Foreword
Foreword

Summary/Abstract: Aristotle tells us that “philosophy begins in wonder,” so we begin this foreword to our special issue of The Philosophical Journal of Conflict & Violence on “Film and Violence” by wondering out loud whether a form of popular entertainment like film can really be a suitable topic for philosophical investigation. To paraphrase Tertullian, “What does philosophy have to do with film?” For most of the century and a quarter since the first motion picture was commercially screened in 1895, the obvious answer for most philosophers would surely have been, “Nothing whatsoever.” Indeed, one could argue that if there is a relationship between philosophy and film, it lies in their being almost perfect antitheses. Ideas and arguments are the currency of philosophy, which is a practice that aims—or at least was once thought to aim—at universal, abstract, and necessary truths. Film, on the other hand, is ordinarily a vehicle of storytelling; the filmmaker shows us contingent actions connected to each other within a narrative framework, actions that are necessarily concrete and particular. And, perhaps most importantly, with the exception of documentaries, the stories recounted in films are almost always fictional or at least fictionalized. Why then should philosophy, with its mission to discover truth, be bothered with the smoke and mirrors of film?

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