The Matrix and Philosophy

Which pill would you choose--the red or the blue? Kings College Philosophy Professor William Irwin asked his colleagues for scholarly papers exploring philosophical aspects of the blockbuster 1999 film starring Keannu Reaves. Twelve of these papers, covering skepticism, nihilism, Buddhism, feminism, and neo-materialism, are collected in this audiobook version, read by Oliver Wyman, Rick Adamson, and Jennifer Jay Myers. The best of the bunch are Irwin's own contribution, "Computers, Caves, and Oracles: Neo and Socrates," which looks at THE MATRIX as a retelling of Plato's parable of the cave, and "Seeing, Believing, Touching, Truth," by Carolyn Korsmeyer of SUNY Buffalo, which explores sense perceptions and reality from, among other things, Descartes's thought experiments. Both of these essays are interesting and insightful without taking themselves too seriously. Unfortunately, with 12 philosophy professors analyzing the same turf, there's a lot of redundancy, and the narrators lack the enthusiasm to keep up the momentum. S.E.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine