Concept

Absurdity

Overview

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., "David and the boys laughed at the absurd situation." It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning "out of tune". Outside of music or acoustics, the term came to mean "out of harmony with reason". The Latin surdus means "deaf", implying stupidity.

Absurdity is contrasted with being realistic or reasonable. 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.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Absurdity is discussed.

We are all accustomed to say of a picture, “Don’t you think father is good?” Of course the appearance of absurdity in this dream might easily have been avoided. If it were permissible to pass judgment after a single experience, one might be tempted to say that this semblance of absurdity is admitted or desired.
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams
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Take even the irrational incidents in the Odyssey, where Odysseus is left upon the shore of Ithaca. How intolerable even these might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to treat the subject. As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic charm with which the poet invests it. The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there is no expression of character or thought. For…
Aristotle, The Poetics of Aristotle
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To make it comic, then, we need only clearly indicate the automatism of the person who utters it. This is what we get when we introduce an absurdity into the phrase. Here the absurdity is by no means the source of the comic, it is only a very simple and effective means of making it obvious.
Henri Bergson, Laughter
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When a man reckons without the use of words, which may be done in particular things, (as when upon the sight of any one thing, wee conjecture what was likely to have preceded, or is likely to follow upon it;) if that which he thought likely to follow, followes not; or that which he thought likely to have preceded it, hath not preceded it, this is called ERROR; to which even the most prudent men are subject. But when…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
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Again, in some cases an extreme will bear a resemblance to the mean; rashness, for instance, to courage, and prodigality to liberality; but between the extremes there is the greatest dissimilarity. Now things which are furthest from one another[20] are defined to be contrary, and so the further off the more contrary will they be. Further: of the extremes in some cases the excess, and in others the defect, is most…
Aristotle, The Nicomachean ethics of Aristotle
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Philosophers who discussed Absurdity

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Nonsense

Place in the tradition

Part of Absurdism.

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