Focusing on narratives with supernatural components, Karen J. Renner argues that the recent proliferation of stories about evil children demonstrates not a declining faith in the innocence of childhood but a desire to preserve its purity. From novels to music videos, photography to video games, the evil child haunts a range of texts and comes in a variety of forms, including changelings, ferals, and monstrous newborns. In this book, Renner illustrates how each subtype offers a different explanation for (...) the problem of the “evil” child and adapts to changing historical circumstances and ideologies. (shrink)

Resident Evil is a multidimensional, multimedia universe. The essays written for this volume will focus on this particular zombie manifestation and its significance in popular culture, cover a wide range, and discuss numerous issues. Among them are game theory, the idea of silence as well as memory, the connection to iconic stories, posthumanism and much more.

This book is about film's encounter with love throughout the medium's history. It is also about the philosophy of love... [it] outlines a new metaphysics and ontology of love as a reciprocal erotic relationship. This study argues that film's special narrative language is particularly well suited to depicting love in this way. It begins with early silent directors, such as Joseph von Sternberg, and concludes with contemporary filmmakers, such as Sophia Coppola; it also compares classical French and American love films (...) of the 1940s with modernist films by Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut, and Wong Kar Wai, amongst many others"--Page [4] of cover. (shrink)

A COMPANION TO MOTION PICTURES AND PUBLIC VALUE A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value brings together original essays by world-renowned scholars investigating the varied intersections of the moving image and the public good. Covering a wide range of types and genres of cinema, this unprecedented volume explores the past, present, and possible future contributions of motion pictures to public value. With a cross-disciplinary approach, the text presents original conceptual work, global perspectives, philosophical (...) arguments, historical discussion, empirical research, and specific case studies of the direct and indirect public value developed through motion pictures. Organized into seven thematic sections, this Companion identifies and discusses the various kinds of values that motion pictures can deliver, including artistic and aesthetic, ethical and moral, spiritual and religious, cultural, environmental, political, and cognitive. Throughout the text, readers are provided with deep insight into the issue of public value as it relates to cinema and its positive impact on human life and society. A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, and is a valuable resource for scholars across a variety of disciplines. (shrink)

Nihilism, American style -- The quest for evil -- The negative zone : suburban familial malaise in American beauty, Revolutionary road, and Mad men -- Normal nihilism as comic : Seinfeld, Trainspotting, and Pulp fiction -- Romanticism and nihilism -- Defense against the dark arts : from Se7en to the Dark knight and Harry Potter -- God got involved : sacred quests and overcoming nihilism -- Feels like the movies.

Norbert Elias’s project in The process of civilization involved reconstructing invisible movement—both the slow tempoof long-term historical change and the modification of psychic structures and embodied dispositions. To do this, he resorted to uncommon devices: treating historical texts as constituting a series amenable to a rudimentary discourse analysis, he constructed an imagined ‘curve of civilization’ serving as an approximation of the hidden process of change. Elias’s curve was not supposed to represent single past states, but movement itself, its direction and (...) pace. This novel concept of historical representation was related to the perception of cinema as a new medium making actual movement visible. But beyond making it possible to imagine how one could telescope long-term historical process, cinema also held the promise of serving as a microscope, making the minute movements of the human body, gestures and manners available for close inspection. While anthropologists were devising ways of using the new medium to document fleeting gestures and bodily postures, it was used by popular audiences as a source for remodelling behaviour and acquiring polite manners and body techniques, as noticed by such acute observers as Marcel Mauss and Joseph Roth. Hence, popular appropriation of the cinema gave rise to a heightened awareness of the historicity of gestures and the changing modalities of their transmission. Cinema was itself part of the accelerated motion of history, of a perceived change of pace in the process of civilization, which in its turn shed light on its historical antecedents and played an essential role in rethinking the notion of civilization and culture.Keywords: Norbert Elias; Marcel Mauss; Joseph Roth; Cinema; Gestures; Body; Discourse; Historiography; Sociology of culture. (shrink)

