The Silence Camus Refused to Domesticate: Hazel Barnes, The Myth of Sisyphus, and the Cost of a Sympathetic Misreading

Hazel Barnes was one of the most careful American readers of French existentialism in the twentieth century. She translated Sartre’s Being and Nothingness in 1956, a labor that shaped how generations of American students encountered Continental thought. When she turns to Camus, though, something interesting happens on the page. Her summary of The Myth of Sisyphus is partly accurate and partly an act of quiet translation in the other direction, pulling Camus toward a Sartrean humanism that Camus himself spent the last decade of his life resisting.

Here is the passage in question:

Albert Camus, in his book, The Myth of Sisyphus, puts the question in humanistic terms. I do not know, he says, whether or not this world has a meaning which transcends it. But this I am fully aware of, that if there is a higher meaning, it is not one which it is possible for me to know. And if the meaning is not a human meaning, then how can it be a meaning at all for me? In this case, the leap in question is no longer the leap toward God in faith. It is the literal leap over the precipice toward death. What one encounters, if one assumes that there is no higher meaning, is what existentialist writers have called the absurd. Absurdity is a discrepancy, a gap between man’s aspirations, and that which he is capable, even at best, of achieving. It is the fact that when man appeals to the universe for meaning, for form, for unity, there is no answer.

This passage comes from Self-Encounter: A Study in Existentialism, a ten-part television series Barnes wrote and hosted for National Educational Television, the predecessor to PBS, broadcast in 1961 and 1962. KRMA in Denver produced it, and the lines above are from the third episode, “To Leap Or Not To Leap,” which takes Camus as its focus. The shadowy figures seated behind Barnes on the set are theater and dance students from the University of Colorado, staged as atmospheric performers by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, who shot three of the ten episodes. The original broadcast tapes were long thought destroyed, but one set had been preserved at the Library of Congress, which is how the episodes survive today.

The context matters, and it cuts against Barnes more than it excuses her. A ten-part series for a general public audience could reasonably be expected to simplify, and one might defend the Sartrean inflection as a teacher’s compression for lay viewers. That defense fails on a single fact. Barnes is the philosopher who coined the term “humanistic existentialism” as a shared label for Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus, and she used it in the title of her 1959 book The Literature of Possibility: A Study in Humanistic Existentialism, three years before the broadcast. Her opening sentence in the passage above, that Camus “puts the question in humanistic terms,” is her signature classification in action. She is arguing, across her career, that these three thinkers belong inside a single humanist project. The television audience gave her the opportunity to broadcast that argument to the country. What sounds like compression for a general viewer is the position itself, delivered in its most public form.

Notice the rhetorical method before the content. On camera, Barnes speaks the middle portion of this passage in Camus’ voice. “I do not know, he says” establishes the ventriloquism, and then the attribution drops away, so that “if the meaning is not a human meaning, then how can it be a meaning at all for me?” appears to come from Camus’ own mouth. The technique is sophisticated. When Barnes is accurate, the ventriloquism functions as faithful translation. When she slides, the slide is harder to catch because the viewer hears it as Camus speaking rather than as Barnes interpreting. The frame sentence sets the agenda before the impersonation begins. Camus, Barnes tells us, “puts the question in humanistic terms.” Before a single quotation has been offered, the audience has been told what kind of thinker Camus is. The rest of the passage will make good on the promise of the label.

Start with what Barnes gets right. She captures Camus’ epistemic posture with admirable precision when she has him say that he does not know whether the world has a meaning that transcends it, and that if such meaning exists, it lies outside any human capacity to verify. This is accurate to Camus. He is agnostic about the transcendent, and his agnosticism is strategic. The absurd requires two parties, the human needing meaning and the universe withholding it. A flat declaration that the universe is empty would leave nothing to confront, only a report to file. Barnes grasps that Camus preserves the tension, and she names that tension well.

She is also accurate on the closing point, that “when man appeals to the universe for meaning, for form, for unity, there is no answer.” This is the silence at the heart of The Myth of Sisyphus. The universe does not respond in the language we bring to it. It gives back nothing that matches our need. Barnes hears the silence and records it faithfully.

Between these two accurate observations, her summary performs three operations that move Camus in a direction he did not move himself. The first operation lives in a single clause: “And if the meaning is not a human meaning, then how can it be a meaning at all for me?” That clause belongs to Barnes rather than to Camus. Camus’ actual position is narrower. He writes that we cannot know the transcendent, and what we cannot know cannot guide us. Barnes’ clause converts epistemic humility into metaphysical dismissal. The Camus position preserves the unknown as unknown, and the absurd lives in that suspension. Barnes renders the unknown as functionally nonexistent, which collapses the gap she will need in her next sentence. The slide is small enough that a viewer may not catch it, especially when it arrives in what appears to be Camus’ own voice.

