Back Cover Blurb
- Who would you rather have as a philosophy teacher, Socrates or Schwarzenegger?
- The Philosopher at the End of the Universe demonstrates how anyone can grasp the basic concepts of philosophy while still holding a bucket of popcorn. Mark Rowlands makes philosophy utterly relevant to our everyday lives and reveals its most potent messages using nothing more than a little humour and the plot lines of some of the most spectacular, expensive, high-octane films on the planet.
- Learn about:
- The Nature of Reality from THE MATRIX
- Good and Evil from STAR WARS
- Morality from ALIENS
- Personal Identity from TOTAL RECALL
- The Mind-Body dilemma from TERMINATOR
- Free Will from MINORITY REPORT
- Death and the Meaning of Life from BLADE RUNNER
- Cultural Relativism from LORD OF THE RINGS
- A search for knowledge about ourselves and the world around us with a star-studded cast that includes: Tom Cruise, Plato, Harrison Ford, Immanuel Kant, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigourney Weaver, Rene Descartes and Keanu Reeves.
Amazon Book Description
- The Philosopher at the End of the Universe allows anyone to understand basic philosophical concepts from the comfort of their armchair, through the plots and characters of spectacular blockbusting science-fiction movies. Learn about: The Nature of Reality from The Matrix; Good and Evil from Star Wars; Morality from Aliens; Personal Identity from Total Recall; The Mind-Body Dilemma from Terminator; Free Will from Minority Report; Death and the Meaning of Life from Blade Runner; and much more. As someone once said, things must be said and knowledge known, and the cast list assembled to tell us does not disappoint: Tom Cruise, Plato, Harrison Ford, Immanuel Kant, Sigourney Weaver, Friedrich Nietzsche, Keanu Reeves and Rene Descartes. From characters in the biggest films (with lots of explosions and bad language) to Ludwig Wittgenstein (no explosions and too much language in general), hear all the arguments. I think, therefore... I'll be back!
- New edition packed with good old-fashioned, high-octane, high body count, alien ass-kicking, robot-wrecking- philosophy!
- Reviews
- Excellent - not only is each chapter a model of philosophical exposition, conveying philosophical ideas with exemplary verve and clarity, the book also manages to connect the philosophy to the movies in a natural and convincing way - serves to inject a degree of passion into the bloodless halls of philosophy'
→ TLS
- Hugely entertaining ... Rowlands knows his stuff and marries some of the tougher philosophical arguments to the more accessible conduit of popular entertainment - enjoyable and illuminating
→ Waterstone's Books Quarterly
Amazon Customer Review
- 4 out of 5 stars: Gimmick is thin but a suprisingly good read nethertheless
- The concept of the book, explaining philosophy through sci-fi films sounds good, especially to me as it combined something I knew well (sci fi) with something I wanted to learn about (philosophy).
- In the actual course of the book, the chapters begin with a retelling of the film's story, then analyse some philisophical theme that the author has decided is related. In actuality, the discussion usually strays far from the film and one wonders what the point of the 'schi-phi' gimmick was; however the films do serve as useful examples for Mark's discussions and get one thinking in the right frame of mind beforehand. (It also pointed me towards some good films.)
- The book, however, is excellent as an introduction to philosophy. I was a veteran 'armchair philosopher' beforehand but reading this book got me to think my ideas through in a more consistent fashion, and introduced me to the major ideas and characters of philosophy. It covers most of the major questions in philosophy (the ones that actually interest people, anyway) and goes over the basic arguments for the different views surrounding them. It's a credit that Mark makes his writing so clear, to the point and is low on any technical terms, making this a very easy read and allowing the basic ideas to be understood very easily.
- Obviously not every point of view can be adressed, and in a book of this size he must gloss over the counter-arguments and answers to his claims. It's very likely that the reader will disagree with some of his conclusions, however one gets the feeling from reading this book that this is encouraged, and not that Mark is in possesion of some divine, inarguable wisdom. One is instead inspired to do some more research on points one finds interesting in the book (I thought Mark hadn't given a good answer to compatibilism, and reading more about it, i think it's a better answer than his of determinism, for one.)
- The last word I can say about this book is: Sometimes I see on the internet some 'philisophical' debate or dissertation, where the author seems completely oblivious to some contrary argument or POV, and I think 'Hey! That was in the first book on philosophy I ever read!'
Notes
- I intend – as always – to write my own thoughts as a result of reading this book while out walking Bertie the dog. However – as always – this leads to a backlog that my never be caught up with.
- I think Rowlands claimed – in "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher and the Wolf" – that he wrote much of his popular philosophy books when drunk, and it shows somewhat, however much it may have been tidied up in his sober state.
- The chapters of the book aren’t quite those listed on the back cover. Rather, they are:-
- Frankenstein
→ Philosophy and the Meaning of Life
- The Matrix
→ Can We be Certain of Anything?
- Terminator I & II
→ The Mind-Body Problem
- Total Recall & The Sixth Day
→ The Problem of Personal Identity
- Minority Report
→ The Problem of Free Will
- Hollow Man
→ Why Be Moral?
- Independence Day & Aliens
→ The Scope of Morality
- Star Wars
→ Good and Evil
- Blade Runner
→ Death and the Meaning of Life
- The Lord of the Rings
→ The Problem of Moral Relativism
- Brief comments on the chapters. As this isn’t a great work of philosophy, I’ll just select items of interest to me:
- Frankenstein
- This has little to do with Frankenstein and his Monster but the film versions of "Shelley (Mary) - Frankenstein" constitute a jumping-off point for a couple of Rowland’s primary theses:
- That there’s no such thing as free will, and
- life is absurd and meaningless.
- Depressing stuff that few will enthusiastically agree with. To expand:
- Just as the Monster is cobbled together from parts of others and is given a bad start in life – so is not responsible for his predispositions – so we are not responsible because how we end up is largely the result of our genes or our environment, over which we either have no control, or at least very little in our formative years.
- There is a conflict between our internal view of ourselves – in which we are all-important, the centre of our worlds – and the external view where we are of no significance, and the entire universe is heading for the oblivion of heat death. Rowlands brings in the Myth of Sisyphus, as he did in "Rowlands (Mark) - The Philosopher and the Wolf" to demonstrate that whatever we do is futile, and that our primary justification for our labours just passes the futility on to the next generation.
- In response:
- Free Will:
- Futility:
- …
Book Comment
Ebury Press, 7 July 2005, Paperback
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2026
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)