Democracy faces threats from an emerging right-wing movement in democratic governments around the world. This may be even more prevalent in the United States because there is an evil that uses rhetorical tropes to undermine the anchor institutions of democracy: press, courts, universities, and Congress. This evil has a personification--former President Donald Trump. All the rhetorical critiques of Trump, that he is a demagogue, an authoritarian, a serial liar, a populist on steroids, fail to take into account the (...) evil that is fomented by his angry and vengeful rhetoric. Pictures of evil in Scripture, philosophy, and rhetoric bear a striking resemblance to Trump. It is not enough to say that he is dangerous to democracy. Kennedy claims that he is the evil seed in democracy that is even now sprouting new versions of the Trump rhetoric as each acolyte attempts to outrage the next. Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy screams at the evil, fights against the evil, and then attempts to sing the songs of goodness and democracy from poets, prophets, and rhapsodes. For the health of democracy these words have been written. (shrink)

Emotions play at least three key roles in cinema. First, many motion pictures present highly emotional situations, involving characters who fall in love, who endure unbearable loss, and who become hell-bent on revenge. To make sense of movies, we must identify the emotions that drive their characters. Second, motion pictures seem to arouse emotions. We go to tearjerkers that make us cry, splatter films that make us writhe, and action films that keep us at the edges (...) of our seats. Third, these emotional experiences are, ostensibly, part of cinema’s allure; we value movies that evoke strong feelings. One might summarize these three observations by saying that movie-going involves emotion attribution, arousal, and motivation. Each of these has been a domain of philosophical contestation. How are emotions attributed when experiencing a cinematic fiction? Are genuine emotions really aroused? And do emotional experiences really bring us to the box office? This discussion explores controversies along these three dimensions. (shrink)

Syntactic templates serve as schemas, allowing speakers to describe complex events in a systematic fashion. Motion events have long served as a prime example of how different languages favor different syntactic frames, in turn biasing their speakers toward different event conceptualizations. However, there is also variability in how motion events are syntactically framed within languages. Here, we measure the consistency in event encoding in two languages, Spanish and Swedish. We test a dominant account in the literature, namely that (...) variability within a language can be explained by specific properties of the events. This event-properties account predicts that descriptions of one and the same event should be consistent within a language, even in languages where there is overall variability in the use of syntactic frames. Spanish and Swedish speakers (N= 84) described 32 caused motion events. While the most frequent syntactic framing in each language was as expected based on typology (Spanish: verb-framed, Swedish: satellite-framed, cf. Talmy,2000), Swedish descriptions were substantially more consistent than Spanish descriptions. Swedish speakers almost invariably encoded all events with a single syntactic frame and systematically conveyed manner of motion. Spanish descriptions, in contrast, varied much more regarding syntactic framing and expression of manner. Crucially, variability in Spanish descriptions was not mainly a function of differences between events, as predicted by the event-properties account. Rather, Spanish variability in syntactic framing was driven by speaker biases. A similar picture arose for whether Spanish descriptions expressed manner information or not: Even after accounting for the effect of syntactic choice, a large portion of the variance in Spanish manner encoding remained attributable to differences among speakers. The results show that consistency in motion event encoding starkly differs across languages: Some languages (like Swedish) bias their speakers toward a particular linguistic event schema much more than others (like Spanish). Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the typology of event framing, theories on the relationship between language and thought, and speech planning. In addition, the tools employed here to quantify variability can be applied to other domains of language. (shrink)

