The Philosopher at the End of the Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films

This is a new edition packed with good old-fashioned, high-octane, high body count, alien ass-kicking, robot-wrecking- philosophy! It’s Schopenhauer and the will. It’s Plato, it’s Hume, Baudrillard and the concept of the Nietzschean superman! - Keanu Reeves on The Matrix . The Philosopher at the End of the Universe allows anyone to understand basic philosophical concepts from the comfort of their armchair, through the plots and characters of spectacular blockbusting science-fiction movies. You can 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. As someone once said, things must be said and knowledge known, and the cast list assembled to tell us does not disappoint: Tom Cruise, Plato, Harrison Ford, Immanuel Kant, Sigourney Weaver, Friedrich Nietzsche, Keanu Reeves and Rene Descartes. From characters in the biggest films (with lots of explosions and bad language) to Ludwig Wittgenstein (no explosions and too much language in general), hear all the arguments. I think, therefore- I’ll be back! Author Bio: Mark Rowlands is the Director of the Centre for Philosophy at the University of Exeter. He has written seven books, including the forthcoming Everything I Know I Learned From TV (Ebury, 2005). He has also appeared on television and radio. Hugely entertaining - Rowlands knows his stuff and marries some of the tougher philosophical arguments to the more accessible conduit of popular entertainment - enjoyable and illuminating - Waterstone’s Books Quarterly .