The UWS Democracy and Human Rights Research Initiative presents:
“‘How Can It Not Know What It Is?’ Self and Other in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner”
Date: 1st of March, 2012, 2 – 4 pm, Location: UWS, Bankstown Campus, Building 3, Room 3.G. 55
Abstract:
In this essay I provide a reading of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner that focuses upon the question of the kind of creatures the Replicants are depicted as being, and the meaning that depiction should have for us. I draw upon Stanley Cavell’s account of the problem of other minds to argue that the film’s empathy test is in fact presented as a mode of resisting the acknowledgment of others. And I draw upon Martin Heidegger’s account of authenticity and mortality to argue that this acknowledgment is crucial if one would become human. The film does not so much suggest that Replicants are, as such, human, but rather that humanity is won through the encounter with the inauthentic.
Andrew Norris is the editor of The Claim to Community (Stanford University Press, 2006), Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben's "Homo Sacer" (Duke University Press, 2005), and with Jeremy Elkins, the co-editor of Truth and Democracy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His essays have appeared in Cities: Philosophie, Politique, Histoire; Constellations; Critical Horizons, Diacritics; Film-philosophy; Journal of Law & Society, Law, Culture & the Humanities; Metaphilosophy; Philosophy and Social Criticism; Political Theory; Polity; Radical Philosophy; Telos; Theory and Event; Social Science Encyclopedia; International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences; and Encyclopedia of Political Thought. He is currently completing a book entitled Publicity and Partiality: Political Reflection in the Work of Stanley Cavell.
“‘How Can It Not Know What It Is?’ Self and Other in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner”
Date: 1st of March, 2012, 2 – 4 pm, Location: UWS, Bankstown Campus, Building 3, Room 3.G. 55
Abstract:
In this essay I provide a reading of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner that focuses upon the question of the kind of creatures the Replicants are depicted as being, and the meaning that depiction should have for us. I draw upon Stanley Cavell’s account of the problem of other minds to argue that the film’s empathy test is in fact presented as a mode of resisting the acknowledgment of others. And I draw upon Martin Heidegger’s account of authenticity and mortality to argue that this acknowledgment is crucial if one would become human. The film does not so much suggest that Replicants are, as such, human, but rather that humanity is won through the encounter with the inauthentic.
Andrew Norris is the editor of The Claim to Community (Stanford University Press, 2006), Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben's "Homo Sacer" (Duke University Press, 2005), and with Jeremy Elkins, the co-editor of Truth and Democracy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His essays have appeared in Cities: Philosophie, Politique, Histoire; Constellations; Critical Horizons, Diacritics; Film-philosophy; Journal of Law & Society, Law, Culture & the Humanities; Metaphilosophy; Philosophy and Social Criticism; Political Theory; Polity; Radical Philosophy; Telos; Theory and Event; Social Science Encyclopedia; International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences; and Encyclopedia of Political Thought. He is currently completing a book entitled Publicity and Partiality: Political Reflection in the Work of Stanley Cavell.
