A collection of essays argues that philosophy is an essential element of human life--a force that shapes human character and national culture and destiny--and offers the rational philosophy of Objectivism as an alternative.

“Through centuries of scourges and disasters, brought about by your code of morality, you have cried that your code had been broken, that the scourges were punishment for breaking it, that men were too weak and too selfish to spill all the blood it required. You damned man, you damned existence, you damned this earth, but never dared to question your code. . . . You went on crying that your code was noble, but human nature was not good enough (...) to practice it. And no one rose to ask the question: Good?—by what standard? (shrink)

Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy is an accessible and thought-provoking examination of the way films raise and explore complex philosophical ideas. Written in a clear and engaging style, Thomas Wartenberg examines films' ability to discuss, and even criticize ideas that have intrigued and puzzled philosophers over the centuries such as the nature of personhood, the basis of morality, and epistemological skepticism. Beginning with a demonstration of how specific forms of philosophical discourse are presented cinematically, Wartenberg moves on to offer (...) a systematic account of the ways in which specific films undertake the task of philosophy. Focusing on the films The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Modern Times, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Third Man, The Flicker, and Empire, Wartenberg shows how these films express meaningful and pertinent philosophical ideas. This book is essential reading for students of philosophy with an interest in film, aesthetics, and film theory. It will also be of interest to film enthusiasts intrigued by the philosophical implications of film. (shrink)

David Bordwell's new book is at once a history of film criticism, an analysis of how critics interpret film, and a proposal for an alternative program for film studies. It is an anatomy of film criticism meant to reset the agenda for film scholarship. As such Making Meaning should be a landmark book, a focus for debate from which future film study will evolve. Bordwell systematically maps different strategies for interpreting films and making meaning, illustrating his points with a vast (...) array of examples from Western film criticism. Following an introductory chapter that sets out the terms and scope of the argument, Bordwell goes on to show how critical institutions constrain and contain the very practices they promote, and how the interpretation of texts has become a central preoccupation of the humanities. He gives lucid accounts of the development of film criticism in France, Britain, and the United States since World War II; analyzes this development through two important types of criticism, thematic-explicatory and symptomatic; and shows that both types, usually seen as antithetical, in fact have much in common. These diverse and even warring schools of criticism share conventional, rhetorical, and problem-solving techniques--a point that has broad-ranging implications for the way critics practice their art. The book concludes with a survey of the alternatives to criticism based on interpretation and, finally, with the proposal that a historical poetics of cinema offers the most fruitful framework for film analysis. (shrink)

A permanent state of suspension or deferment -- How theory became history -- "Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences" -- "I will teach you differences" -- An assembling of reminders -- ". . . a complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing" -- Gedankenwegen: on import and interpretation -- "Of which we cannot speak . . .": philosophy and the humanities -- What is (film) philosophy? -- Order out of chaos -- Idea, image, and intuition -- The world, (...) time -- The ordinary necessity of philosophy -- "Art now exists in the condition of philosophy" -- Falling in love with the world -- Ontology and desire, or a moving response to skepticism -- Automatism and the declaration of existence in time -- Ethical practices of the ordinary -- Perfectionism as self-disobedience -- Comedy and community -- A digression on difference and interpretation -- Perfectionism's ironic transport -- An elegy for theory. (shrink)

This article argues that, propaedeutic to the construction of an Objectivist aesthetics, scholars must refute the irrational/immoral philosophical premises that have been destroying the philosophy of art. Due to the troubling combination of its contemporaneity, extremism, and considerable influence, poststructuralism, which, since the 1960s, has served as the default philosophical foundation for philosophers of art, is the target of this article. This article contends that the road to an Objectivist aesthetics must first be cleared of philosophical debris like poststructuralism before (...) we can hope to go back to the world of art. (shrink)

