Questions

    Well, that was a relaxing break, despite Harvard's drubbing at the hands of the dreaded Yalies. Reminds me of something that Monty Burns said, "Harvard is getting more pathetic every year. They barely even won." To which Smithers replied, "Their cheating was even more blatant than last year." Anyway, I was away for over a week, but now I am back.

    So, now I answer the questions that some of my loyal readers left. Exemplar of benevolence wrote:

A philosophy professor once told me that Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day" was a very philosophical movie. Please explain why this is so. Also expand on other works of popular culture which might help the layperson with difficult concepts of philosophy.

   

Groundhog Day is pretty fantastic. The philosophical content of Groundhog Day is fundamentally ethical: what is a life well-lived? One idea that has been batted about is that of the eternal recurrence (also given voice in the movie K-Pax): I should live my life such that if I had to live it over and over I would be satisfied with it. I think it also contains elements of existential philosophy, like Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus where the despair of living in a meaningless world can only be driven off by some kind of radical commitment to...something.

    To answer your second question, I think I will list ten of my favorite philosophical movies (you can find a good list here):

1. The Matrix
2. Spiderman 2
3. Memento
4. Minority Report
5. Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind
6. Equilibrium
7. Bladerunner
8. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
9. Unforgiven
10. A Few Good Men

    "Man of many options" asks:

On what side of the ice is hockey played on?

    I believe that the question is "What end of the ice is hockey played on?" Well, it is played on both ends of the ice.

    Steve Calderwood asks:

Joe Barton of TX-06, candidate for House Minority Leader, is on C-SPAN and just said that the right to bear arms is a "fundamental family value." Respond.

How does one respond to the rantings of a blithering idiot? One nods ones head and backs away as if they were a dangerous animal, which is in general how I feel like we need to treat Republican Congressman (especially from Texas). But what this incident really indicates is that "family values" has joined the ranks of "democracy" and "imperialism" as terms that don't really have any meaning anymore. They are best analyzed in expressivist terms. If I refer to something as "imperialistic" I am really saying "Booo, thing!" and if I describe something as a family value I am really saying "Hurrah thing!" Which means, I think, that if I assert that X is a family value and Joe Barton says it isn't (like living a life free of poverty), I don't think we are really disagreeing. We are really just talking past each other. It is just one of those concepts which have become non-cognitive due to sustained warped public discourse.

    Steve also asks:

I have this friend who only has an elementary knowledge of Rawls' theories.  Where would you suggest he starts?

    I think there are three places that are worth looking into. First, you have the compilation Reading Rawls which collects many initial reactions, especially an important one by Hart which lead Rawls to make some significant revisions to the concept of primary goods. Second, you might want to check out the chapter "Liberal Egalitarianism" in Kymlicka's Introduction to Political Philosophy. Finally, I like Scanlon's and Cohen's chapters in The Cambridge Companion to Rawls.

    The Good Son asks:

Why is pie so good?

I dunno. All I can say is that "I like pie."

Comments

[exemplar of benevolence]

I know this isn't the philosophical aspect of Equilibrium you meant, but isn't there an ethical question if you get off on the gun violence because it's so cool and Christian Bale looks so hot doing it? Also that you worry more about the puppy than most of the people? By you, of course, I mean me.

[nordsieck]

If you liked "a few good men", you should also watch "training day". Those two movies are like opposite sides of the same coin.

[homeless god]

great! thanks for sharing