Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies

Front Cover
John Wiley & Sons, Jul 26, 2011 - Philosophy - 288 pages

THINKING 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 philosophical issues though film, as well as issues about the nature of film itself. Using film as a means of philosophizing, it combines the experience of viewing films with the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues. It offers readers the opportunity to learn about philosophy and film together in an engaging way, and raises philosophical questions about films and the experience of films.

Film is an extremely valuable way of exploring and discussing topics in philosophy. Readers are introduced to a broad range of philosophical issues though film, as well as to issues about the nature of film itself – a blend missing in most recent books on philosophy and film. Cox and Levine bring a critical eye to philosophical-film discussions throughout.

 

Contents

Epistemology and Metaphysics
47
Robot Love
79
La Jetée and the Promise of Time Travel
98
The Human Condition
113
The Case of Memento
132
Funny Games
147
Ethics and Values
189
Moral Luck and Regret
209
La Promesse and
245
Index
265
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Damian Cox is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bond University. He is co-author, with Michael Levine and Marguerite La Caze, of Integrity and the Fragile Self (2003). He has written widely on philosophical topics, including ethics, value theory, metaphysics, and epistemology.

Michael P. Levine is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia, and has co-authored, with Damian Cox and Saul Newman, Politics Most Unusual: Violence, Sovereignty and Democracy in the ‘War on Terror’ (2009). He is currently working on the topic of the role of regret and self-assessment in our moral lives.

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