Hard, Soft and Non-Problems of Absurdity A Marxian Critique of Thomas Nagel’s Understanding of the Absurd

My argument here is two-fold. I agree with Nagel that folk experience of absurdity and the way this experience is conceptually articulated (“the standard arguments for absurdity”) is distorted and confused. However, I argue that his proposed philosophical articulation of the absurd is not coherent and deprives the folk experience of the absurd from its true and original crux hidden behind its confused expressions. Here, firstly, I review the main argument of Nagel’s paper and compare his liberal “ironic view” of absurdity to Camus’s “heroic view.’ (Sect 1). Then, I highlight some inconsistencies in his argument and some difficulties in his account (Sect. 2). Finally, I will propose a eudemonic approach to absurdity. Here, I contrast socialist humor with liberal ironic or heroic attitudes to absurdity (Sect. 3).