The success of movies like The Artist and Hugo recreated the wonder and magic of silent film for modern audiences, many of whom might never have experienced a movie without sound. But while the American silent movie was one of the most significant popular art forms of the modern age, it is also one that is largely lost to us, as more than eighty percent of silent films have disappeared, the victims of age, disaster, and neglect. We now know about (...) many of these cinematic masterpieces only from the collections of still portraits and production photographs that were originally created for publicity and reference. Capturing the beauty, horror, and moodiness of silent motion pictures, these images are remarkable pieces of art in their own right. In the first history of still camera work generated by the American silent motion picture industry, David S. Shields chronicles the evolution of silent film aesthetics, glamour, and publicity, and provides unparalleled insight into this influential body of popular imagery. Exploring the work of over sixty camera artists, Still recovers the stories of the photographers who descended on early Hollywood and the stars and starlets who sat for them between 1908 and 1928. Focusing on the most culturally influential types of photographs—the performer portrait and the scene still—Shields follows photographers such as Albert Witzel and W. F. Seely as they devised the poses that newspapers and magazines would bring to Americans, who mimicked the sultry stares and dangerous glances of silent stars. He uncovers scene shots of unprecedented splendor—visions that would ignite the popular imagination. And he details how still photographs changed the film industry, whose growing preoccupation with artistry in imagery caused directors and stars to hire celebrated stage photographers and transformed cameramen into bankable names. Reproducing over one hundred and fifty of these gorgeous black-and-white photographs, Still brings to life an entire long-lost visual culture that a century later still has the power to enchant. (shrink)

Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presents key selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy of film. The featured essays have been specially chosen for their clarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current move towards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as the nature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration and emotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledge and morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films, fear (...) of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the viewing of pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving pictures throughout. (shrink)

György Alajos Szerdahely, the first professor of aesthetics in Pest, publishes his Aesthetica in 1778, a work, written in Latin, that not only engages with the eclectic university aesthetics of late-18th-century Germany and Central Europe, but also marks the beginning of the Hungarian aesthetic tradition. Szerdahely proposes aesthetics as the doctrine of taste, a philosophical discipline that can polish our manners and social conduct through a sensual-affective Bildung offered by art experiences. Highlighting his sources in both British criticism and German (...) aesthetics, the paper traces the development of Szerdahely's concept of beauty from beauty as form (uniformity amidst variety) to beauty in motion (sensibility). Initially, Szerdahely argues for unity and variety as the two main constituents of a beautiful object, evoking disinterested contemplation, but he then turns to sensibility as the third necessary condition of beauty: an object becomes aesthetically beautiful only if it has the power to strike the senses (Lux) and stir the affections (Vivacitas), enlivening the whole embodied person. The paper argues that this third principle of sensibility proves to be more emphatic than the first two, leading to (1) the aesthetic conception of beauty as an experiential quality; but more interestingly to (2) the incorporation of the element of self-preservation and self-love into aesthetic experience. The reason for the latter development lies in Szerdahely’s anthropological argument, which traces back every affection to the instantaneous apprehension of good or evil concerning ourselves, implying desire (Adpetitus) or aversion (Auersi) in our reactions. (shrink)

Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presentskey selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy offilm. The featured essays have been specially chosen for theirclarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current movetowards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as thenature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration andemotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledgeand morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films,fear of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the (...) viewingof pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving picturesthroughout. (shrink)

This article sets up a neurophenomenological approach to understanding cinema spectatorship in order to investigate how embodied engagement with technologies of sound and motion can foster a sense of experiential realism. It takes as a starting point the idea that the empirical study of emotive, perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes involved in film spectatorship is impoverished without a phenomenological account of the lived experience under investigation. Correspondingly, engaging with neuroscientific studies enriches the scope of phenomenological inquiry and offers new (...) insights into the film experience. Analysis of diverse films including Interstellar, Leviathan, San Andreas and The Thin Red Line reveals how technological innovations dating from Hale’s Tours to contemporary D-BOX and Dolby Atmos systems have enhanced the audience’s sense of immersion and corporeal investment in the film experience. Building on the research of Vivian Sobchack and Vittorio Gallese, I argue that aesthetic techniques including the use of low frequency sound effects and wearable cameras facilitate shared affective engagement and a form of embodied simulation associated with kinaesthetic empathy and augmented narrative involvement. (shrink)