Rhetorically charged debates over theory have divided scholars of the humanities for decades. In Elegy for Theory, D. N. Rodowick steps back from well-rehearsed arguments pro and con to assess why theory has become such a deeply contested concept. Far from lobbying for a return to the "high theory" of the 1970s and 1980s, he calls for a vigorous dialogue on what should constitute a new, ethically inflected philosophy of the humanities. Rodowick develops an ambitiously cross-disciplinary critique of theory as (...) an academic discourse, tracing its historical displacements from ancient concepts of theoria through late modern concepts of the aesthetic and into the twentieth century. The genealogy of theory, he argues, is constituted by two main lines of descent—one that goes back to philosophy and the other rooted instead in the history of positivism and the rise of the empirical sciences. Giving literature, philosophy, and aesthetics their due, Rodowick asserts that the mid-twentieth-century rise of theory within the academy cannot be understood apart from the emergence of cinema and visual studies. To ask the question, "What is cinema?" is to also open up in new ways the broader question of what is art. At a moment when university curriculums are everywhere being driven by scientism and market forces, Elegy for Theory advances a rigorous argument for the importance of the arts and humanities as transformative, self-renewing cultural legacies. (shrink)

The term “objective” has both a metaphysical and an epistemological meaning, and each of these meanings gives rise to a corresponding objective-subjective dichotomy. A formal definition of objectivity is given, and this clarifies the nature of the epistemological dichotomy. These dichotomies are represented by classes of existents, and a Venn-type diagram is used to illustrate the relationship between them. It is shown that the class of all existents can be partitioned into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes, which correspond to (...) Rand's intrinsic-subjective-objective trichotomy. (shrink)

_Film Worlds_ unpacks the significance of the "worlds" that narrative films create, offering an innovative perspective on cinema as art. Drawing on aesthetics and the philosophy of art in both the continental and analytic traditions, as well as classical and contemporary film theory, it weaves together multiple strands of thought and analysis to provide new understandings of filmic representation, fictionality, expression, self-reflexivity, style, and the full range of cinema's affective and symbolic dimensions. Always more than "fictional worlds" and "storyworlds" on (...) account of cinema's perceptual, cognitive, and affective nature, film worlds are theorized as immersive and transformative artistic realities. As such, they are capable of fostering novel ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding experience. Engaging with the writings of Jean Mitry, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, Gilles Deleuze, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, among other thinkers, _Film Worlds_ extends Nelson Goodman's analytic account of symbolic and artistic "worldmaking" to cinema, expands on French philosopher Mikel Dufrenne's phenomenology of aesthetic experience in relation to films and their worlds, and addresses the hermeneutic dimensions of cinematic art. It emphasizes what both celluloid and digital filmmaking and viewing share with the creation and experience of all art, while at the same time recognizing what is unique to the moving image in aesthetic terms. The resulting framework reconciles central aspects of realist and formalist/neo-formalist positions in film theory while also moving beyond them and seeks to open new avenues of exploration in film studies and the philosophy of film. (shrink)

John Hospers endeavors to relate his thoughts on phñosophy of art to those of Ayn Rand, both in her published work and in discussions he had with her. In such areas as artistic creativity, artistic expression, representation, the role of feelings in art, truth and knowledge in the arts, sense of life, beauty, and aesthetic value, Hospers describes his agreements and disagreements with Rand.

This substantial book presents essays by nineteen authors exploring intersections between film theory and philosophy on topics of representation, authorship, ideology, aesthetics, and emotion. The editors explain that film studies has reached a crisis of method after a growth period founded on structural linguistics, psychoanalysis, and Continental philosophy. They wish to alter this foundation and “give momentum to work in an analytic vein”, which requires them to correct the misconception of analytic philosophy in film studies as narrow and conservative, a (...) “toxic waste dump.”. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a pair of interrelated theses that are hallmarks of Objectivism: the benevolent universe premise and the heroic view of man. These theses are dramatic consequences of the defining essentials of the philosophy, and they are central to the sense of life conveyed by Ayn Rand's novels. The benevolent universe premise permeates all her novels, and much of her non‐fiction, but it seems that she first conceptualized this view under this name sometime in the 1940s. The benevolent universe (...) premise is what Rand calls a metaphysical value‐judgment. It is metaphysical in that it answers a question about the nature of the universe. The chapter briefly describes the heroic view of man, looking not at the content of Rand's view of heroism, but at how this view of heroism colored her view of humanity and of specific human beings. (shrink)

