Gadfly THE
the undergraduate philosophy magazine at Columbia University
Achille Varzi on Time Travel How to Get Along with Others Why You Shouldn’t Vote VOLUME II, ISSUE III
SUMMER 2008
Resources
2 Editor-in-Chief Michael Roberto Editorial Board Julia Alekseyeva Alan Daboin Billy Goldstein Max Kaplan Lane Sell Sonia Tycko Adam Waksman Stephanie Wu Arts Editor Sonia Tycko Layout Design Julia Alekseyeva Alex Gaydos Michael Roberto Sonia Tycko Cover Art Maddie Boucher Webmaster Michael Klein
Courses Previews Philosophical Hi-Tech
Interview
Wrote This Next Year: Varzi on Time 10 ITravel with Adam Waksman illustrated by Maddie Boucher
Features
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Lonely Polls, Empty Boxes
by David Iscoe illustrated by Michael Roberto
God Exists
by Alan Daboin illustrated by Lorraine White
to Play with Others 16 How by Brendan Price illustrated by Claire Bullen
Reviews
Millennium Actress 21 Animetaphysics: by Arnold Mwanjila illustrated by Julia Alekseyeva
Philosophy Books: The Simpsons 23 Little and Philosophy by Joanna Smolenski illustrated by Channa Bao
From the Editor
T
imes are changing for philosophy departments across the country. The New York Times recently reported the philosophy major’s rise in popularity among undergraduates in a range of schools, many in the New York area. Since 2002 majors have doubled at Rutgers and are up by fifty percent at CUNY. The report didn’t mention Columbia. Our philosophy department is one of the best—ranked tenth on The Philosophical Gourmet. But it’s a little behind the wave. Numbers of philosophy majors here are down recently, and most likely this isn’t due to the all-star faculty. It probably has something to do with the department’s relationship to undergrads. As of late, some of us at The Gadfly did a little amicable grumbling for the department, not-so-selflessly trying to get the goods out there for students. We ended up writing a few e-mails and meeting with some of the pros (60+, tweed jackets, thick glasses). And while the department has been friendly and encouraging, it’s too early to tell how much will change. But one thing is clear: lasting improvements in the relationship between department and undergrads will have to come from the department and undergrads. The resources are there for the taking, and it is our prerogative to take them. Here at The Gadfly we hope to do some of the work for you by providing helpful information and resources. But at this point, big changes will come with good ideas and the involvement of students who will implement them. If you have suggestions, meet with your favorite professor and discuss them. Write an e-mail to the Director of Undergraduate Studies, or to us. There is one hell of a strong department here, all we have to do is take advantage of it. Oh, and please enjoy the magazine.
Nora Rodriguez
Michael Roberto Summer 2008 To get involved as a writer, artist, or editor please e-mail gadflymagazine@gmail.com.
The Gadfly is sponsored in part by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University. This funding is made possible through a generous gift from David and Susie Sainsbury.
Philosophy Department Course Previews Stop before you shop. Our friends at the philosophy department have provided us with full course descriptions for Fall ’08 and Spring ’09 classes. Check all of them out at the courses page on the department website. Here are some of interest: Evolution, Altruism, and Ethics with Philip Kitcher: This seminar will elaborate and examine a naturalistic approach to ethics, one that views contemporary ethical practices as products of a long and complex history. I am currently writing a book presenting this form of naturalism, and chapters will be assigned for each meeting after the first. Using brief readings from other ethical perspectives, both historical and
contemporary, we shall try to evaluate the prospects of ethical naturalism. Non-Classical Logics with Achille Varzi: An overview of the main extensions and alternatives to classical logic, including: many-valued logics, fuzzy logics, partial logics, free logics, inclusive logics, paraconsistent logics, modal logics, intuitionism. Philosophy of Psychology with Patricia Kitcher: The course looks at problems at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, including the nature of consciousness, representation, self-knowledge, and the emotion. It also considers issues of explanation and reductionism.