This chapter surveys foundational concepts in the history of phenomenology for the purpose of highlighting their relevance for key contemporary issues in the philosophy of film. A central argument concerns phenomenology’s capacity for unraveling the ontology of film, given phenomenology’s emphasis on accounting for the ontology of phenomena through description based in first-person experience. On this ground, the chapter defends the claim that film’s ontology stems from the projective intentionality of the film viewer, where the communicative nature of embodied vision (...) also figures into play. The principal phenomenological frameworks taken up are those of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as the work of contemporary film scholar Vivian Sobchack. (shrink)

Tractatus Logico-Pilosophicus, the only book published during Ludwig Wittgenstein's lifetime , has since attracted the imagination of generations of philosophers as a work of great philosophical genius. Nonetheless, even today, more than eighty years later, philosophers are struggling to reconcile its diverse themes within a single, coherent picture. The present work is an attempt to meet this challenge. ;Wittgenstein considered the single proposition as a concrete model for the fact. The challenge is to show how a system of propositions can (...) serve as a model of reality. My work concentrates on three pillars of the logic of the Tractatus: the picture theory, negation as "reversal of sense," the independence of elementary propositions. Using a simple scenario of the ordering of objects or letters on a line, I examine the conflict generated by the attempt to adequately accommodate all three themes and offer my own solution. My solution brings implications to the problem of negation and to the Tractatus's thesis that the possibilities of logical space are spanned by the possible configurations of the ultimately simple objects. One such implication, which stands in contrast to the common reading, is that in atomic facts we have 'complex objects' as constituents. ;The resolution offered, furthermore, exposes an intrinsic difficulty in the Tractatus, for which I have reserved the term arbitrary choice. The difficulty is manifested in the lack of assurance---from the perspective of logic---that a concept-word will preserve its 'standard' meaning when it is reapplied or when its scope of application varies. In this I uncover the seed of central themes in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, e.g. the rule-following argument, as present already in the Tractatus. ;In the concluding chapter, I suggest a new account for the nature of the proposition by connecting the analysis offered in the Tractatus with the subject of time and motion. The picture with which the work concludes then considers language not as corresponding to reality, but as engaged or synchronized with reality---if you will, it is a picture of language and reality in a dance. (shrink)

The paper sketches the place of dynamic semantics within a broader picture of developments in philosophical and linguistic theories of meaning. Some basic concepts of dynamic semantics are illustrated by means of a detailed analysis of anaphoric definite and indefinite descriptions, which are treated as contextually dependent quantificational expressions. It is shown how a dynamic view sheds new light on the contextual nature of interpretation, on the difference between monologue and dialogue, and on the interplay between direct and indirect information.

The paper sketches the place of dynamic semantics within a broader picture of developments in philosophical and linguistic theories of meaning. Some basic concepts of dynamic semantics are illustrated by means of a detailed analysis of anaphoric definite and indefinite descriptions, which are treated as contextually dependent quantificational expressions. It is shown how a dynamic view sheds new light on the contextual nature of interpretation, on the difference between monologue and dialogue, and on the interplay between direct and indirect information.

Ce dictionnaire propose de réunir des portraits de brutes et de mégères dans le but de s'interroger sur les causes et les raisons de cette perception négative. Pourquoi certaines figures évoquent-elles la méchanceté? Que peut nous dire cette méchanceté dénoncée de nous-mêmes et de l'époque qui l'a engendrée? Il s'agira de retracer les portraits de ceux et celles ayant marqué l'Histoire et la fiction par leur cruauté, leur perfidie, leur machiavélisme, leur art de la dissimulation ou de la manipulation. S'attarder (...) sur la méchanceté et ses possibles, décliner les façons de la penser et de la vivre, de la subir ou de l'exercer, c'est s'intéresser à une facette peu valorisée de la sensibilité d'autant plus importante que chaque individu, de près ou de loin, est amené, un jour, à se montrer méchant. La méchanceté et ses manifestations, qu'elles soient conceptuelles ou biographiques, nous invitent donc à une introspection globale, à une immersion dans les affres de la noirceur des âmes dont la bouche n'est autre que celle de la méchanceté Le champ de cette entreprise est vaste et recouvre notamment : La Malice, le Machiavélisme, Orangina Rouge, Barbe Bleue, le cinéma d'Alfred Hitchcock, Marie-Antoinette, la Mauvaise conscience, Gilles de Rais, Harry Powell (La nuit du chasseur) Salomé-Hérodiade, Dracula, Tatie Danielle, Marie Tudor, la Perversité, la Mégère Grecque, Dark Vador, Mildred Ratched (Vol au-dessus d'un nid de coucou)... (shrink)