The second operation is the framing of the alternatives: “the leap in question is no longer the leap toward God in faith. It is the literal leap over the precipice toward death.” Camus does open his book by naming suicide as the one serious philosophical question, so Barnes’ framing matches the opening of the text. Her account falters at the book’s destination. The entire argument of The Myth of Sisyphus is that suicide and religious faith fall into the same category of error. Both escape the absurd. Both resolve the tension by removing one of its two terms. Religious faith abolishes the silence of the universe by filling it with God. Suicide abolishes the human need by ending the one who needs. Camus calls them both forms of philosophical suicide, and he refuses each one. His third path, which Barnes’ summary does not name, is revolt. Live with the absurd, awake and unreconciled, refusing the consolation of transcendence and refusing the erasure of the self. That third path is the point of the book. A viewer who finishes Barnes’ summary without knowing the third path exists has been given the setup and denied the argument.

The third operation is the most philosophically consequential. Barnes defines absurdity as “a discrepancy, a gap between man’s aspirations, and that which he is capable, even at best, of achieving.” This is where the Sartrean translation becomes audible. For Camus, the absurd lies in the distance between what we need and what the universe will confirm. The distance between aspiration and capacity is a different problem, a practical and psychological one the book does not address. Barnes has moved the absurd from cosmology to psychology. In her frame, absurdity concerns human striving and human limitation, a problem that could in principle be addressed through effort, solidarity, political action, the building of meaning among ourselves. That is a coherent philosophical position and a recognizably Sartrean one. Camus wrote something else. For Camus, the absurd is a permanent condition that arises the moment a conscious creature asks the universe to account for itself and hears nothing back. No achievement closes that gap. The gap sits between us and the silence itself, a position no striving can reach.

Notice also the qualifier “if one assumes that there is no higher meaning.” Barnes inserts this phrase almost in passing, but it reverses Camus’ posture. Camus makes no such assumption. He refuses to assume in either direction. The absurd is not the consequence of an atheist verdict, it is the condition that holds when a person cannot reach a verdict and still needs meaning. Barnes’ phrasing gives the viewer permission to think of absurdity as the mood of a person who has already decided the universe is empty. Camus’ absurd belongs to someone still standing at the edge of the question with no verdict available.

Why does this reading matter beyond its scholarly accuracy? The Camus who emerges from Barnes’ summary is a humanist in waiting, a thinker who has arrived at the absurd and needs only to turn the corner into a Sartrean ethics of engagement to be complete. Barnes would have welcomed such a Camus. Sartre would have welcomed such a Camus. Her term of art, “humanistic existentialism,” assumes exactly that Camus. The historical Camus broke with Sartre publicly in 1952 over The Rebel, and the break turned on exactly this kind of absorption. Sartre wanted to fold the absurd into a program of historical action, into a humanism that used absurdity as a starting gun for political commitment. Camus resisted the folding. He thought the absurd was harder than Sartre’s humanism allowed. He thought it stayed alien even after one had decided to live inside it. The revolt he described in Sisyphus and extended in The Rebel was never a political program dressed in metaphysical language. It was a permanent posture of the self against a universe that will never confirm the self’s demands.

Barnes’ softening is sympathetic, and she was a serious thinker, which makes the softening instructive rather than dismissible. A careless reader would miss Camus entirely. A careful reader trained in Sartre hears Camus and translates him unconsciously into the closest available dialect. The cost of that translation is the loss of what was specifically Camusian about Camus. His refusal of consolation included the consolation of humanism. He would not let the audience off the hook by promising that solidarity or achievement could close the gap that opened when the universe refused to answer. The gap stays open. One lives in it. That is the whole ethic of the book.

A fair critic could press back here and argue that Camus’ own position is less stable than the argument above allows. The revolt Camus describes does start to look humanist when examined hard. Sisyphus pushing the rock, imagined happy at his labor, resembles the Sartrean project of meaning-making through commitment. Barnes might answer that she has simply read Camus as he was becoming, not as he managed to freeze himself in 1942. The defense against this critique has to rest on what Camus explicitly resisted. The Rebel, published nine years after Sisyphus, draws a sharp line between rebellion and the humanist absorption Sartre was constructing. Camus had every opportunity to collapse his position into Sartre’s and he refused. The refusal is the evidence. Whatever instabilities the revolt contains, Camus himself insisted that revolt was not the same project Sartre was running. Barnes’ reading, sophisticated as it is, reads Camus as the Camus he might have been had he taken one more step, rather than the Camus whose whole authorship was a refusal of that step.

