Woody Allen and Philosophy: [You Mean My Whole Fallacy Is Wrong?]

by Mark T. Conard, Aeon J. Skoble, Tom Morris (Foreword by), William Irwin (Editor)

Overview

Fifteen philosophers representuing different schools of thought answer the question what is Woody Allen trying to say in his films? And why should anyone care?
Focusing on different works and varied aspects of Allen's multifaceted output, these essays explore the philosophical undertones of Anne Hall, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Manhattan, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and reminds us that just because the universe is meaningless and life is pointless is no reason to commit suicide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812694536
Publisher:	Open Court Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/09/2004
Series:	Popular Culture and Philosophy , #8
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)

Table of Contents

	Foreword: Can We Not Talk about Sex All the Time?	ix
	Acknowledgments	xii
	Introduction: You Know Nothing of My Work	1
Act I	Morality, Interpretation, and the Meaning of Life	5
1.	God, Suicide, and the Meaning of Life in the Films of Woody Allen	7
2.	Integrity in Woody Allen's Manhattan	24
3.	Does Morality Have to Be Blind? A Kantian Analysis of Crimes and Misdemeanors	33
4.	Arguing Interpretations: The Pragmatic Optimism of Woody Allen	48
Act II	Woody's Craft	67
5.	The Mousetrap: Reading Woody Allen	69
6.	Woody on Aesthetic Appreciation	89
7.	Art and Voyeurism in the Films of Woody Allen	101
8.	"You Don't Deserve Cole Porter": Love and Music According to Woody Allen	118
9.	Dead Sharks and Dynamite Ham: The Philosophical Use of Humor in Annie Hall	132
10.	Reconstructing Ingmar: The Aesthetic Purging of the Great Model	151
Act III	Five Films	167
11.	The Dangers of Hedonism: A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy	169
12.	Inauthenticity and Personal Identity in Zelig	186
13.	It's All Darkness: Plato, The Ring of Gyges, and Crimes and Misdemeanors	203
14.	Self Knowledge in Another Woman	218
15.	Woody Allen's Film Noir Light: Crime, Love, and Self-Knowledge in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion	243
	Entertainment for Intellectuals: A Woody Allen Filmography	259
	All These Great Minds ...	261
	Index	265