Kamhi offers an in-depth response to The Aesthetics Symposium (Spring 2001). In addition to answering many of the contributors' objections to What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, she offers a critique of their own theses—in particular, Barry Vacker's claim that chaos theory is implicit in Rand's aesthetics, Jeff Riggenbach's argument that much of Rand's theory was anticipated by Susanne Langer and Stephen Pepper, and Roger Bissell's suggestion that the concept of a microcosm be applied to Rand's view (...) of the function of art. (shrink)

This essay offers a new interpretation and clarification of Rand's intrinsic-objective-subjective trichotomy, arguing that although her writings show the objective as having both epistemological and metaphysical aspects, the latter has been drastically downplayed, much to the detriment of the further development of Objectivism. The article traces the historical roots of the concept of the "objective," as well as the confusion and errors that led to the scope of Rand's trichotomy being radically curtailed by its two chief proponents, and it explains (...) how the common view of the objective as "mind-independent" is a pitfall to be avoided. (shrink)

In recent years, film scholars have been increasingly preoccupied with questions as to how films can ‘be’ or ‘do’ or ‘be used for’ philosophy. From the ‘be used for’ position, films are seen as mere examples or jumping-off points to philosophy ‘proper’; from the ‘be’ position, films are seen as philosophy, as simply another form of philosophical argumentation; and from the ‘do’ position, films are seen as examples or illustrations of preexisting philosophical positions/protocols. In this essay, I will operate primarily (...) from the ‘do’ position and explore how Quentin Tarantino ‘does’ ordinary language philosophy. Renowned for his innovative and influential dialogue, I intend to shine a light on a neglected aspect of Tarantino’s writing style and examine, with reference to the work of ordinary language philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, and Stanley Cavell, the argumentative protocols discernible in Pulp Fiction (1994). More specifically, I will analyze the famous ‘foot massage argument’, utilizing such concepts as ‘projective imagination’ and ‘explaining the syntactics’ versus ‘demonstrating the semantics’, in the hopes of indicating the fecundity of the continued study of Tarantino’s justly famous dialogue. I also intend to broaden my investigation to consider, in light of responses to this material during the IFVCR Network conference and in light of current discussions within film studies, the disciplinary implications vis-à-vis film-philosophy of conducting such ordinary language investigations of dialogue and communication in film. (shrink)

Roger E. Bissell offers a new interpretation and clarification of Rand's definition of art, maintaining that an artwork, like language, functions as a "tool of cognition," and that it does so more specifically as a special kind of microcosm which presents an imaginary world. In particular, he argues that architecture and music are aesthetic microcosms and tools of cognition that re-create reality and embody fundamental abstractions and, thus, contrary to assertions by certain Objectivist writers, are forms of art consistent with (...) Rand's definition and concept. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a reading of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995) in light of Jacques Derrida’s observations on the axiological binary opposition of speech and writing. I argue that the relationship between the two is artistically explored in the opening scene where the accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) meets the fireman (Crispin Glover) on the train to the town of Machine. I interpret Depp’s protagonist as the representative of writing and Glover’s fireman as the representative of speech. Demonstrating (...) how the attributes that, through the long history of Western metaphysics, have been ascribed to writing are manifested by the main character of the film, I analyse a subtle personification of the written word on screen. I contend that Dead Man is a deconstructive text not only because it deconstructs the genre of the Western and the narrative of the West but also in the sense that it offers a critique of logocentrism and Western metaphysics. (shrink)

KIRSH MINSAAS examines the role of tragedy in Rand's fiction. Rand tended to dismiss tragedy, finding it incompatible with her doctrine that art should serve as a kind of inspirational fuel. But her own fiction often makes use of tragedy in ways that transcend her theory and that reveal its inadequacy as a basis for interpreting her works. A satisfactory comprehension of the meaning and function of the tragic occurrences in Rand's works, Minsaas argues, requires engagement with such conceptual frameworks (...) as Aristotle's catharsis theory, Nietzsche's attack on pity, the Prometheus myth, and the Stoic idea of heroic calm. (shrink)

