is raining but I don't believe it" can make sense, i.e., what appears to be an absurdity is not nonsense. [18]
In existentialism, absurdism, and related philosophy since the 20th century, absurdity is used in a more specialized way, often termed the absurd: the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find these with any certainty. The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the absurd, but rather the absurd arises by the contradictory nature of the two existing simultaneously. [19] [20] Therefore, absurdism, a philosophy most famously associated (posthumously) with Albert Camus, is the belief that the universe is irrational and meaningless, alongside theorizing about the human struggle to create meaning. [21]
Due to the absurd, seeking purpose or meaning in an uncaring world without purpose or meaning may be regarded as either pointless or as still potentially valuable. Seeking to accumulate excessive wealth or pursuing other existential goals in the face of certain death are other concepts discussed by philosophers who contemplate the absurd.
In his paper The Absurd, Thomas Nagel analyzed the perpetual absurdity of human life. Absurdity in life becomes apparent when we realize the fact that we take our lives seriously, while simultaneously perceiving that there is a certain arbitrarity in everything we do. He suggests never to stop searching for the absurd. Furthermore, he suggests searching for irony amongst the absurdity.[ citation needed ]
Absurdity has been explored, particularly the absurd (in the above philosophical sense), in certain artistic movements, from literary nonsense to Dada to surrealism to absurdist fiction. Following the Second World War, the Theatre of the Absurd was a notable absurdist fiction movement in the dramatic arts, depicting characters grappling with the meaninglessness of life.
"Theater should be a bloody and inhuman spectacle designed to exercise (sic. exorcise) the spectator's repressed criminal and erotic obsessions.
Medical commentators have criticized methods and reasoning in alternative and complementary medicine and integrative medicine as being either absurdities or being between evidence and absurdity. They state it often misleads the public with euphemistic terminology, such as the expressions "alternative medicine" and "complementary medicine", and call for a clear demarcation between valid scientific evidence and scientific methodology and absurdity. [22] [23]
"I believe because it is absurd"
— Tertullian
Absurdity is cited as a basis for some theological reasoning about the formation of belief and faith, such as in fideism, an epistemological theory that reason and faith may be hostile to each other. The statement "Credo quia absurdum" ("I believe because it is absurd") is attributed to Tertullian from De Carne Christi , as translated by philosopher Voltaire. [24] According to the New Advent Church, what Tertullian said in DCC 5 was "[...] the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd." [25]
In the 15th century, the Spanish theologian Tostatus used what he thought was a reduction to absurdity arguing against a spherical Earth using dogma, claiming that a spherical Earth would imply the existence of antipodes. He argued that this would be impossible since it would require either that Christ has appeared twice or that the inhabitants of the antipodes would be forever damned, which he claimed was an absurdity.[ citation needed ]
Absurdity can refer to any strict religious dogma that pushes something to the point of violating common sense. For example, inflexible religious dictates are sometimes termed pharisaism, referring to unreasonable emphasis on observing exact words or rules, rather than the intent or spirit. [26] [27] [28]
Andrew Willet grouped absurdities with "flat contradictions to scripture" and "heresies". [29]
Psychologists study how humans adapt to constant absurdities in life. [30] In advertising, the presence or absence of an absurd image was found to moderate negative attitudes toward products and increase product recognition. [31]
"I can see nothing" – Alice in Wonderland
- "My, you must have good eyes" – Cheshire Cat
Absurdity is used in humor to make people laugh or to make a sophisticated point. One example is Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky", a poem of nonsense verse, originally featured as a part of his absurdist novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872). Carroll was a logician and parodied logic using illogic and inverting logical methods. [32] Argentine novelist Jorge Luis Borges used absurdities in his short stories to make points. [33] Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is considered absurdist by some. [34]
The absurdity doctrine is a legal theory in American courts. [35] : 234–239 One type of absurdity, known as the "scrivener's error", occurs when simple textual correction is needed to amend an obvious clerical error, such as a misspelled word. [35] : 234–235 Another type of absurdity, called "evaluative absurdity", arises when a legal provision, despite appropriate spelling and grammar, "makes no substantive sense". An example would be a statute that mistakenly provided for a winning rather than losing party to pay the other side's reasonable attorney's fees. [35] : 235–237 In order to stay within the remit of textualism and not reach further into purposivism, the doctrine is restricted by two limiting principles: "...the absurdity and the injustice of applying the provision to the case would be so monstrous, that all mankind would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application" [36] and the absurdity must be correctable "...by modifying the text in relatively simple ways". [37] [35] : 237–239 This doctrine is seen as being consistent with examples of historical common sense. [38]
"The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Pufendorf [sic. Puffendorf], that the Bolognian law which enacted 'that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity', did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. The same common sense accepts the ruling, cited by Plowden, that the statute of 1st Edward II, which enacts that a prisoner who breaks prison shall be guilty of a felony, does not extend to a prisoner who breaks out when the prison is on fire – 'for he is not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt'." [39]
Reductio ad absurdum, reducing to an absurdity, is a method of proof in polemics, logic and mathematics, whereby assuming that a proposition is true leads to absurdity; a proposition is assumed to be true and this is used to deduce a proposition known to be false, so the original proposition must have been false. It is also an argumentation style in polemics, whereby a position is demonstrated to be false, or "absurd", by assuming it and reasoning to reach something known to be believed as false or to violate common sense; it is used by Plato to argue against other philosophical positions. [40] An absurdity constraint is used in the logic of model transformations. [41]
The "absurdity constant", often denoted by the symbol ⊥, is used in formal logic. [42] It represents the concept of falsum, an elementary logical proposition, denoted by a constant "false" in several programming languages.
