The Absurd in Thomas Nagel's Existentialism

Abstract

This paper aims to argue that the discussion on the notion of absurdity developed by Thomas Nagel in his The Absurd, far from representing only the adventure of an analytical philosopher through the territory of continental philosophy, is connected to the central question of his thought, namely, the problem of how to reconcile an objective view of the world with a subjective view of a person within the same world, as worked out in his book The View from Nowhere. In this way, the article emphasizes that the absurd, being a consequence of the human capacity to detach itself from its particular point of view, shares with other philosophical problems analyzed by the philosopher, especially skepticism, the origin in the conflict between the objective and the subjective point of view. With the exposition of his notion of absurdity as an inevitable discrepancy between the seriousness with which we regard our lives and the possibility of considering everything that we care about as arbitrary, as well as his approach to the general problem between the objective and the subjective perspective, especially in how this problem plays out in the theory of knowledge, the article seeks to show how Nagel's existentialist reflections are a coherent and integrated part of his broader thought.