1.0 Introduction
“Well, dreams, they feel real while we’re in them, right? It’s only when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange” (McCateer, 2010). Inception is a science-fiction movie, which was produced and directed by Christopher Nolan in 2010. ‘Inception’ as a concept refers to the situation when you plant an idea in someone’s mind without his or her knowledge of it happening (Rivera, 2012). The movie explores the ability to differentiate dreams from reality (Malcolm, 2010) and therefore looks at two branches of philosophy - metaphysics, and epistemology. The viewer is left with the following question after seeing the movie - “What is reality and how do we know?” It is an exploration of real world vs. the dream …show more content…
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and breaks down our knowledge into ways how we can find out what is real and what is true (Trucellito, n.d.). The branch of philosophy that deals with what is real, is metaphysics and we see these two branches constantly intertwining in “Inception”. The characters in the movie, as well as the viewers, ask themselves throughout the piece what is real and what is a dream and how do we know.
Descartes in 1641 went into the same theory, in his first Meditations on First Philosophy and determined that the knowledge of distinguishing these two things is impossible (Malcolm, 2010). While you are dreaming, your dream is absolutely different from reality and all we know is that our experiences could simply be a dream too (Malcolm, 2010). It can be possible that our dream, could be just our imagination and Descartes tried to solve this problem (Malcolm, 2010). Descartes created a core for knowledge, “the cogito”, which means “I think, therefore I am” which was partly the solution in providing knowledge for ourselves (Malcolm, 2010). However, Descartes claims that beyond our own thoughts is a reality of senses, but those senses could deceive us (Samuels,
“Well, dreams, they feel real while we’re in them, right? It’s only when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange” (McCateer, 2010). Inception is a science-fiction movie, which was produced and directed by Christopher Nolan in 2010. ‘Inception’ as a concept refers to the situation when you plant an idea in someone’s mind without his or her knowledge of it happening (Rivera, 2012). The movie explores the ability to differentiate dreams from reality (Malcolm, 2010) and therefore looks at two branches of philosophy - metaphysics, and epistemology. The viewer is left with the following question after seeing the movie - “What is reality and how do we know?” It is an exploration of real world vs. the dream …show more content…
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and breaks down our knowledge into ways how we can find out what is real and what is true (Trucellito, n.d.). The branch of philosophy that deals with what is real, is metaphysics and we see these two branches constantly intertwining in “Inception”. The characters in the movie, as well as the viewers, ask themselves throughout the piece what is real and what is a dream and how do we know.
Descartes in 1641 went into the same theory, in his first Meditations on First Philosophy and determined that the knowledge of distinguishing these two things is impossible (Malcolm, 2010). While you are dreaming, your dream is absolutely different from reality and all we know is that our experiences could simply be a dream too (Malcolm, 2010). It can be possible that our dream, could be just our imagination and Descartes tried to solve this problem (Malcolm, 2010). Descartes created a core for knowledge, “the cogito”, which means “I think, therefore I am” which was partly the solution in providing knowledge for ourselves (Malcolm, 2010). However, Descartes claims that beyond our own thoughts is a reality of senses, but those senses could deceive us (Samuels,