The absurdity rule is a rule in logic, as used by Patrick Suppes in Logic, methodology and philosophy of science: Proceedings. [43]
In logic, the law of non-contradiction (LNC) states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e. g. the two propositions "p is the case" and "p is not the case" are mutually exclusive. Formally, this is expressed as the tautology ¬(p ∧ ¬p). The law is not to be confused with the law of excluded middle which states that at least one, "p is the case" or "p is not the case", holds.
In logic, the law of excluded middle or the principle of excluded middle states that for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true. It is one of the three laws of thought, along with the law of noncontradiction, and the law of identity; however, no system of logic is built on just these laws, and none of these laws provides inference rules, such as modus ponens or De Morgan's laws. The law is also known as the law / principleof the excluded third, in Latin principium tertii exclusi. Another Latin designation for this law is tertium non datur or "no third [possibility] is given". In classical logic, the law is a tautology.
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response. Camus claims that the realization of the absurd does not justify suicide, and instead requires "revolt". He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. In the final chapter, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Reason is the capacity of applying logic consciously by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans. Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion. Historically, begging the question refers to a fault in a dialectical argument in which the speaker assumes some premise that has not been demonstrated to be true. In modern usage, it has come to refer to an argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it. This makes it an example of circular reasoning.
A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true.
The history of logic deals with the study of the development of the science of valid inference (logic). Formal logics developed in ancient times in India, China, and Greece. Greek methods, particularly Aristotelian logic as found in the Organon, found wide application and acceptance in Western science and mathematics for millennia. The Stoics, especially Chrysippus, began the development of predicate logic.
Nothing, no-thing, or no thing, is the complete absence of anything as the opposite of something and an antithesis of everything. The concept of nothing has been a matter of philosophical debate since at least the 5th century BC. Early Greek philosophers argued that it was impossible for nothing to exist. The atomists allowed nothing but only in the spaces between the invisibly small atoms. For them, all space was filled with atoms. Aristotle took the view that there exists matter and there exists space, a receptacle into which matter objects can be placed. This became the paradigm for classical scientists of the modern age like Newton. Nevertheless, some philosophers, like Descartes, continued to argue against the existence of empty space until the scientific discovery of a physical vacuum.
Absurdist fiction is a genre of novels, plays, poems, films, or other media that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and later evolved into Roman philosophy.
Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into a conflict with the world. This conflict can be between rational man and an irrational universe, between intention and outcome, or between subjective assessment and objective worth, but the precise definition of the term is disputed. Absurdism claims that existence as a whole is absurd. It differs in this regard from the less global thesis that some particular situations, persons, or phases in life are absurd.
Nonsense is a form of communication, via speech, writing, or any other symbolic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. In ordinary usage, nonsense is sometimes synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it for reasons ranging from pure comic amusement or satire, to illustrating a point about language or reasoning. In the philosophy of language and philosophy of science, nonsense is distinguished from sense or meaningfulness, and attempts have been made to come up with a coherent and consistent method of distinguishing sense from nonsense. It is also an important field of study in cryptography regarding separating a signal from noise.
Absurd or The Absurd may refer to:
Thomas Taylor was an English translator and Neoplatonist, the first to translate into English the complete works of Aristotle and of Plato, as well as the Orphic fragments.
Nous, from Greek: νοῦς, is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.
Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation. This theory is closely tied to proof by assertion due to the lack of evidence behind the statement and its attempt to persuade without providing any evidence.
Common sense is "knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument". As such, it is often considered to represent the basic level of sound practical judgement or knowledge of basic facts that any adult human being ought to possess. It is "common" in the sense of being shared by nearly all people. The everyday understanding of common sense is ultimately derived from historical philosophical discussions. Relevant terms from other languages used in such discussions include Latin sensus communis, Ancient Greek κοινὴ αἴσθησις, and French bon sens. However, these are not straightforward translations in all contexts, and in English different shades of meaning have developed. In philosophical and scientific contexts, since the Age of Enlightenment the term "common sense" has been used for rhetorical effect both approvingly and disapprovingly. On the one hand it has been a standard for good taste, good sense, and source of scientific and logical axioms. On the other hand it has been equated to conventional wisdom, vulgar prejudice, and superstition.
In logic, reductio ad absurdum, also known as argumentum ad absurdum or apagogical arguments, is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
This is an index of Wikipedia articles in philosophy of language
To be ridiculous is to be something highly incongruous or inferior, sometimes deliberately so to make people laugh or get their attention, and sometimes unintendedly so as to be considered laughable and earn or provoke ridicule and derision. It comes from the 1540s Latin "ridiculosus" meaning "laughable", from "ridiculus" meaning "that which excites laughter", and from "ridere" meaning "to laugh". "Ridiculous" is an adjective describing "the ridiculous".
A provision may be either disregarded or judicially corrected as an error (when the correrection is textually simple) if failing to do so would result in a disposition that no reasonable person could approve.