The author probes the "Tower of Babel" effect surrounding Western civilization's long-standing fascination with the Greek god Apollo. He clarifies the reason-emotion dichotomy and shows the Classical-Romantic opposition of Apollo and Dionysus, as adopted by Ayn Rand and (supposedly) Friedrich Nietzsche, to be an inaccurate way to characterize either Apollo (god of reason) or Dionysus (god of emotion). Temperament theorist David Keirsey's linkage of Apollo with emotion is found similarly wanting, and an argument based on insights of personality type theorist (...) Janet Germane is offered that Apollo instead is most fundamentally the god of intuition. (shrink)

Ayn Rand's literary theory is capable of significant development and extension. Particularly worthy of study are relationships between literary principles and literary practices, such as the creation of implicit or explicit patterns of meaning, the use of common experience and common sense, the provision of cognitive and emotional transformation, the application of control devices to guide readers' understanding, and the assessment of literature in respect to standards of truth and taste.

This article explores the many ways in which Rand's theory of art, though basically mimetic, is strongly infused with expressive elements traditionally associated with Romantic aesthetics. This expressionism, it is argued, puts pressure on Rand's mimeticism to the point of threatening to destabilize it. This is especially evident in Rand's discussion of architecture and music, both of which she regards as valid art forms but fails to accommodate to her mimetic definition of art as a selective re-creation of reality. This (...) inconsistency, the article suggests, is best resolved by reference to the expressive dimension that informs Rand's overall theory. (shrink)

Minsaas explores the role admiration plays in Rand's literary theory. Seeing admiration as the emotional core of what Rand refers to as a moral sense of life, she first discusses the nature of admiration, focusing on the interrelation between its moral and aesthetic aspects. She then examines its specific significance in Rand's heroic poetics, both in the structure of and in the response to heroic fiction. Finally, she points out certain problems pertaining to Rand's rather partisan preference for heroic art, (...) especially the danger of didacticism and Rand's tendency to dismiss the value of other genres, such as tragedy. (shrink)

Marsha Familaro Enright discusses the commonly accepted view in Objectivism that "emotions are not tools of cognition," i.e., that one cannot and should not use emotions in one's reasoning process. Ayn Rand's views on emotions are extensively examined and evaluated in light of common experience and current scientific evidence. The author draws on neuropsychological as well as other scientific evidence to more precisely define the relation between reason and emotion, and she examines Rand's premises in light of the evidence.

This essay explores the prolific filmography of Alfred Hitchcock in an attempt to untangle the Lacanian thread that has been traced through it by Slavoj Žižek, while also giving considerable focus to the Hegelianism underlying Hitchcock's dialectical engagement with Lacan's thesis "there is no such thing as a sexual relationship." Charting through particularly salient films in the Hitchcock labyrinth, including Notorious , Vertigo , and Marnie , this essay offers commentary on the presence throughout Hitchcock's work of such Lacanian concepts (...) as desire, lack, the phallus, and the formulae of sexuation, while also elucidating the unmistakable and fundamental presence of the Hegelian dialectical shift that Žižek has spent so much of his career elaborating and which represents the highest point of Hitchcock's cinematic artistry, the point at which he reaches a level of sublimity that firmly situates him on the same philosophical plane as Hegel and Lacan. (shrink)

Michelle Marder Kamhi and Louis Torres analyze the scant critical and scholarly attention that has been devoted to Rand 's aesthetic theory by other writers since its publication more than a quarter-century ago. They argue that, with few exceptions, Objectivists and non-Objectivists alike have tended to misinterpret and undervalue Rand 's philosophy of art—which has not been sufficiently distinguished from her theory of Romantic literature. They also point to infelicities of style that have impeded serious consideration of her ideas.

Jeff Riggenbach maintains that Torres and Kamhi's What Art Is adds to our understanding of Rand's key aesthetic concepts and is particularly valuable for the writings by other thinkers that it brings to bear on Rand's ideas. It is, however, remiss in failing to include any discussion of Stephen C. Pepper and in failing to discern the true importance of Susanne Ê. Langer's works for a fuller understanding of Rand's aesthetics. It errs also in its discussion of music, photography, and (...) cinema. Though unnecessarily marred by flawed copyediting, it is an important work. (shrink)

Roger E. Bissell reviews the full-length, taped version of Rand's "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age," calling attention to its importance as a foundational document for Rand's later essays on art and to the numerous gems omitted from the much briefer published version.