Synopses & Reviews
- If the world as we know it is nothing more than our dream of it, does this make the dream real?
- If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more-real but less-pleasant one—to take the red pill—would it be a moral failure not to do so? Especially if doing so meant knew insight into the truth of our humanity (or its lack)?
- Do humans have an inherent value above that of "artificially" intelligent machines?
- Can the mind live without the body or the body without the mind?
In the The Matrix and Philosophy, edited by William Irwin, renowned contemporary philosophers—Michael Brannigan; Cynthia Freeland; Jorge J.E. Gracia; Slavoj iek, et al—analyze The Matrix from many angles: metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic. They uncover hidden depths in this intricate work of art, and often reach disturbing conclusions.
Those who take the red pill never look at the real world the same way again.
So which will it be? The blue bill—click elsewhere.
Or the red pill: Download The Matrix and Philosophy now.
(The Matrix and Philosphy is available in a trade paperback edition from Open Court Publishing Company, www.opencourtbooks.com.)
Review
"Even those contributors to the anthology who ought to be experts at tracking pop culture seem like slow, lumbering, herbivorous dinosaurs compared to the nimble, carnivorous and slightly terrifying Wachowskis. In fact, it's the more traditionally minded essays that feel the most rewarding in The Matrix and Philosophy....The philosophers contributing to The Matrix and Philosophy are not too interested in the guns and wall-walking, but they do find the implied and explicit ontological questions posed by the film intriguing....The first few essays in the anthology are lucid, readable summaries of classic responses to Cartesian skepticism, exactly what the armchair amateur is looking for....Less pleasing are the entries from Christian and Buddhist thinkers....The most disappointing essays come from the postmodernist, feminist and Marxist critics there need to be stronger signs of intellectual rigor here, particularly if you're going to call your piece 'Penetrating Keanu: New Holes, but the Same Old Shit'..." Laura Miller, Salon.com
Review
"The tacit goal here is to make philosophy fun for the general reader...so while some articles contain rather dense philosophical jargon, most are pitched at the level of a freshman intro course....The results are occasionally engaging...but they're too often dryly academic and liable to elicit no more than a drowsy 'whoa' from the movie's legions of fans." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The New York Times bestseller. Renowned thinkers discuss the ancient and modern concepts that inform The Matrix.
The choice is yours, and you will have to live with the consequences for the rest of your life as you know it. Will you take the blue pill pass on downloading this e-book and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill: download the New York Times-bestselling The Matrix and Philosophy, read it, and find out just how deep the rabbit-hole goes? Is the world around us truly as it appears? Or are we maintained by an invisible force as inert bodies in tanks, our brains electronically stimulated to create the make-believe realm which is all we know? This most demanding of philosophical puzzles became cutting-edge cool with the release of the cult science fiction film The Matrix in 1999. And the questions have become even more complex with the arrival in 2003 of The Matrix: Reloaded; The Matrix: Revolutions; and the associated short animated films collected as The Animatrix.
Synopsis
One of the most overtly philosophical movies ever to come out of Hollywood, The Matrix is based on the premise that reality is a dream controlled by malevolent forces. These thought-provoking essays discuss different facets of the primary philosophical puzzle of the film: Can we be sure the world is really there, and if not, what should we do about it?
Synopsis
Requires Adobe Reader 6.0 (file size: 1257 KB) or Palm Reader (file size: 339 KB).
Includes bibliographical references and index.