The broader stakes are worth naming. Contemporary humanism, in its secular and religious shapes, wants to close the gap with meaning built from below, communities and causes and identities that furnish the significance the universe refused to provide. Those projects can be valuable on their own terms. Those projects describe something other than Camus’ position. Camus described a life lived awake inside the silence, with meaning made locally and honestly and without any pretense that the silence had been filled. The first approach is effective because it motivates action, builds solidarity, makes the world workable. It is not effective because it tends toward bad faith the moment it claims the absurd has been resolved. The second approach is effective because it refuses bad faith and keeps the confrontation visible. It is not effective in the sense of making anyone comfortable, and it was never meant to.

Barnes taught American readers how to hear Sartre, and she taught American television viewers how to hear existentialism itself. She did not hear Camus the same way, and reading her carefully shows where the frame she carried pulled the text toward her. The Camus she describes remains worth reading. The Camus she does not quite describe, the one who refused the third consolation after refusing the first two, is the one still worth arguing with. The silence he insisted on is still there, and the question of how to live inside it without domesticating it is the same question he left us. Anyone who tells you the gap has been closed is selling something. Camus’ honesty lay in refusing to sell it.

~Meta-Solution~

Stop pretending we're in control.
We're inside a system with dynamics we barely understand.

Models are partial, signals delayed, feedback distorted.

So: model constantly, adapt continuously, and
stay humble.

#SystemsThinking
#EpistemicHumility
#Cybernetics

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Street Epistemology, Critical Thinking and Respectful Dialogue

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/06/21

Roman Tarasov, President of Street Epistemology International, is a leading advocate of respectful, Socratic-style dialogue for examining beliefs. Influenced by the rationalist community and inspired by Anthony Magnabosco, Tarasov promotes critical thinking and epistemic humility. With a calm and reflective style, he emphasizes rapport, empathy, and civil discourse to foster open-minded inquiry. He critiques common reasoning errors—such as overreliance on intuition, anecdotal evidence, and magical thinking—and sees dialogue as essential to mutual understanding. Tarasov also contributes to educational resources like the Navigating Beliefs course and highlights global efforts to expand Street Epistemology’s reach through videos, training modules, and community engagement.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Roman Tarasov is a prominent advocate of Street Epistemology and the president of Street Epistemology International, a conversational method for examining beliefs through respectful dialogue. Known for his calm demeanor and reflective questioning style, Tarasov engages individuals in thoughtful discussions that encourage critical thinking and epistemic humility. He contributes regularly to the Street Epistemology community through online videos, social media, and educational resources. With a background in philosophy and a passion for civil discourse, Tarasov emphasizes open-minded inquiry over debate. His work aims to foster mutual understanding and personal growth by helping others examine the foundations of their beliefs in non-confrontational settings. So what initially drew you to Street Epistemology? How did you get involved in the community?

Roman Tarasov: So I was already into learning about rationality, mostly from the LessWrong community—Eliezer Yudkowsky as an author, primarily, and others as well. And then I just bumped into Anthony Magnabosco’s YouTube channel and got inspired by it. That’s what got me into it.

Jacobsen: Now, what do you find people are generally good at reasoning about? And what do you find they are bad at reasoning about—either based on Magnabosco’s videos or the broader collective work of Street Epistemology?

Tarasov: Yeah, we already have a huge database—not just by Anthony, but by others conducting conversations, including myself. I would say the main problem people have is simply not understanding how science works. They do not know how to think in terms of hypotheses, testing, or designing experiments. As a result, they commit all kinds of fallacies. That, I would say, is the main issue.

As for what people are good at, I would say it is actually criticizing ideas they disagree with. The highest level of critical thinking I see—especially from people who are not well-versed or educated in the field—often comes out when they try to refute others’ views. I only wish they would bring the same fervor to challenging their own beliefs.

Jacobsen: So, in terms of the foundations of Street Epistemology and to your point, would that be a key reason why conversation and dialogue are so important?

Tarasov: I am not sure about that being the only reason. I would just say that conversation and dialogue are important, period, for all kinds of reasons. That is who we are. We have language—and that is one of the main powers we have as human beings.

Jacobsen: That is a good one. What do you think are common epistemological themes or patterns you notice based on Magnabosco’s long catalog of conversations—or the data you and others have gathered?