Hail determinism! With SPRING ’09 course descriptions, you can predict your entire year. We’ll name a few: Existentialism Metaphysics Major seminars in Moral Philosophy and Consciousness Philosophy of Literature
Philosophy in the Islamic World Hellenistic Philosophy Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein Modal Logic
Philosophical Hi-Tech E-Resources for Your Perusal
The Philosophical Gourmet Review: philosophicalgourmet.com A source of some heated debate in the world of professional philosophy, The Philosophical Gourmet Report provides rankings of philosophy departments from around the English-speaking world. It’s edited by Brian Lieter, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and is based on an initial survey of 300 philosophers. Check it out for rankings, faculty placement info and some interesting write-ups on the state of philosophy in academia. The Leiter Reports: leiterreports.typepad.com Apparently Brian Lieter is into online philosophy. He’s also got a philosophy blog with “news and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture...and a bit of poetry.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford.edu The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is great for solving muddles about philosophical terminology, puzzles and CC texts. It’s also a good source of book and paper titles for further research with full bibliographies for every article and recommended reading for some. While you may get more general info from a Wikipedia search, the SEP is reliable for complete, in-depth articles written by the pros, including some of our very own. A Miniature Library of Philosophy: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/index.htm Are you lazy? Then you probably don’t have money, and you probably don’t want to go to the library either. That’s where this little gem comes in. It has selected texts, nicely formatted, from 140 of the philosopher greats throughout history. If your computer happens to be sitting next to you, you should probably check it out.
Lonely Polls Empty Boxes the no-vote argument
David Iscoe
Why Not Vote? verybody knows how important voting is (or is supposed to be) in American society. It’s a civic duty, an important right, an exercise of power, and a free choice. Nowadays, the vote for President is generally thought to be a decision between two meaningful options: the Republican and Democratic candidate who, despite widespread criticism, also get widespread support that dwarfs any of the other candidates. Not since the 1912 Bull Moose Party has any third party finished ahead of either the Republican or Democratic candidates, and even then, despite an undeniably awesome name, Bull Moose didn’t end up winning. On the other hand, since 1960 and quite possibly much earlier, no candidate has gotten enough votes to match the number of eligible voters who don’t vote. Non-voters have generally been a healthy plurality,
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if not an outright majority, of eligible voters. Why is this? Are they simply lazy or unconcerned? Are they too selfish to take the time out of their day, or are their obstacles to voting too high? No doubt this is true for some portion of the non-voting population. On the other hand, there may be several rational reasons for politically aware members of society to make a deliberate choice not to vote. Here are some of the reasons people may or may not wish to vote, and how they rationalize that decision morally, strategically, or otherwise. “Okay, I’ll be part of this world” Voting advocates often argue out that non-participation is a waiver of any complaint regarding the results of the election. Voting opponents could argue that participation is a waiver of any complaint regarding the choices presented. If you’re going to vote
Summer 2008 every time, you’re implicitly accepting whatever choices the electoral system offers: if the choices are good, you’ll vote for one of them, and if the choices are bad, you’ll vote for one of them. It also means you agree to let your vote be scaled to the difference between the choices in the field. If, on some abstract scale, one candidate produces 3.0 units of utility and the other produces 3.2, the candidate with 3.2 units of utility is just as good as one with 9.9. Not all (eligible) non-voters are unhappy with the current political system. Some think it works well, and they don’t need to do anything. Some are lazy. But many are disaffected. Maybe they don’t care what happens as a result of voting in general. But maybe they don’t care for the particular choice they’re given—there is some possible choice that would cause them to vote. Of course, others may be anti-democracy or not believe voting is ever worth the time with so many people: these people have little influence on the process. The apathy vote discussed in this article, largely because it is the only non-vote with any power, is the conditional apathy vote, which is the decision to vote “only when it’s worth it.” “When it’s worth it” can be defined in a lot of ways: when there’s a stark difference between the candidates, when there’s a chance for historic change, or when there’s a candidate representing your beliefs.
