Philosophy and Science Fiction Film

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE FICTION FILM

BTAN33006BA-14

Time and Venue

Monday 12:00-13.40 MBlg.

Instructor

Csató Péter

Office 108/2

Email address

Office hours

Monday 12.00-13.00

Tuesday 14.00-15.00

Course goal and general requirements

The aim of this seminar course is to familiarize students with basic philosophical/theoretical concepts through a selection of science fiction films mainly (not exclusively) from the 1990s and 2000s. The broader subject areas to be covered will correspond to the four main realms of philosophy, ontology, metaphysics, epistemology and moral philosophy, but substantial attention will be paid to specific issues in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, political philosophy, and bioethics as well. Science fiction films are eminently appropriate for discussing philosophical problems because they function thought experiments which are anchored in our experience of the world as we know it, but work to push the limits of that experience to such extremes that one can hardly leave one’s extant “knowledge of the world” unquestioned. Although the films will be used to illuminate philosophical problems, and thus the main focus the course operates with is that of philosophy rather than film studies, major emphasis will be laid on the specific filmic representations of the issues being discussed.

Requirements for a grade

Active participation in class discussion

Students will be required to view the films individually before the session for which they are scheduled. Class discussions will be organized around a set of study questions (normally about 15-20), which students will be given the week before each class, and required to answer prior to class discussion. Students will take turns answering the questions so that each student will have at least one question to answer/discuss. Thus, the specific sets of philosophical problems discussed in each class will not be introduced in a lecture-like format by the instructor, but will be approached inductively through the specific questions/problems related to the individual films.

Regular class attendance

Regular attendance is required: more than three absences will result in “no grade” for the course. Since at the end of the semester you will be tested on your knowledge of the assigned texts and the material covered, it is not a good idea to skip classes and readings, because doing so might severely lessen your chances of understanding what comes subsequently. Should you happen to miss a class for whatever emergency, I am happy to consult anyone on the assigned texts in my office hours or at an appointed time.

End-term test

At the end of the course, students will write an end-term test, which will serve to measure their mastery of the philosophical concepts they will have become familiar with during the course.

Critical review

This assignment consists in choosing a theoretical/critical text from a list of relevant sources (to be distributed later in the semester) to be discussed with the instructor in the last week of the semester. students will be assigned to prepare “reviews” of theoretical texts on the basis of study questions. The texts will be related to specific films not discussed in class. Students will form study pairs and process the text and the pertaining questions assigned to them, then discuss them with the instructor at individually allotted times during the last weeks of the semester (i.e., before May 3)

SCHEDULE

Week 1 – Introduction

Week 2 – Epistemology as ontology

Stanley Kubrick: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Week 3 -- Getting to know the Other

Steven Spielberg: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Week 4 – The boundaries of being human

Ridley Scott: Blade Runner (1982)

Week 5 –– Reality and the mind

Andy and Larry Wachowski: The Matrix (1999)

Week 6 – Eugenetics

Andrew Niccol: Gattaca (1997)

Week 7 – Domesticating the Other

Neill Blomkamp: District 9 (2009)

Week 8 – CONSULTATION WEEK

Week 9 – EASTER MONDAY: NO CLASS

Week 10 – End-term test

Week 11 – Critical reviews

Week 12 – Critical reviews