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2 A Brief Survey of the Philosophy of Absurdity
An absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "this encyclopedia article is absurd." It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning "out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin surdus means "deaf", implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with seriousness in reasoning. In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with ridiculousness and nonsense. 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. This chapter will present the origination and the essence of absurdity.
2.1 The Origination of the Absurdity
Absurdity is cited as a basis for some theological reasoning about 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. According to the New Advent Church, what Tertullian actually says in DCC 5 is " the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd." ( the Flesh of Christ, Fathers of the Church, New Advent)
Plato often used "absurdity" to describe very poor reasoning or the conclusion from adopting a position that is false and reasoning to a false conclusion, Plato describes himself as not using absurd argumentation against himself in Parmenides. Plato refers to an "inevitable absurdity" as the outcome of reasoning from a false assumption In Gorgias,.
For Aristotle, absurdity is when one is unable to match their speech with reason. Aristotle wrote in his book Rhetoric that it is absurd to not be able to defend yourself with speech and reason. 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. (Aristotle in Poetics, S.H. Butcher) He also claimed that absurdity in reasoning being veiled by charming language in poetry. He also claims that your speech should not sound too poetic because it imports absurdity and tastelessness into the speech. Speeches must have two parts: a statement of the case and the justification of the case. Narration of speech is considered absurd by Aristotle because it doesn’t show any reason behind it. According to Aristotle, absurdity, in a rhetorical sense, is not developing your speech properly; the speech should be used in the right sense to get the most out of it.