This handbook brings together essays in the philosophy of film and motion pictures from authorities across the spectrum. It boasts contributions from philosophers and film theorists alike, with many essays employing pluralist approaches to this interdisciplinary subject. Core areas treated include film ontology, film structure, psychology, authorship, narrative, and viewer emotion. Emerging areas of interest, including virtual reality, video games, and nonfictional and autobiographical film also have dedicated chapters. Other areas of focus include the film medium’s intersection with (...) contemporary social issues, film’s kinship to other art forms, and the influence of historically seminal schools of thought in the philosophy of film. Of emphasis in many of the essays is the relationship and overlap of analytic and continental perspectives in this subject. (shrink)

James A. Diefenbeck, Wayward Reflections on the History ofPhilosophyThomas R. Flynn Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason. Volume 1:Toward an Existential Theory of HistoryMark Golden and Peter Toohey Inventing Ancient Culture:Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient WorldZenonas Norkus Istorika: Istorinis IvadasEverett Zimmerman The Boundaries of Fiction: History and theEighteenth‐Century British Novel.

Introduction -- Media and representation. On the one medium / Eric Gans -- The scapegoat mechanism and the media: beyond the folk devil paradigm / John O'Carroll -- The apocalypse will not be televised / Chris Fleming -- Film. Mirrors of nature: artificial agents in real life and virtual worlds / Paul Dumouchel -- Superheroes, scapegoats, and saviors: the problem of evil and the need for redemption / Joel Hodge -- Sanctified victimage on page and screen: The hunger games (...) as prophetic media / Debra E. Macdonald -- The mimetic e-motion: from The matrix to Avatar / Nidesh Lawtoo -- Apocalypse of the therapeutic: The cabin in the woods and the death of mimetic desire / Peter Y. Paik -- Eyes wide shut: mimesis and historical memory in Stanley Kubrick's The shining / David Humbert -- Against romantic love: mimeticism and satire in Woody Allen's Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona; you will meet a tall dark stranger; and To Rome with love / Scott Cowdell -- A beautiful crisis: Ang Lee's film adaptation of The ice storm / Carly Osborn -- Cowboy metaphysics, the virtuous-enough cowboy, and mimetic desire in Stephen Fears' The hi-lo country / Thomas Ryba -- Television. The self in crisis: watching Mad men and Homeland with Girard and Hegel / Paolo Diego Bubbio -- Media, murder, and memoir: Girardian baroque in Robert Drewe's The shark net / Rosamund Dalziell -- Conversion in Dexter / Matthew John Paul Tan and Joel Hodge. (shrink)

Pack includes 2 titles from the popular Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies Series: Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings - An Anthology Edited by Eileen John and Dominic McIver Lopes ISBN: 9781405112086 Essential readings in the philosophy of literature are brought together for the first time in this anthology. Contains forty-five substantial and carefully chosen essays and extracts Provides a balanced and coherent overview of developments in the field during the past thirty years, including influential work on fiction, interpretation, metaphor, literary (...) value, and the definition and ontology of literature Includes an additional historical section featuring generous selections of the writings of early pioneers such as Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Hume Serves as an ideal introduction to the philosophy of literature or the philosophy of art, as well as a handy compilation of contributions to the field by its leading figures Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology Edited by Noël Carroll and Jinhee Choi ISBN: 9781405120272 Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presents key selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy of film. The featured essays have been specially chosen for their clarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current move towards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as the nature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration and emotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledge and morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films, fear of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the viewing of pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving pictures throughout. (shrink)