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Voters who care about divisive issues (such as the largely stalemated abortion issue, or economic plans that affect their CASH) will usually see a stark difference. People will vote for good change and against bad change if they see turning point candidates (or if there’s an incumbent who’s doing great or terrible things). And voters whose beliefs are encompassed by mainstream Republicans and Democrats often find representation. But, just as often, voters feel nobody cares about them or reflects their beliefs. It takes a candidate like Ron Paul to cure their apathy (and they may be further alienated by that candidate’s failure to win). From a pragmatic perspective, it might be right to accept the situation and vote for the best option, while working on the side to better the choices through direct activism. But from a different, very pragmatic, perspective, it may be better to save an hour of your time than to go to the polls in case, for the first time in history, you end up deciding who the President is by one vote. “You guys decide” In real world situations, if you don’t know or care much about a subject, it’s sometimes the right decision not to get involved in a choice; the rationale is often that the people deciding things are more likely to get it right, and you may unwittingly just mess things up by putting your own ignorant opinion
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The Gadfly
out there. If you prefer the decision- would be better.” This view has a lot making ability of the rest of the system of problems. First, there’s how this to your own decision-making, then self-evaluation would work. Does your decision can this statement only worsen the really mean, “if The only stakes. everyone who This knew they were probably doesn’t with any as ignorant as work so well me didn’t vote, with voting. For things would be is the one thing, you better.”? Then, probably don’t whether vote, the there’s believe that most you’re voting out voters know a decision to vote “only of self-interest whole hell of a lot where the about choosing when it’s informed it.” more candidates, or voters might that they have have different good priorities. But even if you think interests, and whether and where you that everyone else is an expert, you can draw the line. can’t believe that, if you’re the swing vote, the other people will be more The Credible Threat likely to already have it right than Game theory tells us that acting wrong, because there’s so many of irrationally, as a threat, is an advantage, them. Two million for the “wrong” but that many threats aren’t credible to two million and one for the “right” because the ultimately rational players candidate can’t be more likely than the won’t carry through on them if it other way around in any statistically comes down to it. significant way. So even if there’s only Unlike protest votes, the a marginally better expected value apathy vote has a small, but distinct from your vote — i.e., you’re 55% sure difference in that people will have you’re right, and the consequences of a personal advantage in not voting, being wrong and right are the same— because they save themselves time it’s worth it to vote. and energy. For low-income voters, People often like to view the solution is often to decrease the moral choices by looking at what “cost” of voting (or for the other side would happen if everyone acted like to increase the cost). But candidates them. So you could say, “if everyone will also seek to “mobilize” an interest as ignorant as me didn’t vote, things group, inspire them enough (or scare
non-vote
power
conditional apathy
worth
Summer 2008 them enough about their opponents) so that they feel they have a lot to gain from voting. Non-voting as a credible threat may have played a function in both parties: Republicans wary of electing McCain worried if conservatives would show up and vote for him. And Democratic party leaders have worried about losing black voter turnout. Nobody is suggesting that most black voters will vote for McCain or any other third party candidate, but the threat of low turnout is very real. “Vote or Die” or “Vote and Die” Here’s how the credible threat can work when voters are taken as an aggregate: Take two voter groups of the same size: the one with higher turnout will have more voters, and thus more voting power, so on the surface high turnout seems beneficial to any group of voters. However, a non-centrist group, who always prefers one party, can suffer negative consequences from having a stable level of turnout. Basically, their party does not have to consider them when drafting its agenda or choosing their candidates, since they will always vote the same way in approximately the same number. They can be taken for granted since they are, essentially, granted to the party in each election. By not always voting in high (or low) numbers, a non-centrist
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group can influence its party even if its party knows they won’t vote for the opponents, because the group’s turnout (on which the party’s turnout is partially dependent) is dependent on the party’s action. So, while in each election, it makes sense for a voting bloc to maximize its turnout, over a series of elections that bloc may find it more effective to vary its turnout rate in order to exert influence on its own party. The Last Word Ultimately, deliberate non-voting means nothing if there is no possibility of voting. But it probably should remain an option. In the same way that non-voting means much more if there’s some circumstance under which the actor would vote, a vote means more when it’s from someone who would consider not voting. Whether it is cast or not, a vote should never be taken for granted.
Michael Roberto
God Exists
Alan Daboin
Lorraine White
Summer 2008
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“Can the ground of all being possess the kind of existence an apple has?”
W
hat do we mean when we say “God”? Anything we say about God comes from an assumption: that God is a thing. But I will claim something different—God cannot be a mere entity! My reason for taking such an unorthodox view relies on a close examination of what we mean when we say that something exists. I side with Parmenides and many others in the history of philosophy in recognizing that humans can make no intellectual claim to the reality behind everything, what someone would call the Truth. How could man, so locked in space and time, ever claim to be the measure of all things? When we refer to God we reduce God to the status of a thing. This points to a big mistake in the typical fashion theist and atheist arguments go. Think of Leibniz’s question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” A theist will agree that God created everything. It follows that God would not be “something” unless it was a case of self-causation, an idea we should keep
away from. So God is not something. How can God exist? Here is the crucial point. Either we stick to our mundane version of existence, the one we ascribe to tables, numbers and people, or we deny the existence of everything to give existence to this non-entity. If the conception of God is taken to be that which made possible the existence of everything, or at least the first “thing,” then God is the reason these things are—the direct or indirect reason our tables and people “exist.” As such, it would seem that God is ontologically different, for God does not have being but brought about the being of everything. This means God, as the ground of being, falls outside the category of being. Can the ground of all being possess the kind of existence an apple has? Or more importantly, would we want it to? By reducing God to something with mere existence, theists, to their disfavor, make God less significant. But the atheists don’t have the upper hand either. Denying God existence fails to deny God.
