Everything I Know I Learned from TV: Philosophy for the Unrepentant Couch Potato by Mark Rowlands |
by Mark Rowlands
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The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons in Love, Death, and Happiness by Mark Rowlands |
by Kimberly A. Blessing
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by Mark Rowlands
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
All the revelations of a college survey course on philosophy can be easily gleaned from a few science fiction films. At least that’s the premise of this thoroughly entertaining conversation starter by philosophy professor Rowlands, who explicates the musings of some of philosophy’s biggest stars within the context of cinema’s most enduring sci-fi hits. Under Rowlands’s guidance, these films shed light on such abstruse philosophical ideas as the "the problem of free will" and "death and the meaning of life." For example, the great lesson of Frankenstein is not that life can originate only from a divine creator, Rowlands says. Rather, the monster, a creature unable to choose his physical nature, his parents or his future, actually embodies the existential dilemmas explored by Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. In a particularly winning chapter on Star Wars, Rowlands compares the musings of Plato and Nietzsche, conjecturing that evil is not the absence of good but, rather, a contrast necessary in order for good to exist. (That is, Darth Vader is nothing without Obi-Wan and vice versa.) Rowlands recommends that readers watch each film before plunging into the corresponding chapter. And he makes no apologies for his "lowbrow" intellectual diversions into such crowd pleasers as Total Recall (a celluloid essay on memory theory and identity), Hollow Man (a meditation on moral vs. "prudent" choices) and The Matrix (a Cartesian daydream). Rowlands frequently injects his own thoughts with self-deprecating charm. His combination of humor and erudition produces an engaging read, delightful in its tone and accessible in its prose, that affirms the wisdom of numerous armchair philosophers who have declared that everything you need to know about life can be learned from the movies.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Irish philosopher Rowlands adopts a mildly smart-alecky persona for this Philosophy 101-type foray that uses "sci-fi" flickers to illustrate questions of meaning, knowledge, identity, free will, morality, and death. Frankenstein--actually, Kenneth Brannagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-- serves to tease out the meaning of life as absurdity, a result of the discrepancy between interior and exterior perspectives on the self. Because of the same inside-outside clash--the rock, Rowlands says, on which all philosophical positions founder--certain knowledge proves elusive: see The Matrix. The mind-body problem (see The Terminator) and the concept of personal identity (Total Recall) come to ends similar, respectively, to those of the issues of meaning and knowledge. Only when the issue is "Why be moral?" are the bonds of rationality slipped; act according to your conscience, Rowlands, along with Nietzsche, counsels. While arguing by inference (they star in so many philosophically intriguing films) that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves be hailed as actor-philosophers, Rowlands effectively covers an astonishing number of essential thinkers and positions, meanwhile betraying only individualist and antireligious biases. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
All the revelations of a college survey course on philosophy can be easily gleaned from a few science fiction films. At least that’s the premise of this thoroughly entertaining conversation starter by philosophy professor Rowlands, who explicates the musings of some of philosophy’s biggest stars within the context of cinema’s most enduring sci-fi hits. Under Rowlands’s guidance, these films shed light on such abstruse philosophical ideas as the "the problem of free will" and "death and the meaning of life." For example, the great lesson of Frankenstein is not that life can originate only from a divine creator, Rowlands says. Rather, the monster, a creature unable to choose his physical nature, his parents or his future, actually embodies the existential dilemmas explored by Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. In a particularly winning chapter on Star Wars, Rowlands compares the musings of Plato and Nietzsche, conjecturing that evil is not the absence of good but, rather, a contrast necessary in order for good to exist. (That is, Darth Vader is nothing without Obi-Wan and vice versa.) Rowlands recommends that readers watch each film before plunging into the corresponding chapter. And he makes no apologies for his "lowbrow" intellectual diversions into such crowd pleasers as Total Recall (a celluloid essay on memory theory and identity), Hollow Man (a meditation on moral vs. "prudent" choices) and The Matrix (a Cartesian daydream). Rowlands frequently injects his own thoughts with self-deprecating charm. His combination of humor and erudition produces an engaging read, delightful in its tone and accessible in its prose, that affirms the wisdom of numerous armchair philosophers who have declared that everything you need to know about life can be learned from the movies.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Irish philosopher Rowlands adopts a mildly smart-alecky persona for this Philosophy 101-type foray that uses "sci-fi" flickers to illustrate questions of meaning, knowledge, identity, free will, morality, and death. Frankenstein--actually, Kenneth Brannagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-- serves to tease out the meaning of life as absurdity, a result of the discrepancy between interior and exterior perspectives on the self. Because of the same inside-outside clash--the rock, Rowlands says, on which all philosophical positions founder--certain knowledge proves elusive: see The Matrix. The mind-body problem (see The Terminator) and the concept of personal identity (Total Recall) come to ends similar, respectively, to those of the issues of meaning and knowledge. Only when the issue is "Why be moral?" are the bonds of rationality slipped; act according to your conscience, Rowlands, along with Nietzsche, counsels. While arguing by inference (they star in so many philosophically intriguing films) that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves be hailed as actor-philosophers, Rowlands effectively covers an astonishing number of essential thinkers and positions, meanwhile betraying only individualist and antireligious biases. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Why Frankenstein? This is supposed to be a book about sci-phi - the philosophy embodied in science fiction - so why begin with what is usually thought of as a gothic horror story? Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
same person from one day, causal lineage, agent causation theory, sci phi, prudential ones, memory theory, total cause, soul theory, primitive drives, rational egoists, morally relevant difference, prudential reasons Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Adam Gibson, Darth Vader, Star Wars, Kevin Bacon, Independence Day, Lord Vader, Leo Crow, Deep Blue, Elizabeth Shue, Annakin Skywalker, George Lucas, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sarah Connor, Cesare Borgia, Eldon Tyrell, Paul Verhoeven, Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher, David Hume, Harrison Ford, Martin Heidegger, Max von Sydow New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Why Frankenstein? This is supposed to be a book about sci-phi - the philosophy embodied in science fiction - so why begin with what is usually thought of as a gothic horror story? Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
same person from one day, causal lineage, agent causation theory, sci phi, prudential ones, memory theory, total cause, soul theory, primitive drives, rational egoists, morally relevant difference, prudential reasons Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Adam Gibson, Darth Vader, Star Wars, Kevin Bacon, Independence Day, Lord Vader, Leo Crow, Deep Blue, Elizabeth Shue, Annakin Skywalker, George Lucas, Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sarah Connor, Cesare Borgia, Eldon Tyrell, Paul Verhoeven, Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher, David Hume, Harrison Ford, Martin Heidegger, Max von Sydow New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 21
books:
See all 21 books this book cites
- Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas on 5 pages
- Philosophical Investigations (3rd Edition) by Ludwig Wittgenstein on page 7, and Back Matter
- Being and Time by Martin Heidegger on page 7, and Back Matter
- Being And Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre on page 5, and Back Matter
- Invisible Man by H G Wells on page 155
See all 21 books this book cites
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