Terminator and Philosophy: I'll Be Back, Therefore I Am

by Richard Brown, Kevin S. Decker (Editor), William Irwin (Editor)

Overview

The Terminator series is one of the most popular sci-fi franchises ever created, captivating millions with its edgy depiction of the struggle of humankind for survival against its own creations. This book draws on some of history's philosophical heavy hitters: Descartes, Kant, Karl Marx, and many more. Nineteen leather-clad chapters target with extreme prejudice the mysteries surrounding intriguing philosophical issues raised by the Terminator series, including the morality of terminating other people for the sake of peace, whether we can really use time travel to protect our future resistance leaders in the past, and it Arnold's famous T-101 is a real person or not. You'll say "Hasta la vista, baby" to philosophical confusion as you develop a new appreciation for the complexities of John and Sarah Connor and the battles between Skynet and the human race.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470730102
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/13/2009
Series:	Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series , #13
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	459 KB

About the Author

RICHARD BROWN is an assistant professor at LaGuardia Community College’s Philosophy and Critical Thinking Program in New York City.

KEVIN S. DECKER is an assistant professor of philosophy at Eastern Washington University. He coedited Star Wars and Philosophy and Star Trek and Philosophy.

WILLIAM IRWIN is a professor of philosophy at King’s College. He originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books as coeditor of the bestselling The Simpsons and Philosophy and has overseen recent titles including Batman and Philosophy, House and Philosophy, and Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy.

To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.com

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Rise of the Philosophers 1

Part One Life After Humanity and Artificial Intelligence

1 The Terminator Wins: Is the Extinction of the Human Race the End of People, or Just the Beginning? Greg Littmann 7

2 True Man or Tin Man? How Descartes and Sarah Connor Tell a Man from a Machine George A. Dunn 21

3 It Stands to Reason: Skynet and Self-Preservation Josh Weisberg 39

4 Un-Terminated: The Integration of the Machines Jesse W. Butler 52

Part Two Women and Revolutionaries

5 "I Know Now Why You Cry": Terminator 2, Moral Philosophy, and Feminism Harry Chotiner 69

6 Sarah Connor's Stain Jennifer Culver 82

7 James Cameron's Marxist Revolution Jeffrey Ewing 93

Part Three Changing What's Already Happened

8 Bad Timing: The Metaphysics of the Terminator Robert A. Delfino Kenneth Sheahan 109

9 Time for the Terminator: Philosophical Themes of the Resistance Justin Leiber 122

10 Changing the Future: Fate and the Terminator Kristie Lynn Miller 133

11 Judgment Day Is Inevitable: Hegel and the Futility of Trying to Change History Jason P. Blahuta 146

Part Four The Ethics of Termination

12 What's So Terrible about Judgment Day? Wayne Yuen 161

13 The War to End All Wars? Killing Your Defense System Phillip Seng 175

14 Self-Termination: Suicide, Self-Sacrifice, and the Terminator Daniel P. Malloy 190

15 What's So Bad about Being Terminated? Jason T. Eberl 202

16 Should John Connor Save the World? Peter S. Fosl 218

Part Five Beyond the Neural Net

17 "You Gotta Listen to How People Talk": Machines and Natural Language Jacob Berger Kyle Ferguson 239

18 Terminating Ambiguity: The Perplexing Case of "The"Richard Brown 253

19 Wittgenstein and What's Inside the Terminator's Head Antti Kuusela 266

Contributors: Future Leaders of the Resistance 279

Index: Skynet's Database 287

Editorial Reviews

Time travelers and battles between people and machines provoke old philosophical questions: Can the past really be changed? How do we differentiate ourselves from machines? Can machines have an inner life? Brown (philosophy & critical thinking, LaGuardia Community Coll.) and Decker (philosophy, Eastern Washington Univ.; coeditor, Star Wars and Philosophy) collect 19 essays by primarily young academics who pursue these questions with entertaining verve and philosophical skill. The Terminator story is about something well intentioned-a defense project-going wrong, but none of the essays here presses this issue to a clear conclusion (readers whose interest is aroused would do well to read Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen's Moral Machines, concerned with actual machines and ones that might soon exist). Among the book's bright spots are contributions from Harry Chotiner and Jennifer Culver that show us something about how the movies work and explore the feminist issues posed by placing Sarah Connor at the center of the story. One essayist, Phillip Seng, addresses the philosophical trouble at the heart of the tale: telling good from evil in politics is hard. This book will earn a place in libraries by presenting serious issues in a way that attracts readers.
—Leslie Armour

Library Journal