The sense, the nonsense and the absurd

In the history of philosophy there have been numerous attempts to determine the nature of man. One thought of him as the laughing, the crying, the reasonable, the unhappy, the deficient animal.

For Nietzsche, man was the interpretive animal that seeks a meaning in everything, even when such a meaning does not exist. Man cannot do without sense and the creation of sense. It is precisely for this reason that he produces so much nonsense: nonsense that promises meaning, just as nonsense that rebels against meaning.
But what if man had the insight into the futility of his search for meaning? Could he live with this insight into the absurdity of his existence?

The philosopher Prof. Dr. Peter König works at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and teaches and researches at the Philosophy Department of the University of Heidelberg.