In this book, Richard Dien Winfield builds upon Hegel’s Aesthetics to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the individual fine arts, which remedies Hegel's inconsistencies and major omissions. In addition to conceiving the general aesthetics and particular stylistic forms of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature, Winfield determines the fundamental character of the new arts of photography and cinema that the master thinkers of aesthetics never had the opportunity to consider. Winfield’s analysis covers a wide-ranging array of artistic creations (...) from diverse periods and cultures, while engaging in debate with the most important aesthetic theorists of the past and present. (shrink)

Philosophische Reflexion allein kann das Böse nicht (be-)greifen. Es sind oft Geschichten, die helfen, sich dem Phänomen anzunähern. Der Band hat sich das Ziel gesetzt, ein tieferes Verständnis des Bösen zu erreichen, indem neben philosophischen auch literarische und filmische Zugänge daraufhin befragt werden, was sie uns über das Böse zu erzählen haben, und sie mit philosophischen Theorien in ein produktives Gespräch gebracht werden. Dabei wird sich herausstellen, dass die Philosophie selbst durchaus narrativ und die Narration durchaus reflexiv sein kann. (Quelle: (...) Homepage des Verlags). (shrink)

Many distinct, controvertial issues are to be found within the labyrinthine\ntwists and turns of the problem of evil. For philosophers of the\nseventeenth and early eighteenth centures, evil presented a challenge\nto the consistency and rationality of the world-picture disclosed\nby the new way of ideas. In dealing with this challenge, however,\nphilosophers were also concerned with their positions in the theological\ndebates about original sin, free will, and justification that were\nthe legacy of the Protestant Reformation to European intellectual\nlife. Emerging from a conference (...) on the problem of evil in the early\nmodern period held at the University of Toronto in 1999, the papers\nin this collection represent some of the best original work being\ndone today on the theodicies of such early modern philosophers as\nLeibniz, Suarez, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Pierre Bayle. (shrink)

This paper focuses on whether static images can depict motion. It is natural to say that pictures depicting objects caught in the middle of a dynamic action—such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s (1932) Behind the Gare St. Lazare—are pictures of movement, but, given that pictures themselves do not move, can we make sense of such an idea? Drawing on results from experimental psychology and cognitive sciences, I show that we can. Psychological studies on implicit motion and representational (...) momentum indicate that motion is really perceived in some static images: our visual system is built in order to detect motion, even where it is only implied, and to anticipate the probable outcomes of others’ actions—even when the ‘others’ are only the subject matters of pictures’. I argue that, consequently, a range of popular depiction theories—perceptualist theories of depiction—can accommodate depicted motion. (shrink)

Talk about evil resonates in ways that are culturally inherited. Historical and religious dimensions of “evil” often seem to be front and center. Nevertheless, we argue that it would be too quick to dismiss the study of evil within secular ethics. We defend an outlook that is inspired by ancient ethics—also called virtue ethics—which accepts the so-called Guise of the Good account of motivation. For an agent to be motivated to perform an action, something about the action (...) must look good to her. We argue that evil actions do not constitute exceptions to the Guise of the Good. To preserve this framework, we entertain a privative account of evil, according to which evil is the absence of the good, and yet appears in a positive light to the agent who performs an evil action. We reject the view that evil is quantitatively extreme badness. An account of evil should permit that some instances of evil are from a third person perspective not extremely bad. On this picture, evil is agent-relative; something can be evil relative to one person without being evil relative to another person. Accordingly, several qualities—rather than only one distinctive quality—can make an action evil. (shrink)

A mime presented on videotape Adler’s six great ideas of truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, and justice; their opposites; and the transitions from the positive or “good” concepts to their opposites. Using Johansson’s (1973) technique, the performer’s 12 joints were marked with points of light. Overall, the viewers had marginal success in identifying the concepts, but females were much more successful than males in identifying the “bad” ones of evil, slavery, falsehood, and ugliness, averaging 62% correct to the males’ (...) 23%. The results agree with Hall’s (1984) discussion of sex differences in the interpretation of nonverbal behavior. (shrink)