Tarasov: What do you mean by themes?

Jacobsen: I mean logical themes. Just like we were discussing earlier—how people are really good at criticizing others’ ideas, but do not apply the same level of scrutiny to their own beliefs. What kinds of fallacies do they tend to commit? What are the styles of faulty reasoning you commonly encounter?

Tarasov: Astrology is huge everywhere in the world, as are all kinds of other esoteric or magical thinking themes—that is a massive category, of course. But there are others. I do not think any of us have conducted a population-level poll to know which themes are the most prevalent globally or within specific demographics. But yes, magical thinking in general is widespread, and I consider it to be one of the biggest epistemological problems in the world.

There are also people who are relativistic, dogmatic, or who simply make the same types of reasoning errors in everyday life, even without invoking magical thinking. As for your second question about themes of reasoning: one of the main issues is that people place too much weight on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. They also rely heavily on their intuition, which, as we know, is not always reliable—especially when it comes to evaluating complex or abstract issues.

Unless someone has educated themselves in scientific thinking and the scientific method, their intuition is not designed—evolutionarily speaking—to solve these kinds of problems. And often, they do not even know that they lack the necessary tools or that they are reasoning incorrectly.

Jacobsen: So what is the role of empathy in Street Epistemology, and how do you handle highly charged or confrontational conversations?

Tarasov: The role of empathy is huge. Although, I would even say that instead of “empathy,” we often use the word “rapport.” That is because “empathy” can have at least two meanings: one is feeling what the other person feels—putting yourself in their emotional shoes. The other is simply understanding what the other person is saying and accepting them as they are.

We typically emphasize “rapport,” meaning that you need a friendly, respectful atmosphere to have a meaningful conversation. Without it, nothing really works. People have all kinds of psychological defense mechanisms. If you begin to question deeply held beliefs, many people get defensive—it is not necessarily conscious, it is just a natural psychological response. So it is very important not to pressure people, to be respectful and civil, and to build and maintain rapport throughout the conversation.

That rapport should also extend beyond the immediate interaction, because the nature of your overall relationship can significantly affect how the conversation unfolds.

I would say, if you find yourself in the middle of a charged or confrontational conversation, then you have probably already failed somewhere—you have likely made a mistake. You need to accept that and focus on mitigating the situation. The key is to fall back and try to rebuild rapport. We actually have tools for that.

Right now, we are working on an educational course called Navigating Beliefs. It is free and available online. We have already written and published a module titled Building and Maintaining Rapport—that is module number six. In the final section of that module, we cover tools for recovering rapport if it has been lost—what to do, how to approach it.

Jacobsen: Is the short answer that it is difficult?

Tarasov: Yes, of course—it is difficult. If someone is already defensive, emotional, or confrontational, one of the main strategies I recommend is to simply pause. Do not try to push through. Let things calm down. It might even be best to end the conversation for the time being and return to it on another day. That alone can be one of the most effective strategies.

Beyond that, it really comes down to respect, empathy, and understanding. You do not want to escalate anything. At least within the goals of Street Epistemology, if you aim to have a meaningful conversation—if you hope to help your conversation partner critically reflect on their reasoning or beliefs—you must maintain a civil, friendly atmosphere.

Jacobsen: I am picturing the proverbial cartoon character spinning on their heel, whistling, and walking away with their hands in their pockets. Do you find that religious beliefs, political beliefs, or personal beliefs—even beliefs about oneself—are the most difficult or challenging to pierce through, in terms of perception? I do not want to call it delusion, but perhaps a less accurate view of reality. How do you navigate those conversations?

Tarasov: I see two different aspects in that question. One is: what counts as delusional or mistaken? The other is: which topics are more difficult to discuss.

In terms of what is delusional, I would not use that term. We all have different political views, different perspectives on a wide range of issues. We cannot all be delusional. More often, it is just that some of us are more accurate or better informed than others in certain areas.

So, I would recommend not jumping to conclusions too quickly. One key mindset in Street Epistemology is being open to the possibility that you yourself could be wrong—not just the other person. If you enter a conversation only expecting your conversation partner to change their views, that can come off as hypocritical. And it simply does not work.

You need to be open-minded yourself in order to effectively model open-mindedness in others. That is essential. As for difficulty, yes—political views, for example, are among the most difficult subjects to discuss, as is anything closely tied to a person’s identity. You can think of beliefs in terms of core beliefs and peripheral beliefs. Some beliefs are closer to the core of someone’s identity—they see those beliefs as defining who they are.

