Book description
'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. 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!
Mark Rowlands is Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the
University of Hertfordshire. After a Bachelors degree in Aeronautical
Engineering, Mark switched to Philosophy and went up to Oxford in 1986
to study for a D. Phil. A succession of publications and academic posts
followed in the US, Ireland and Exeter, where Mark also used whatever
spare time he could find to surf. His ambition remains to kill himself
doing Philosophy, but hopefully not in the near future. He has written a
number of other successful books, including
Everything I Know I
Learned From TV
for Ebury. He has also appeared on television and radio.
