Popular Philosophy?

This is a response to William Irwin in The Philosophy Magazine (22nd March 2010), defending Blackwell's ...And Philosophy series, which includes Seinfeld, The Matrix, The Simpsons, The Dark Knight, and will include Avatar. Opponenst feel this dilutes and popularises the erudite nature of this most hallowed of disciplines by applying it to the inappropriate, unworthy subject of mass entertainment.

I think these attackers do far more harm for philosophy than the Philosophy in Culture series that Professor Irwin edits (to which I hope to contribute). The titles in the Blackwell's series are well chosen. If one wants to decry it by saying - you can philosophise anything - then actually you are making a positive statement.

Perhaps I was introduced young to philosophy and that has always helped me appreciate it. One of my A levels and first degree focussed on Philosophy under the guise of religion, although it is very little different to general philosophy. I met the same thinkers, considered most of the great problems - with or without God. And I have taken that mindset to my higher degrees, and I believe, much of my approach to life.

Philosophy has never seemed irrelevant to me, but have seen fellow booksellers dismiss the philosophy section as 'for and by those with too much time on their hands', a kind of babble that is worthless and represents the worst in elitism and otherness, and which most calls academia into question. For those cynical about the worth of university, it is fitting that the highest qualification is named (almost whatever the subject) after the oldest but most esoteric subject, which after all only means 'love of wisdom'. Can only professors be wise? Is this love to be denied to most of us, to be debated in closed forums and effectively secret societies, not touching the lives of the masses and ignoring the changing culture which affects them?

If history is learning from the past, and science is understanding our present and future, philosophy speaks to and looks to all three - and yet even that statement throws up a question: is philosophy always universal and diachronic? Is morality and truth relative, or absolute? These are favourite philosophy questions.

I love crossover subjects - history and film (on which I teach), art and literature and religion - my favourite undergraduate course at Lancaster University; and I took an enjoyable adult evening course in The Philosophy of Music s at the Sage centre, Newcastle.

I am surprised that anyone doubts that film and television are appropriate vehicles for philosophy. Fiction and arts are where we thrash out our great truths, where we wrangle with our universal questions of existence. We can share our loneliness, expound our togetherness; and ask what unites and what we want to alter - nay, need to alter - about ourselves and our world.

A writer and avid film fan, this is exactly why I am drawn to film and other arts, as a platform for exploring big, deep issues. I do not see cinema as a form of entertainment, something to crunch unhealthy processed food through and think about nothing for two hours. Television is not background noise, something to switch on to switch off.

To me, we should be hearing more about philosophy in various corners of our lives and looking to the arts to expound the notions that are deliberately present in it; and that if people without academic qualifications are involved, or if it happens to be popular and make money, does not mean that its validity or profundity is diminishes. Rather, it should be applauded that our media is widely filtering these ideas - which is what media is for.