I Wrote This Next Year Varzi on Time Travel
Adam Waksman
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found myself last summer attempting to find a connection between time travel (what I wanted to write about) and work (the theme of the Fall issue). Upon finally reconciling this, I discovered I’d be writing this piece for the Summer issue and I’d have no theme to reconcile with. I was so grieved that I decided it had to end—that I had to ‘snuff it out.’ Unfortunately, I lacked the courage and sat, gun in pocket, wishing someone would do my work for me. I began to muse how wonderful it would be if I found a time machine, because then I could go back in time to do the job on my former self, and I would get rid of the depressing time I’d spent between then and when I would get into the time machine. As I pondered this, I saw someone coming toward me waving a gun wildly. He shot, and I felt a searing pain in my right eye. I staggered around half-blind and stumbled into a strange looking room that felt as if it were spinning. I found myself (still in horrible pain) looking at a man who
seemed to be me, sitting in a chair. This is my chance, I thought—I must take him out and end my pain—and so I fired. But I could not see well, and I missed, only hitting him in the right eye. He leapt up in pain and stumbled away. I made my way unhappily to John Jay health services. They gave me a condom for my eye, and in time I was healthy enough to attempt to resolve my confusions about time travel in part two of my interview with our local expert on logic and metaphysics, Achille Varzi.
What do you think of the intuitive assumption that time simply moves forward linearly forever? The subject can be somewhat ambiguous. If we see it from God’s eye view, we can say, ‘here’s time, what structure does it have?’ Is it linear, or circular or branching? But this relies on the assumption that time is something? Some philosophers
Summer 2008 think that time is a construction out of objects and experiences. It is not clear in what sense we can talk about time as if it were something. Having said that, in so far as the past is linear and certainly looks linear to us, because we know what has happened, it makes sense to think that the future is linear, so long as we do not confuse our sense of possibility and possible the futures and futures that exist. It does not mean that there are many futures, and kill we choose which one. It is that there are many futures that might be possible, prior and we will be in one.
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precedes the effect. However, a time traveler could do something in the past that makes it look as though a future event causes some past event. For example, there is a paradox wherein an avid reader goes back in time to have a book signed by his favorite writer. The writer then steals the book and
problem of free
will: in the past, I can’t my grandfather or my
self. I am bound to do everything that I did. I cannot change the
What are your thoughts on the conceivability of time travel as both a logical and metaphysical matter, and as a practical matter? First of all, I would distinguish between the 3 parts of the story—logical, metaphysical and practical or physical. I’m not going to comment on the last part, because it is not all that relevant. Concerning the first one, there seems to be no logical inconsistency in time travel. All the difficulties and skepticism we have comes from the fact that there are many paradoxes involving primarily freedom and causation. Therefore, it is the metaphysical possibility of time travel that’s in question. We are familiar with a notion of causation wherein the cause
past. prints it as his own work. The question is who authored the book? There seems to be no root cause. People also talk about causal loops, which are very hard to make any sense of. The question is: are these strange or are they impossible? Is there a possible world in which this stuff happens? There is also the problem of free will: in the past, there are many things I can’t do. I can’t kill my grandfather or my prior self. Moreover, I am bound to do everything that I did. I cannot change the past. It’s already happened, so it is already
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The Gadfly
predetermined. That it has been done by a time traveler rather than an ordinary man is not relevant to the nature of the event. Therefore, I am forced to do what has been done, and so I am not free. There is a distinction many philosophers have made, which is the distinction between affecting and changing the past. Certainly the time traveler is going to be influencing the past, engaging with history so to say. So he will affect the past. But that does not mean he can change the past. The past is there, what happened has happened, but some of the things that happened involved time travelers. And this is why one gets stuck with the free will problem. Some people think of it differently, such as in Back to the Future, where he changes the past, and comes back to the future and finds it to be different. This comes back to the first question, the structure of time. If time is branching, then by
going back in time, you can activate a different path, a different future. But I don’t think that makes any sense, because then something could be both true and false at the same time. So the main question is whether time travel is metaphysically possible. I think it is. I think it is simply very strange. Take a scenario of the type where a situation with two exclusive outcomes is forced into both: for example a computer that inputs ‘true’ or ‘false’ and outputs the opposite. Using time travel, the output and the input could be the same thing, but they are of course also opposites. There is also the more colorful example of the man who goes back in time with a gun but simply cannot kill himself. How do such contradictions inform time travel? What happens with time travel and
Maddie Boucher
