Philosophy and Film

Resource Index

(for PHIL-3800 and 4800/4900)

Dr. Ari Santas

Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

Valdosta State University

Study Questions

Babel I ♥ Huckabees Network Next

Bladerunner Imposter Paycheck

Bowling for Columbine Incident at Oglala Pleasantville

Brazil Instinct Rosewood

Bulworth Malcolm X Truman Show

Crash Matrix Wag the Dog

Dark City Memento Weather Underground

Devil Wears Prada Minority Report What the Bleep?

Gandhi Miss Congeniality Little Miss Sunshine

Texts for Identity, Memory, and the Evil Deceiver

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (cave theme prevalent throughout most of these films)

Text of the Allegory of the Cave            Santas’ Notes on the Cave

Selections from Moderns on Memory from John Perry’s Personal Identity Reader

Locke’s Memory Theory (the theory that personal identity is determined by our stored experiences—our memories)

Critiques of Memory Theory

Hume’s Skeptical Doubts

Berkeley’s Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (for a critique of Locke’s idea that sense perception points to an externally existing reality)

First Dialogue Second Dialogue Third Dialogue

Phillip K. Dick Resources (many of the films of the course are based on his works)

See http://www.philipkdick.com/

Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience

(see the discussion of being in jail in Part Two)

Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy

Meditation I (for discussion of doubt)

Meditation II (for a discussion of the self as a thinking thing)  

Meditation IV (on how to remove error and find truth)

Texts for Identity, Fate, and Choice

Matrix and Philosophy Website: Matrix and Philosophy (lots of cool articles here)

See Matrix Scenes page for list of important scenes in Reloaded and Revolutions

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (an ancient Greek conception of virtue and the good life)

Book II (virtue and character)

Book III (virtue and choice)

Book VII (moral weakness and pleasure)

Leibniz’ Monadology (for a look at a unit of consciousness as a organization of perceptions)

Monadology

Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section VIII (discussion for a discussion of Liberty and Necessity)

J.S. Mill’s On Liberty

Chapter III (on individuality)

Sartre’s Existentialism and Humanism

Mead Essay on the Present as the Locus of Reality (a philosophy of time that may blow your mind)

Texts for Constructed Identities

Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (Full text online—see esp. Part III)

Mead Essay on Vocal Gestures (language as a foundation of mind)

Mead Essay on Play and the Other (the self as inherently social)

Supplemental Notes

Notes On Personal Identity and Film

Santas Notes on Theories of Self

Santas Notes on Identity, Memory and the Evil Genius in Film 

Santas Notes on Identity, Fate and Choice

Santas Notes on Constructed Identities

Notes On Plato’s Allegory of the Cave:

Santas Notes on the Cave

Notes on Aristotle’s Ethics

Santas Notes on Book II (virtue and character)

Santas Notes on Book III (virtue and choice)

Santas Notes on Book VII (moral weakness and pleasure)

Notes on Modern Philosophers

René Descartes: http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/descarte.htm

· Santas Notes Meditation I (discussion of doubt)

· Santas Notes Meditation II (discussion of the self as a thinking thing)  

· Santas Notes Meditation IV (removing error and finding truth)

 Hume’ Enquiry, VIII (on Liberty and Necessity)

· Santas Notes Enquiry, VIII

Notes on J.S. Mill

Santas Notes On Liberty, Section III (on individuality)

Notes on Mead

Santas Notes on Mead on Identity