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Inception as Philosophy: Choose Your Dreams or Seek Reality

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The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy

Abstract

Christopher Nolan’ Inception is more than its folding cityscapes and mind-bending ambiguous ending. It’s a film that makes its viewer question the very nature of reality. Not only is it possible that the entire movie is a dream, but multiple viewings of Inception leaves one wondering whether the same might be true of one’s experience. Indeed, according to the author of “The Fiction of Christopher Nolan” Todd McGowan, Inception calls its viewers to abandon any concern they have for knowledge of reality and instead choose to believe what they want. But does this moral hold up? Is it philosophically defensible? In this essay, after a close inspection of the movie itself, this moral will be identified and evaluated. An examination of a number of related arguments by important philosophers will reveal that, although knowledge of reality is sometimes difficult to attain, it should always be sought.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA

    David Kyle Johnson

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  1. David Kyle Johnson
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Correspondence to David Kyle Johnson .

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Johnson, D.K. (2020). Inception as Philosophy: Choose Your Dreams or Seek Reality. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Popular Culture as Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97134-6_5-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97134-6_5-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97134-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97134-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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