Summer 2008 these scenarios is you don’t know the answer to why questions such as why does the man not kill himself, which is something that makes time travel seem impractical. All you know in these scenarios is that, that the man will not kill himself. I am here with a bazooka. I know that I will not kill myself, but I don’t know why. The point is that you cannot change the past, and if you think you can change the past, then you’re thinking that there are multiple pasts, and you’re buying into the time branching model. What are the reasons for one to believe in or consider the possibility of time travel? I don’t believe in time travel. I think it’s awfully weird. And in so far as we don’t have such answers, we should not entertain the thought that such situations are genuinely possible. However, I see no logical contradiction, and no metaphysical impossibility. I see only metaphysical strangeness. But I believe that it is not worth investing a penny in a time machine project. Say I am applying for a grant and you have to judge me. You’ll say, ‘If you succeed, that means
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you will go to the past, and so you have already been there. That means you have succeeded already, so why bother to invest?’ It’s very strange, because if it is possible at all then it is necessary. If it can be done, then it has been done, because the past is fixed. So the only way to see if it is really possible is to see if anyone has. Then again, if no one has time traveled, it does not mean time travel is impossible. It only means that at no point in the future will anyone ever time travel back to our time and that nobody ever can travel to our time. Some have said that if time travel were possible, we should be surrounded by herds of tourists from
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The Gadfly
the future. I disagree with this. I have an uncle who lives in an ugly little town, and he tells me space travel must not be possible, because if it were, somebody would visit him, but nobody ever does. So I say, “Well, dear uncle, there are plenty of tourists, but they have better places to go.” But here’s the interesting punchline: Whether or not it is possible, physically or metaphysically, is not the main issue or reason for thinking about it. The interesting aspect of this topic is that it forces us to reconsider and seriously call into doubt some of our fundamental notions in terms of how we make sense of the world—causation, free will, determinism. It is a great experimental sandbox for thought experiments that can help us sharpen our understanding of these notions. Endurantists claim that for an object to persist through time is for it to exist whole and entire at each of several different times, perdurantists that a thing persists by having different parts existing at different times. Do you believe being either an endurantist or a perdurantist fixes one’s position on time travel? It looks as though endurantism and time travel don’t go well together. So one could say that if time travel is right, endurantism is wrong or vice versa, so one of the two has to go. The argument tends to
run from time travel to endurantism, because we can generally flush out our views on time travel without being very metaphysical, and that can be used as data for philosophers to use about the endurantism debate. There are, however, people who now claim that endurantists can handle time travel. There is a problem, though. If time travel is possible and endurantism is true, then suppose you and I are the same person. Since endurantism, three-dimensionalism, claims that each object is entirely present at all times it exists, then I am entirely present here where I am sitting and entirely present there where you are present at the same time. So what they do is they relativize things to both space and time. They say objects can have different properties at different times. So they could say
Summer 2008
Whether of not
time travel
is possible, physically or metaphysically, is not the main reason for thinking about it. I have the property of sitting here at time t1 and space s1 and sitting there at time t2 and space s2. But things get weird and I think it makes no sense to say that I am entirely present with one property here and entirely present with one property there. It essentially makes me into a universal, because I am entirely present in many places. The perdurantist also has some problems, because he, the fourdimensionalist, describes proper parts of objects by what is present at a particular time. For example, if you and I are part of the same fourdimensional object, then the now part of the object is scattered, partly here and partly there. Our internal times are different, that is the time we have existed, though we are at the same historical point in time. The intuition is to say that you are the twenty-yearold phase of an object whereas I am an
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older phase of the object, rather than that we are disjoint parts of the same temporal part of the same object. The internal and external times get mixed up, and time travel makes this all very hairy. Questions of personal identity and survival through time come up. Here’s the real problem for the three-dimensionalist: imagine for example that there is just one particle that keeps traveling around through time and space, so we are all different phases of a single particle. It’s not necessarily impossible, but it’s certainly very weird. Do you believe logic can be used to thoroughly prove or disprove ideas outside of time or outside of human experience, i.e. temporal structure, creation, afterlife, God, etc? I believe not, and my answer is the following. Logic is only good at taking you from certain premises to certain conclusions. So you always need the premises to start with. Without any controversial premises, that is, only logical truths, you can’t go very far with those things. You can’t prove a categorical thing like the existence of God. Some try, but they all depend on the way you set up the situation, and you can simply deny the premises, since they are not a matter of pure logic. In a sense, you’re asking to prove things that are not necessarily true, and that cannot be done with logic, which is merely an input/output machine.
