Hi again. Here is the fourth podcast for the course. In this podcast I will discuss both of the essays for this coming week, as well as introducing you to our next film, I Heart Huckabees. Before you listen, be sure to download the first reading, Jean Paul Sartre's "Existentialism is a Humanism", and read it along with our second reading, Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic". Links to both of these essays are provided in the course calendar. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me using the link to the right.

See you on Thursday!

You may choose to write on the following if you didn't write on last week's question, and if you choose to do so, it will be due by the beginning of our next class meeting, Thursday February 9th. Your answer should be at least 350 words in length. Here is the question:

What would Sontag have thought of our class discussion of Adaptation? Do you agree with what you think she would say about our discussion? Why or why not?

Hi again. Here is the third podcast for the course. In this podcast I will discuss both of the essays for this coming week, as well as introducing you to our next film, Adaptation. Before you listen, be sure to download the first reading, Richard Rorty’s "Platonists, Positivists, and Pragmatists", and read it along with our second reading, Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation". Links to both of these essays are provided in the course calendar. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me using the link to the right.

See you on Thursday!

Hi there,

As you know, each week after we view a film I will be posting a short essay question which you can choose to write on. You must write on one (of the three that will be posted) before the first exam, and one (of the four that will be posted) before the second exam. If you choose to write on this week's question, you must turn it in when we meet again next Thursday, February 2nd. Your answers should be at least 350 words in length. Here is the question:
What is Poundstone’s answer to the question “How do you know that you’re not a brain (or, as in The Matrix, a body) in a vat?” How do you think Descartes would answer this question? Is either answer sufficient to convince you that you are not living inside a computer generated matrix right now? Why or why not?

Hi all, 
Below please find our updated course calendar. Basically I've had to lop off the last week before our midterm. (Is everything interconnected?) This means that our midterm exam will be on the same date as it has been and the calendar will not change from that point onward. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or talk to me this week.

Hi all,

Well, for the first time ever, Philosophy in the Cinema has fallen victim to inclement weather. Here's what we will do: next Thursday we'll cover what we were supposed to do today. I'll figure out what we'll need to drop by next week and post a new course calendar on the website when I figure that out. If you have any questions, email me.

Enjoy the snow!

Hi all. Just a quick post to let you know that the second podcast this week makes reference to there being two Podcast Assignments in the first podcast. This is not the case. Sorry for the confusion!

Hi again. Here is the second podcast for the course. In this podcast I will discuss both of the essays for this coming week, as well as introducing you to our next film, The Matrix. Before you listen, be sure to download the first reading, Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, specifically Meditations 1 and 2, and read it along with our second reading, from William Poundstone's Labyrinths of Reason. (Both of these books are available for check out in EvCC's library, by the way.) Links to both of these essays are provided in the course calendar, which, if you haven't already downloaded, you can get in the previous entry to this blog. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me using the link to the right.

See you on Thursday!

You can also download the podcast by control-clicking (right-clicking) on the link below and then add it to iTunes. That way you can then listen to it offline or transfer it over to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad to play at your convenience.

Here are the results of the in-class topics poll we took yesterday:

PART I: REALITY AND TRUTH
How do we know what is really real?
Does truth even exist?


PART II: THE GOOD LIFE
Is our society healthy?
Is everything interconnected?

PART III: PERSONHOOD
Could there be artificial persons?
Are we always the same person?

PART IV: RELIGION
If God exists, why is there evil?
Is faith reasonable?

You can download the course calendar based on these choices by clicking below:

In our first class meeting we briefly discussed the course and proceeded to view our first film: Waking Life. You will want to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog so that you will know when new material is posted. 

I will also plan to announce updates to the blog via Twitter, so it may be helpful to sign up for that as well. You can do that by going to twitter.com and becoming one of my followers at @VanQuickenborne.

Finally, please click below to listen to the first podcast for the course, in which I take you through the syllabus and discuss philosophy and why we're using films to explore it. (You may not be able to listen to the podcast from a mobile device, as the audio player uses flash.)

You can also download the podcast by control-clicking (right-clicking) on the link below and then add it to iTunes. That way you can then listen to it offline or transfer it over to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad to play at your convenience.