The Philosopher at the End of the Universe demonstrates how anyone can grasp the basic concepts of philosophy while still holding a bucket of popcorn. Mark Rowlands makes philosophy utterly relevant to our everyday lives and reveals its most potent messages using nothing more than a little humor and the plotlines of some of the most spectacular, expensive, high-octane films on the planet. Learn about: The Nature of Reality from The Matrix, Good and Evil from Star Wars, Morality from (...) Aliens, Personal Identity from Total Recall, The Mind-Body dilemma from Terminator, Free Will from Minority Report, Death and the Meaning of Life from Blade Runner, and much more. A search for knowledge about ourselves and the world around us with a star-studded cast that includes: Tom Cruise, Plato, Harrison Ford, Immanuel Kant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigourney Weaver, René Descartes, and Keanu Reeves. Rowlands anchors his discussions in easily understood everyday terms and relates them in a manner easy to identify with. Interspersed with a ready joke or two, he wonderfully explains why those SciFi movies we love so much are much deeper than they appear to be on the surface. Mark Rowlands's entertaining and stimulating guide is perfect for anyone searching for knowledge of the world around us. If Keanu can understand Descartes surely everyone can. (shrink)

Documentary as Exorcism is an interdisciplinary study that builds upon the insights of postcolonial studies, critical race theory, theological and religious studies and media and film studies to showcase the role of documentary film as a system of signifying capable of registering complex theological ideas while pursuing the authentic aims of documentary filmmaking. Robert Beckford marries the concepts of ‘theology as visual practice' and ‘theology as political engagement' to develop a new mode of documentary filmmaking that embeds emancipation from oppression (...) in its aesthetic. In various documentaries made for Channel 4 and the BBC, Beckford narrates the complicit relationship of Christianity with European expansion, slavery, and colonialism as a historic manifestation of evil. In light of the cannibalistic practices of colonialism that devoured black life, and the church's role in the subjugation and theological legitimation of black bodies, Beckford characterises this form of historic Christian faith as ‘colonial Christianity' and its malevolent or ‘occult' practices as a form of ‘bewitchment' that must be ‘exorcised'. He identifies and exorcises the evil practices of colonialism and their present impact upon African Caribbean Christian communities in Britain in films such as Britain's Slave Trade and Empire Pays Back through a deliberate process of encoding/decoding. The emancipatory impact of this form of documentary filmmaking is demonstrated by its ability to bring issues such as reparations to the public square for debate, and its capacity to change a corporation's trade policies for the good of Africans. (shrink)

(1984). Showing Movement in Children's Pictures: a study of the effectiveness of some non‐mimetic representations of motion. Educational Studies: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 255-261.

This article tries to make sense of the concept of repetition in Søren Kierkegaard’s works. According to Kierkegaard repetition is a temporal movement of existence. What is repetition and what is its meaning for human existence? In answering this question the Danish philosopher depicts repetition by comparing three different approaches to life. Throughout the article I try to develop a coherent argument on ‘the new philosophical category’by analysing the three types of repetition and their corresponding human prototypes. I consider repetition (...) a key concept in summarizing Kierkegaard’s theory of existence, where existence pictures the becoming of the human-self that follows several stages. Constantin Constantius’s repetition is an unsuccessful attempt, an aesthetic expression of human-life. The young lover’s repetition is spiritual, albeit not yet authentic, religious, but more poetic, even if he regains his self. Only Job’s repetition is an authentic movement of existence, an expression of a spiritual trial and of genuine faith. (shrink)

While some film theorists and philosophers have seen motion as a necessary element of cinema, this view is challenged by a body of avant-garde films which offer little or no movement. These experiments—by film-makers such as Andy Warhol, Larry Gottheim, and Michael Snow—challenge essentialist definitions of film, while simultaneously foregrounding the crucial role played by duration in cinema’s ontology.

