The Problem of Truth in Novels and Cinema: For Example, in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown
Blanchard W. Means Memorial Lecture
The problem of truth in novels and cinema is whether there is any. Philosophers have been skeptical that there can be for two reasons. The first is that they think that only propositions asserted in judgments can be truth bearers. The second reason is consequent upon the first: literature and movies do not assert anything. They are made up narratives about fictional beings. In this talk I want to introduce the claim that there is a form of truth available in great literature and great cinema and thereby address the question: if literature and cinema can be said to convey something true, and how could any such truth be distinguished from the mere appearance of truth? The examples to be discussed are drawn from the 1974 film by Roman Polanski, Chinatown.
WHERE & WHEN
Thursday, March 9th
4:15pm in Rittenberg Lounge, Mather Hall.
Food and beverages will be served!
Screening of Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974): Monday March 6th 6.30-9pm / Austin Arts Center 320
Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books on modern German philosophy, on philosophy and literature, on modernist art, and five books on film and philosophy. He is a past winner of the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, a Guggenheim Fellowship, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society, and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina. His recent books include Hegel’s Realm of Shadows: Logic as Metaphysics in Hegel’s Science of Logic (2019), and Philosophy by Other Means: The Arts in Philosophy and Philosophy in the Arts (2021), both published by The University of Chicago Press.