For instance, if religious faith is a central part of someone’s life, that conversation will likely be very challenging. But if someone says they have religious faith yet are fairly indifferent about it—they do not attend church or engage with it actively—then it is usually easier to explore those ideas with them. The same goes for political views. People who are highly engaged in politics tend to hold their beliefs very deeply. And since politics is inherently polarizing, it can easily trigger conflict.

If the topic is especially timely—something currently dividing public opinion—it becomes even more difficult. When people hold opposing views, both sides often think the other side is not only wrong but irrational or even unintelligent. Those are the most challenging conversations. I suggest being extremely cautious with them. Only engage in such discussions if you have enough experience and have already established strong rapport. Otherwise, start with something less emotionally charged.

Jacobsen: How many countries is Street Epistemology active in, given the name Street Epistemology International?

Tarasov: That depends on what you mean. If you are asking about the formal membership of Street Epistemology International, then it is a small group—currently about eight members. Most are from the United States, with one member each from Germany, Canada, and Russia—that is me. So the board or leadership team is limited in scope.

But in terms of reach and coverage, I believe Street Epistemology is active in most regions of the world. I know there are active communities in Germany, France, Russia, and the United States. There are also individuals and small groups practicing or teaching Street Epistemology in Australia and other countries. So yes, it is international—and we hope it will grow even more so over time.

Jacobsen: What programs do you currently have that people should look into?

Tarasov: As I mentioned earlier, we are working on the Navigating Beliefs course. You can find it on the streetepistemology.com website—there is a link there. It is free, and you just need to subscribe. We have already published six modules, plus an introductory module.

That marks the completion of what we call Phase One. We are currently working on Phase Two, and there will also be a Phase Three. Each phase includes several modules that build on each other, offering both theory and practical tools for conducting meaningful conversations.

That is the most current and, I would say, the best educational resource we have right now—but it is text-based and self-directed. So for other materials, I would highly recommend watching videos on YouTube. That way, you can actually see how experienced Street Epistemologists conduct conversations—not just with strangers, but also with friends or acquaintances. You can observe how they build rapport, ask questions, and help people reflect. It is very educational and often inspiring.

Jacobsen: Who would you consider the intellectual founders of Street Epistemology? And who do you consider the main torchbearers now?

Tarasov: I would say the main torchbearer and the most visible founder—for me, at least—is Anthony Magnabosco. But he was originally inspired by Peter Boghossian, who coined the term “Street Epistemology.” There are others who have followed in Anthony’s footsteps and contributed significantly. One person I would mention is Reid Nicewonder, who runs the YouTube channel Cordial Curiosity, which I also highly recommend. He is also part of our organization.

Jacobsen: Do you have any favorite quotes from Street Epistemologists, or from people they have spoken with—something captured in a video where a person reflects and maybe changes their mind or says something revealing?

Tarasov: That is a good question. In terms of Street Epistemologists themselves, I do not have a specific favorite quote—we use a lot of different tools, mostly Socratic questioning. These are polite, respectful, but very focused questions that aim at the core of what our conversation partner is saying. But when it comes to responses from the people we talk to, yes—some moments stand out.

One of the favorite things any Street Epistemologist likes to hear is something like: “Wow, I never thought about it that way. I’m going to keep thinking about this. Thank you.” You can often see it in their eyes—when they look off into the distance, and you know they are genuinely reflecting. Sometimes, it may be the first time they have questioned a belief they have held for years, maybe even their whole life. And now, through some carefully phrased questions, they begin thinking about it in a new light. That kind of deep reflection is exactly what we aim to inspire.

Jacobsen: What is the weirdest belief you have ever heard come out of Russia? Something just absolutely out there.

Tarasov: One that comes to mind: a young woman once said that she does not like to attend other women’s weddings because she believes it decreases her own chances of getting married. That was her reasoning.

Jacobsen: I mean, technically, it does not really affect the “market,” because two people just exited the pool. Honestly, she should go to a wedding between two women—that would actually increase the number of men available relative to women. Hooray! You are thinking rationally about it.

Tarasov: [Laughs] Yes, but she was thinking in terms of some stereotype she had picked up somewhere. I think she even mentioned something about catching the bouquet, but I do not remember exactly—I do not want to misquote her.

Jacobsen: Well, maybe she keeps catching bouquets and is afraid she’ll catch something else—like a venereal disease. Anyway, Roman, thank you very much. It was nice to meet you.

Tarasov: Nice meeting you too, Scott. Thanks for the conversation.

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