What is Aristotle's considered view of animal self-motion? According to several scholars, Aristotle ends up rejecting this very notion as a result of his criticism of Plato's theory of a self-moving soul. Contrary to this still widespread assumption, the present study argues that his critical engagement with Plato is not confined to negative results, but achieves largely positive outcomes, which add up to a rich and nuanced picture of self-motion. Ferro makes his case by offering a novel reading (...) of a handful of controversial passages from De Anima and Physics VIII, where Aristotle reacts to three aspects of Plato's theory of self-motion: the claim that soul itself is a self-mover, the assumption that self-movers enjoy strong causal autonomy, and the link between motion, desire and soul partition. Through a careful reading of the relevant passages, which does justice to their proper context and significance, Ferro shows that Aristotle's critical re-appropriation of self-motion results in a largely coherent doctrine with major repercussions for Aristotelian psychology and philosophy of nature. (shrink)

Given that numerous critics have complained about Saw’s apparently confused sense of ethics, it is surprising that little attention has been paid to how morality operates in narrative itself. Coming from a Nietzschean perspective - specifically questioning whether the lead torturer Jigsaw is a passive or a radical nihilist - I seek to rectify that oversight. This philosophical reading of the series explores Jigsaw’s moral stance, which is complicated by his hypocrisy: I contend that this underpins critical complaints regarding the (...) films’ (and frequently the audience’s) "muddled" morality. My narrative analysis reveals that Jigsaw’s values are not as confused as they may first appear to be. Despite explicitly proclaiming that his quest is to save others, his actions reveal another story (and not only because his schema is homicidal). Following the loss of his unborn son and his failed suicide attempt, Jigsaw seeks to symbolically eradicate himself: the victims he selects reflect and reify his own obsessive personality traits. In keeping with the franchises’ narrative twists – which are designed to reverse initially "obvious" meanings – I argue that Jigsaw’s proclamations have misdirected critics. His nihilism may be manifested as coerced suffering and articulated as distaste with the world, yet the series’ symbolic target is Jigsaw himself. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of about 80 very brief, accessible essays written by international experts from medicine, social sciences, and the humanities, ...

Rethinking “philosophy” to-day, it is necessary to think first of all about ontological foundations of the modern scientific universe description and rethink them on the ground of modern scientific knowledge, because until now there is no any precise scientific conception of the structure of the universe, of reasons and movingforces of its permanent evolution. All of it create basis to propose various unscientific ideas of creationism. Until now most of philosophers associate the motion of Matter on the whole only (...) with its motion in space and in time, mixing philosophical and physical aspects of these two principle categories. Generally speaking, the present-day ontological model of understanding the World, the Universe is constructed purely on the basis of only these two fundamental categories. However, a more deep reflection of the essence of Being, if to realize it on the basis of only these two global categories, brings us to the disappointing conclusion, that in this case we have nothing more except a mechanical motion, i.e. spatial displacement of a material point (or a system of points) relatively some point of counting off. To make it normal and logic we should add to the ontological model one more essential part – the motion in quality. So, in order to create the full and complete picture of the formation and evolution of the material World it is necessary to observe the motion of material forming in the three equivalentphilosophical categories: in space time quality. The ideas of the new conception of ontological model become actual supplementation of really scientific philosophical knowledge on the way of a more objective ontological comprehension of our Being, of the law of development of the human civilization and the Universe as a whole. This knowledge can be successfully used for the description of the realistic paradigm of Being, in explanations of the meaning of Life. (shrink)

Introduction -- Newton's laws of motion versus nature's -- The continuity conundrum -- Continuity and linearity : confusion twice confounded -- From illusions of precision and reproducibility in natural science to delusions of normalcy in social science -- Mutability -- Laws of motion : natural law and questions of mutability -- Essential and intangible role of temporal factors : a detailed example -- Detaching Canada's East Coast Fishery from its history : causes and consequences -- Mishandling temporal factors (...) : a problem of method -- Social science and the problem of linearised time -- The dialectic of nature and its usefulness for the social sciences -- Placing Tlinear on life support -- Merchant's capital : key historic intangible of the East Coast Fishery -- The 800-pound gorilla. (shrink)