A while back I was asked to submit a writing sample with a job application. The only options I had were academic papers. So, I wrote a movie review just to have a piece of light, casual prose. I had a great time writing it. So now I write this blog, just for the fun of it.

The topics are the two things I know most about: movies and philosophy. Once upon a time, I enjoyed serious cinema. I still do, actually. But when I began studying philosophy more seriously, all I wanted to watch were escapist, genre movies. All week long, I would read serious books, and think serious thoughts. Serious movies just weren't as fun as they used to be. Thus, the movies I write about are generally low-brow. But I cannot abide by pop philosophy. And while the philosophy posts are informal, and not for specialists, I do try to keep them serious. So this is a low-brow/high-brow kind of blog. Unibrow.

One last note, this is not about philosophy in movies. And, not because the movies I discuss are not exactly art. But because the philosophy in movies is usually about an inch deep. Even when a movie is philosophically interesting, it usually is not philosophical about it. The best philosophy in movies, in my opinion, is literary, or psychological. They show how people deal with philosophical problems. After all, can you imagine what it would be like if a movie tried to be objective? It would be like watching a science-fiction movie with real science. 1000 failed experiments that only provide ambiguous data.
Thanks. If you've somehow found this blog and read this far, I hope you enjoy it. And, don't worry, I don't think philosophy must be objective.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

See. And you said philosophy was pointless!

Philosophy: questioning everything in life but getting no answers.

Knowledge: something that is true, that you believe, and that you can prove (have evidence).

So something that you believe that may not be true, something that is true that may not be proven and something that has evidence that may not be believed is not knowledge, therefore, we probably all know nothing. Which, according to Socrates, is wisdom.
You might think this quote came from Samuel Beckett or a Monty Python sketch, but it didn't. It was my very own cousin and amateur philosopher Tracy Roberts, summing up what some things she learned taking philosophy courses through Coursera. Good one Tracy.

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