How to Play with Others A Theory of
Gesture Brendan Price Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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mplied in Longfellow’s lines is the suggestion that, when ships pass in the night, they should aim for deeper contact. As with ships, so with people: human relations suffer from our reluctance to relate to one another candidly and without pretext. Social life has elements of a matching problem. Consciously or not, when people interact with others, they use the information at their
disposal—“a look and a voice”—to decide which ones to engage, acquaint, or befriend. Conversation provides much of this information, but it tends to be superficial. We usually stick to a “script” of questions, answers, and actions deemed appropriate in a given social context: “Where are you from?” or “What is your major?” The script has its virtues. It helps us fend off unwanted attention by
Summer 2008 keeping conversation within clear bounds. But the script also makes it unduly difficult for compatible people to find each other. Perhaps it ought to be rewritten. Failing that, however, anyone who wishes to get past superficial conversation faces a strategic choice: what should I do or say to elicit the information I need to identify people I click with? Oftentimes, the answer is to stray from the script: to use targeted signals, or gestures, to communicate who you are and what you are looking for. A gesture is a conspicuous departure from the behavior one is expected to exhibit in a social setting. It can be a spoken sentence, a written word, an action, a glance, or a literal gesticulation, as long as it signals your personality and intentions. The mere fact of deviation is laden with meaning, for it conveys a willingness to test the waters and establishes a framework for doing so. The more striking the deviation, the stronger the gesture, and the more the new framework will differ from the script. My first conversation
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with a fellow student eventually turned to Hermann Hesse. I had read Peter Camenzind and she had read Steppenwolf. Without warning and at the risk of awkwardness, she offered to read Camenzind if I would read Steppenwolf. Her offer was a gesture, albeit a subtle one, in that it replaced our small talk with this unusual obligation. When I accepted it, we were freed from scripted dialogue. Though she didn’t follow through, her gesture broke down a barrier—and did so in a moment. Such a gesture is not an all-or-nothing proposition but an invitation to a back-and-forth that might eventually lead to friendship, romance, or intellectual partnership. Gesture is a sorting mechanism that lets receivers selfselect by tailoring their responses. A gesture can be met with reciprocation or with a blank stare. Either is telling. Reciprocation is a tacit step toward intimacy and away from superficiality. A blank stare is a declaration of disinterest. If I refused to read
Claire Bullen
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The Gadfly
Steppenwolf, it would have sent a clear message of de-escalation. My agreement encouraged deeper engagement. Consider two more examples: 1. A says to B: “Ask me a question. I’ll answer anything you’d like.” Here, A’s willingness to tempt fate—he might be asked a deeply personal question— conveys that he is earnest. B, in turn, can ask a provocative question or lower the stakes by asking something more innocuous. 2. A proposes to B: “Let’s meet at Alma
Mater at 5:00 p.m., say nothing, and walk our separate ways.” This seems senseless. If A and B follow through, however, they will have proven their willingness to invest time and effort in their friendship, even when there is no evident reason to do so. These scenarios can be thought of as games in which the players, A and B, are meeting for the first time. Suppose that B, if left to his own devices, will keep to the script. A can keep to the script himself—that is, stay well within the bounds of superficial conversation—or extend a gesture
Summer 2008
of the kind described above. In the latter case, B can choose whether or not to reciprocate. This interaction is fraught with uncertainty, but A can form a rough idea of how B is likely to respond. In deciding how to proceed, A can weigh his chances and compare the promise of a successful gesture with the awkwardness of a failed
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one.1 A gesture is rational if it passes such cost-benefit scrutiny. No matter how much a rational gesture departs from the script, it still represents play within the rules of the game. There is more to be said for the irrational gesture—a gesture extended even though it runs afoul of narrow self-interest. Irrational
Assume that each player assigns a certain utility to each of the three possible outcomes. Let U(R), U(N), and U(S) denote the utility A derives from a reciprocated gesture, an unreciprocated gesture, and a scripted conversation, respectively. A does not know how B will respond to a gesture, but he guesses that B will reciprocate with probability p and rebuff with probability 1 – p. If A is risk neutral, his expected utility from extending a gesture is [U(R) × p] + [U(N) × (1 – p)]. Rationality dictates that A extend a gesture if and only if this expected utility exceeds U(S), the utility to be gained from sticking to the script. 1
