Description
Book SynopsisTHINKING THROUGH FILM
Thinking Through Film provides the best introduction available to the diverse relationships between film and philosophy. Clearly written and persuasively argued, it will benefit students of both film and philosophy.
Thomas E. Wartenberg, Mount Holyoke College, author of Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy
Cox and Levine's admirable Thinking Through Film picks up where Philosophy Goes to the Movies left off, arguing that films not only do philosophy but, in some cases, do it better than philosophers! The result is a rich and rewarding examination of films from metaphysical thought experiments, personal identity puzzles, to reflections on the meaning of life that shows, in bracing, no-nonsense fashion, how popular cinema can do serious philosophy. Robert Sinnerbrink, Macquarie University
Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies examines a broad range of philosop
Table of Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments x
Part I Philosophy and Film 1
1 Why Film and Philosophy? 3
2 Philosophy and Film Spectatorship 23
Part II Epistemology and Metaphysics 47
3 Knowing What's What in Total Recall 49
4 Ontology and The Matrix 65
5 It's All in the Mind: AI Artifi cial Intelligence and Robot Love 79
6 La Jetée and the Promise of Time Travel 98
Part III The Human Condition 113
7 Fate and Choice: The Philosophy of Minority Report 115
8 Personal Identity: The Case of Memento 132
9 The Spectacle of Horror: Funny Games 147
10 Looking for Meaning in All the Wrong Places: Ikiru ("To Live") 170
Part IV Ethics and Values 189
11 Crimes and Misdemeanors and the Fragility of Moral Motivation 191
12 The Lives of Others: Moral Luck and Regret 209
13 The Dark Knight: Batman on Deontology and Consequentialism 228
14 Dangerous Childhood: La Promesse and the Possibility of Virtue 245
Index 265
