Richard Brown & Kevin S. Decker 
Terminator and Philosophy 
I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am

Are cyborgs our friends or our enemies?

Was it morally right for Skynet to nuke us?

Is John Connor free to choose to defend humanity, or not?

Is Judgment Day inevitable?

The Terminator series is one of the most popular sci-fi franchises ever created, captivating millions with its edgy depiction of the struggle of humankind for survival against its own creations. This book draws on some of history’s philosophical heavy hitters: Descartes, Kant, Karl Marx, and many more. Nineteen leather-clad chapters target with extreme prejudice the mysteries surrounding intriguing philosophical issues raised by the series, including the morality of terminating other people for the sake of peace, whether we can really use time travel to protect our future resistance leaders in the past, and if Arnold’s famous T-101 is a real person or not. You’ll say ‚Hasta la vista, baby‘ to philosophical confusion as you develop a new appreciation for the complexities of John and Sarah Connor and the battles between Skynet and the human race.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: The Rise of the Philosophers.

I. LIFE AFTER HUMANITY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Chapter 1: The Terminator Wins: Is the Extinction of the Human
Race the End of People, or Just the Beginning? (Greg
Littmann).

Chapter 2: True Man or Tin Man? How Descartes and Sarah Connor
Tell a Man from a Machine (George Dunn).

Chapter 3: It Stands to Reason: Skynet and Self-Preservation
(Josh Weisberg).

Chapter 4: Un-Terminated: The Integration of the Machines
(Jesse W. Butler).

II. WOMEN AND REVOLUTIONARIES.

Chapter 5: ‚I Know Now Why You Cry‘: Terminator 2, Moral
Philosophy, and Feminism (Harry Chotiner).

Chapter 6: Sarah Connor’s Stain (Jennifer
Culver).

Chapter 7: James Cameron’s Marxist Revolution (Jeffrey
Ewing).

III. CHANGING WHAT’S ALREADY HAPPENED.

Chapter 8: Bad Timing: The Metaphysics of The Terminator
(Robert Delfino and Kenneth Sheahan).

Chapter 9: Time for the Terminator: Philosophical Themes of the
Resistance (Justin Leiber).

Chapter 10: Changing the Future: Fate and the Terminator
(Kristie Lynn Miller).

Chapter 11: Judgment Day is Inevitable: Hegel and the Futility
of Changing History (Jason Blahuta).

IV. THE ETHICS OF TERMINATION.

Chapter 12: What’s So Terrible About Judgment Day?
(Wayne Yuen).

Chapter 13: The War to End All Wars? Killing Your Defense System
(Phillip Seng).

Chapter 14: Self-Termination: Suicide, Self-Sacrifice, and the
Terminator (Daniel P. Malloy).

Chapter 15: What’s So Bad about Being Terminated (Jason
T. Eberl).

Chapter 16: Should John Connor Save the World? (Peter
Fosl).

V. BEYOND THE NEURAL NET.

Chapter 17: ‚You Gotta Listen to How People Talk‘: Machines and
Natural Language (Jacob Berger and Kyle Ferguson).

Chapter 18: Terminating Ambiguity: The Perplexing Case of ‚The‘
(Richard Brown).

Chapter 19: Wittgenstein and What’s Inside the
Terminator’s Head (Antti Kuusela).

Future Leaders of the Resistance.

Skynet’s Database.

Index.

Über den Autor

RICHARD BROWN is an assistant professor at La Guardia Community College’s Philosophy and Critical Thinking Program in New York City.

KEVIN S. DECKER is an assistant professor of philosophy at Eastern Washington University. He coedited Star Wars and Philosophy and Star Trek and Philosophy.

WILLIAM IRWIN is a professor of philosophy at King’s College. He originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books as coeditor of the bestselling The Simpsons and Philosophy and has overseen recent titles including Batman and Philosophy, House and Philosophy, and Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy.

To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.com