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gestures represent a double departure: they reject not only the specifics but also the premises of scripted behavior. In so doing, an irrational gesture becomes all the more potent, for its costliness establishes beyond doubt that the sender is sincere. An irrational gesture is a gesture of the purest form: it disregards cost-benefit analysis out of the belief that there is something nobler than profit and loss. To extend such a gesture is to invite vulnerability in the hope that the audience will see that vulnerability as laudable in its own right. It is an act of faith. A caveat is in order. Gesture is not for the shy, nor should gestures be directed toward those who are likely to feel uncomfortable if approached in unfamiliar ways. An ideal gesture is minimally intrusive: it makes its point and, if unreciprocated, is quickly forgotten. Gestures make demands on people’s attention and psychology, but they must be judged against the
backdrop of a script that impedes worthwhile exchanges. Conversational norms bind too tightly. A gesture is not a brazen violation of the right to be left alone, but an honest effort to relate sincerely. It might seem better for people to get to know each other gradually and to employ gestures only when they are likely to be well received. Even scripted conversation may, with enough time and effort, uncover much that gesture can, and with less risk. But if people desire to sift through everyone they encounter in daily life and to find those with whom they can best forge lasting bonds, gesture should be introduced at the start. Time is scarce, and too much is reserved for too long. Far better to lower our defenses—not without cost, not without risk, and with no assurance that others will do likewise—than to resign ourselves to a siege mentality. Fortune favors the bold.
Animetaphysics a review of Millenium Actress
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f I were to have babies, Chiyoko Fujiwara (the heroine in Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress) would be my lover, and in Mr. Kon’s world, this would not be entirely impossible. No other filmmaker blurs the boundaries of reality and fantasy as well as Kon does. In fact, for him, such boundaries don’t exist. Mr. Kon grounds his films in graphic realism despite working primarily within the confines (or liberties) of animation. His humans look like humans, his dogs look like dogs and everything else in his films look pretty much as they do within our natural sphere of existence. This casual naturalness in his films forms the back bone of a narrative strategy that knows no limits of time and space. Millennium Actress is about “Millennium Actress,” a documentary by a video producer, Genya Tachibana, and his young camera assistant, Eiko Shimao. Following the destruction of a once prominent film studio, Genji Studios, Tachibana tracks down Chiyoko Fujiwara, a reclusive former
movie star and the actress most responsible for Genji Studios’ past success. It’s been thirty years since she disappeared from the movie business. The film begins with Tachibana watching one of Fujiwara’s films, in which she’s an astronaut. Just as her rocket takes off, Japan is hit by an earthquake and the shockwaves caused by her departure appear to intrude into Tachibana’s editing room. This is no coincidence; a fact that becomes clearer when Fujiwara reveals that she was born during the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. This introduces us to Mr. Kon’s variation on Kantian metaphysics: time and space don’t exist separate of our perception of them and in this way become mere constructs around which we assemble individual and collective experience. An interview with Fujiwara, for instance, becomes a flashback in which Tachibana and Shimao appear in modern dress and with digital cameras. Here the present physically intrudes on the past, giving us access to Fujiwara’s experiences growing up in the conflicted political landscape
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of late ‘30s and early ‘40s Japan. We learn of her love for a rebel artist (whom she pursues for the rest of her life) against the backdrop of the brutal regime reflected in her movies for Genji Studios. Millennium Actress ingeniously marries 100 years of Japanese film history to 1000 years of Japanese social and political history. Fujiwara acts in period films, and these films refer to Japanese history from the samurai to the space age. Satoshi Kon uses these period films to pay homage to the icons and masters of Japanese cinema: Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Godzilla. The double history reflects Mr. Kon’s taste for causal plurality, in a reality shaped by multiple dimensions that may or may not be in conflict. Fujiwara, in pursuit of her lover, is whisked from movie to flashback to the present and back again, all her characters merging into one. Her real history and her movie history become indistinguishable without drowning the overall arc of her life and her reason for existence: to find her rebel artist lover. The two filmmakers remain by her side through all this tumult, documenting and interacting with her and with Japan’s
Julia Alekseyeva
history. Time and space in Millennium Actress are, for Mr. Kon, similar to history and to filmmaking. All these are but tools and structures that enable us to process the fundamental question: what it means to be. —Arnold Mwanjila Millenium Actress (2001), directed by Satoshi Kon, Go Fish Pictures.
