Sunday, January 11, 2004

Impenetrable philosophy writing

I've just finished with the book 'The Matrix and Philosophy' (ed. William Irwin), and I have to say a lot of it was a real slog.

As someone who has studied very little philosophy at an academic level, but has a 'pop' interest in it, it was a little frustrating - the stuff I could follow was the stuff which was already getting to be old hat for me e.g. the film's use of the ideas of real vs unreal, knowing vs not knowing, the Buddhist touches blah blah blah. Plus, the same few ideas seemed to be repeated over several articles, quoting the same few quotes from the film.

Where an article was about something I hadn't come across before, I couldn't bloody understand what the writer was talking about...
Prior knowledge was assumed and I didn't have it. It didn't help that some of the language was...impenetrable.

It's a library book, so I don't have the luxury of re-reading it over and over (with a bit of research into Lacan and anything else I am ignorant of). But I suppose if I owned a copy I'd be free to do that, and probably appreciate some of the writings a little more.

Overall, a much less accessible book than 'Buffy the Vampire slayer and Philosophy'.

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