Philosophy of and with Film

Catalog description

Film allows us to explore and reflect on our everyday reality, our ordinary problems, and our bodily existence, while also incessantly blurring the boundaries between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the everyday and the fantastic. How is it able to do that? The course will begin by addressing the specific features of the medium of film and its peculiar ontology: What becomes of things and people on film? Do movies present us with images of reality or with reality itself? The response to these questions will substantiate the course’s main hypothesis: movies “think” and, as a result, far from just providing a repertoire of examples that philosophy can use for its own aims, they are themselves a form of philosophy. Through a combination of film screenings, philosophical readings, and seminar discussion, the course will test this hypothesis by addressing the contributions of classical and contemporary movies to metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and political questions that philosophy has been tackling for thousands of years.