Other Philosophy Commons^™

When Knowing Prevents Doing: An Exposition On Commitment Hazards, Alexander Porter

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Information hazards are risks posed by potentially harmful true information. Information hazards include the risks posed by instructions on how to make a bomb, facts about world events which could cause harmful political unrest, or even the password to an email account being revealed. I will examine and explain one specific type of information hazard which can be seen as the subject of discussion in three well-known but disparate philosophical texts: information which draws attention away from individual control. I will argue that this idea shows up in Plato as what is being avoided through noble falsehoods in The Republic …

Scorsese’S Silence: Film As Practical Theodicy, Ian Deweese-Boyd

Journal of Religion & Film

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence takes up the anguished experience of God’s silence in the face of human suffering. The main character, the Jesuit priest Sabastião Rodrigues, finds his faith gutted by the appalling silence of God as he witnesses the horrific persecution of Christians in seventeenth century Japan. Yujin Nagasawa calls the particularly intense combination of the problems of divine hiddenness and evil the problem of divine absence that resists resolution through explanations that have typically characterized the theodicies offered by philosophers. Drawing on the thought of Ignatius of Loyola, this essay explores the way …

“To See My Home Before I Die”: The Trip To Bountiful, Memento Mori, And The Experience Of Death, Margaret Sullivan

Journal of Religion & Film

This article analyzes the portrayal of death in Peter Masterson’s 1985 film The Trip to Bountiful. My claim is that the experience of death, in the film, functions as a tool both for the elderly main character’s increased self-understanding and for her conscious, ethical action. I enter this discussion through an examination of late deconstruction’s ethical turn and the argument that aporetic unknowing, if experienced and endured, leads to the chance for real, authentic action. I then demonstrate how the film depicts such an aporetic encounter with death, and do so, in large part, by focusing on the film’s final …

Suffering And Soul-Making In Disney/Pixar’S Inside Out, Bertha A. Manninen Ph.D.

Journal of Religion & Film

John Hick (1922-2012) was an extremely influential philosopher of religion who wrote ground-breaking essays in the areas of religious epistemology, religious pluralism, and the problem of evil. With specific reference to the latter, in his book Evil and the God of Love(1966), Hick devised what has come to be known as the “soul-making theodicy” – in essence, Hick argues that one of the reasons God allows so much apparently pointless suffering in the world is because it is an essential aspect of advancing our moral and spiritual education.

Although perhaps an unlikely venue, I will argue that Disney/Pixar’s 2015 …

Climbing A Ladder To Heaven. Gnostic Vision Of The World In Jacob's Ladder (1990), Fryderyk Kwiatkowski

Journal of Religion & Film

Contemporary film-makers quite willingly employ motifs typical of various gnostic trends. The author shows that ancient gnosticism is a treasury of motifs and a source of aesthetical and narrative strategies present in contemporary cinema. The article treats Jacob’s Ladder (1990, dir. Adrian Lyne) which is analyzed through Gnostic beliefs. In the author’s opinion, this film can be treated as a model where the gnostic thought has been presented in a coherent and systematic manner.

Inception And Ibn 'Arabi, Oludamini Ogunnaike

Journal of Religion & Film

Many philosophers, playwrights, artists, sages, and scholars throughout the ages have entertained and developed the concept of life being a "but a dream." Few works, however, have explored this topic with as much depth and subtlety as the 13thC Andalusian Muslim mystic, Ibn 'Arabi. Similarly, few works of art explore this theme as thoroughly and engagingly as Chistopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception. This paper presents the writings of Ibn 'Arabi and Nolan's film as a pair of mirrors, in which one can contemplate the other. As such, the present work is equally a commentary on the film based on …