 |
 |
Hi all, In Montreal last week for a conference, and with some free time on my hands, I saw Nolan's Insomnia and Spielberg's Minority Report back to back (as an aside: although I enjoyed both, and really wanted to love Minority Report, I found Insomnia much more compelling). There were some interesting parallels that I think merit discussion in this forum. Both present fairly interesting, and to some extent novel, occasions for considering what it means to know. Also, the films both appear to adopt similar responses to questions in epistemology. I don't have anything conclusive to say about either film, but thought I'd write down my thoughts as a way to stimulate discussion (and will, I hope, because I'd like to hear what other people in this forum -- of course, I have already read what a number of critics thought -- think of these movies). I guess I should mention that there are some so-called "spoilers" here, though I don't think there is anything here that you couldn't find in a standard movie review. 1. Both present knowing as a creative act. Tom Cruise is the film director/musical conductor who has to piece together fragmented filmlike "memories" into a coherent whole, so that judgment can be passed on the future perpetrators of murder. Al Pacino is the hotshot and aging detective whose abilities consist in a capacity for creative reconstruction of events based on fragmented evidence. 2. In neither case does skepticism really arise. Apparently fragmentary bits of evidence turn out to be conclusive on certain issues -- and it is obvious that they are conclusive: the bullet, for example, leaves no room for doubt as to who fired the fatal shot. Even where what is known is the future, what is in question is not whether the "precogs" have genuinely seen where the future is going (of course it is not a question of their seeing the actual future, because the whole project is predicated on the idea that the future they see can be averted), but the ethical question whether someone should be held responsible for crimes that were in them only potentially. In Insomnia a related question comes up whether one should be held responsible for a crime they might have considered but never really intended until it was too late. 3. Both pose questions about epistemic responsibility. The knowing, as the films present it, involves not only the evidence, but the character of the knower. In both cases the judgements depend upon the expert skills of an individual, who must convince a judge and jury, and cannot do so if his character is damaged. In Tom's case, his drug abuse raises questions about his judgement. In Al Pacino's case, the problem is that in order to convince a jury of what he supposedly saw as obvious (he says he had known a certain man was guilty the moment he met him) he had to fabricate evidence. (There are interesting "epistemological" problems in Minority Report that probably can't be resolved, because insufficient thought went into their presentation: how come Tom Cruise's crime was designated as a premeditated one, when he didn't know the victim? perhaps worse: how is that the knowledge of the precogs can be linked to intention -- hence the important distinction between planned and unpremeditated murder -- and yet they predict the precise details for a "murder" that is in fact unintentional? in fact what the precogs "know" is something like a counterfactual: not the actual event of a crime -- because it can be stopped -- but only that if nobody does something it will take place, but it is a peculiar counterfactual because it is not yet contrary to any fact -- what kind of knowledge is that?) Nate -- Nathan Andersen Assistant Professor of Philosophy Collegium of Letters Eckerd College 4200 54th Ave. S. Phone: (727) 864-7551 St. Petersburg, FL 33712 Fax: (727) 864-8354 U.S.A. E-mail: [log in to unmask]