Philosophy in Film Phil 210, Spring 2004

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Philosophy in Film (Phil 210), Spring
2004 Joseph Keim Campbell Introduction to
Philosophy in Film General Information Office
Hours MTW 1100 am100 pm, or by
appointment Office Bryan Hall 316 BN Phone
335-9106 E-mail josephc_at_wsu.edu Website
http//libarts.wsu.edu/philo/faculty-
staff/campbell/index.html
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• Philosophy df. the love of wisdom
• Epistemology df. the theory of knowledge
• What is knowledge and do we have any of it?
• Metaphysics df. the study of ultimate reality
• Is reality mind-independent?
• What makes someone the same person?
• Is time travel possible?
• What is free will and is it compatible with
  determinism?
• Under what conditions is one morally responsible
  for an action?
• Ethics df. the study of norms and values
• Is life meaningful, and if so why?
• How can one achieve happiness?
• Are valueslike meaningfulnesssubjective or
  objective?

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• Course Content This course considers the use of
  film as a philosophical text. We discuss
  philosophical thought-experiments that are
  represented in a variety of films.
• What is a philosophical thought experiment?
• Philosophical thought experiments are devices of
  the imagination used to help us understand
• philosophical problems,
• philosophical concepts, and
• philosophical arguments.
• (cf. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
• Films can be understood as visual representations
  of philosophical thought experiments. They are
  less abstract but essentially make the same
  points.

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• Examples of Thought Experiments in Film
• Skeptical hypotheses The Matrix
• Vanilla Sky
• Personal identity Being John Malkovich
• Fight Club
• Time travel Twelve Monkeys
• Alternative choices Run, Lola, Run
• Groundhog Day
• Experience machines The Matrix
• Moral Responsibility M
• Minority Report
• Meaning Nihilism Pulp Fiction
• American Beauty
• Here are three examples from Philosophy.

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The Experience Machine Thought
Experiment Suppose there were an experience
machine that would give you any experience you
desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could
stimulate your brain so that you would think and
feel you were writing a great novel, or making a
friend, or reading an interesting book. All the
time you would be floating in a tank, with
electrodes attached to your brain. Should you
plug into this machine for life, preprogramming
your lifes desires? Of course, while in the
tank you wont know that youre there youll
think its all actually happening. Others can
also plug in to have the experiences they want,
so theres no need to stay unplugged to serve
them. (Ignore problems such as who will service
the machines if everyone plugs in.) Would you
plug in? What else can matter to us, other than
how our lives feel from the inside? (Robert
Nozick, Philosophical Explanations 1981)
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The Free Will Thought Experiment Question
What does it mean to say that I have a genuine
choice about which way to walk home tonight? It
means that both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street
are called but only one, and that one either
one, shall be chosen. Now I ask you to seriously
suppose that this ambiguity of my choice is real
and then to make the impossible hypothesis that
the choice is made twice over, and each time
falls on a different street. In other words,
imagine that I first walk through Divinity
Avenue, and then imagine that the powers that be
annihilate ten minutes of time with all that it
contained, and set me back at the door of this
hall just as I was before the choice was made.
Imagine then that, everything else being the
same, I now make a different choice and traverse
Oxford Street. (William James, The Dilemma of
Determinism 1884)
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The Brain-in-a-Vat (BIV) Thought Experiment .
. . imagine that a human being (you can imagine
this to be yourself) has been subjected to an
operation by and evil scientist. The persons
brain (your brain) has been removed from the body
and placed in a vat of nutrients which keeps the
brain alive. The nerve endings have been
connected to a super-scientific computer which
causes the person whose brain it is to have the
illusion that everything is perfectly normal.
There seem to be people, objects, the sky, etc
but really all the person (you) is experiencing
is the result of electronic impulses traveling
from the computer to the nerve endings. The
computer is so clever that if the person tries to
raise his hand, the feedback from the computer
will cause him to see and feel the hand being
raised. . . .. (Hilary Putnam, Brains in a Vat
1981)
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• Some Important Points about Philosophy
• Wisdom ? truth, so philosophy is not the
  search for truth.
• Wisdom ? knowledge, so philosophy is not the
  attainment of knowledge.
• Socrates was the wisest person in all of Athens
  but he claimed to know nothing.
• Hence, it is not essential to philosophy that we
  be able to provide answers to any philosophical
  questions. Believing that it is impossible to
  answer philosophical questions, or that there is
  no knowledge, or that nothing is true are all
  examples of philosophical views. But why believe
  any of these things? Im less interested in what
  you believe than why you believe it.