little philosophy books Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Serialized Television The Simpsons and Philosophy
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merica’s favorite yellow family has now spawned a film, countless catchphrases, and a panoply of pop culture consumables, including T-shirts, bobble-heads, and bottle openers—precisely the kind of disposable shit The Simpsons itself mocks consistently. One of the more unusual pieces of merchandise, however, is The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’Oh! Of Homer, edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conrad, and Aeon J. Skoble. Part of a greater collection of pop culture philosophy fusion books also coedited by Irwin (including Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing and Buffy the The Simpsons and Philosophy, ed. Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling William Irwin, Mark T. Conrad, Aeon J. Skoble. Published by Open in Sunnydale), the Simpsons themed tome Court, 2001. $17.95. Image used features conversational essays by professors and with permission from Open Court. philosophy enthusiasts incorporating some of the best known names in Western philosophy into the milieu of Springfield, USA. The titles are tongue-in-cheek, the authors are obviously enjoying themselves, and the essays are fun to read, especially if you’re already invested enough in the Simpsons’ universe to re-watch, quote and over-analyze their easy-to-miss philosophy references ad nauseum. The tone, however, is sometimes painfully self-conscious about being light and accessible. In “Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and the Virtues of Being Bad,” for example, Conrad writes: “Well, let me tell you about another bad boy, the bad boy of philosophy (what—you didn’t think philosophy had bad boys?). His name was Friedrich
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Channo Bao
Nietzsche, and—philosophically—he’s as bad as they come, honey.” Sure, Nietzsche was the philosopher who called Kant an idiot, dismissed Epicurus as a “typical decadent,” and decreed the Gospel of Luke to be “impudent rabble,” to say nothing of his less than flattering words for Christianity (only “the greatest misfortune of humanity,” but like, you know, whatever). Yet passages like this are emblematic of how hard the language strives to seem cool and relatable, while merely distracting from the content. When the authors allow themselves analytical agency without completely falsifying their voices, the results are captivating. They presuppose no outside knowledge: each essay offers a parsimonious summation of the philosophies in play, allowing even the Barts and Homers of the real world insight into otherwise unfamiliar texts. For instance, in the Nietzsche article, Conrad argues that Bart does not embody the übermensch by emphasizing a common misconception about Nietzsche’s philosophy of power: by virtue of the manifest pathology of slave morality, Bart cannot embody the Nietzschean ideal. Insofar as Bart’s actions merely go against authority, they are still determined by its norms. Conrad uses Bart as an example of the oppressor-bully character, whose “whole identity is created around rebelling, bucking authority. Consequently, when the authority disappears, Bart loses his identity.” Through this illustrative and easilydigestible example, Conrad demonstrates how Nietzsche glorifies those who create their own values—the self-overcoming Zarathustras—as opposed to
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those whose identity is parasitic on the status quo, even if in the negative sense. Admittedly, this is not a book to turn to for deep philosophical insight, but James Lawler’s essay, “The Moral World of the Simpson Family: A Kantian Perspective,” might not be a bad study-break if the real Immanuel is giving you a headache. If anything, it allows you to relive the times when you actually knew when your favorite sitcoms were on in syndication and didn’t have to fight off everyone else in your suite to get access to the television. And, perhaps, it might give you an opportunity to refer to Springfield along with Athens in your next CC discussion, which for any Simpsons fan, would be as ambrosial as the mystical all-syrup Super Squishy. — Joanna Smolenski
The Columbia Philosophy Department
2895 Broadway, New York, New York 10025 Phone: 212.666.7653 Fax: 212.865.3590
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