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Index
Cover
Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
The Editor’s Totem: An Elegant Solution for Keeping Track of Reality
Introduction: Plato’s Academy Award
Part One: Was Mal Right? Was It All Just A Dream?: Making Sense of Inception
Chapter 1: Was It All a Dream?: Why Nolan’s Answer Doesn’t Matter
The Major Interpretations
Clues from the Work
What Nolan Says
Why We Shouldn’t Care What Nolan Says
The Epistemic Problem
The Interpretively Static Problem
The Collective Ownership Problem
So What’s the Alternative?
Chapter 2: Let Me Put My Thoughts in You: It Was All Just a Dream
A Stalemate between Views
How to Go Beyond the Evidence
A Helpful Principle
Avoiding Criticism
“You Never Really Remember the Beginning of a Dream”
Is Dreaming Worse?
Chapter 3: Even If It Is a Dream, We Should Still Care
Dreams Don’t Matter?
Spinning, Falling, or Perpetually Wobbling, It’s Still Just a Movie
The Paradox of Fiction
Don’t Worry, You’re Not Really Scared
The Art of Feeling about Art
Maybe We Just Can’t Help Ourselves
Can You Relate?
A Failed Inception
Chapter 4: The Unavoidable Dream Problem
The Dream Problem
Ways Out of Skepticism: (1) Descartes’ Solution
Ways Out of Skepticism: (2) Modern Science and Reality
Ways Out of Skepticism: (3) Pragmatism, the Last Resort?
Part Two: Is The Top Still Spinning?: Tackling The Unanswerable Question
Chapter 5: The Parable of the Spinning Top: Skepticism, Angst, and Cobb’s Choice
Angst and Meaningfulness
The Philosopher’s Response: Denouncing Skepticism
The Basement Dreamers’ Response: Escape Reality
Mal’s Response: Forget the Dream
Cobb’s Response: Choosing Reality
Taking the Leap
Chapter 6: Reality Doesn’t Really Matter
Limbo Is Great, the Real World Ain’t
Why All the Hoopla about Reality?
Turning the Tables
Familiarity Breeds Approval
Landslide on Mount Nozick
The Problem with Reality-Spotting
Why Reality Doesn’t Matter
Chapter 7: Why Care whether the Top Keeps Spinning?
Epistemology, Descartes, and Skepticism
Ethics, Nozick, and Hedonism
Totems as Elegant Solutions to Skepticism?
Why Care whether the Top Keeps Spinning?
What Matters in Life
Philosophy and Everyday Life
Part Three: Is Inception Possible?: The Metaphysics, Ethics, and Mechanics of Incepting
Chapter 8: How to Hijack a Mind: Inception and the Ethics of Heist Films
Moviemaking as Inception
Planning the Heist
Homer Hijacks the Republic
Dreams within Dreams
Resolving Issues in Dreams
Dream Bigger
Chapter 9: Inception, Teaching, and Hypnosis: The Ethics of Idea-Giving
Indoctrination and Teaching
What If Cobb Hypnotized Fischer?
Mal, Fischer, and the Ethics of Inception
“You Need to Let Them Decide for Themselves”
Chapter 10: Inception and Free Will: Are They Compatible?
Alternate Wills
We May Not Be Free
Compatibilism
Frankfurt Counter Examples
Should We Worry?
Chapter 11: Honor and Redemption in Corporate Espionage
Choosing a Life of Crime
The Hero Is Not a Thief?
The Result Should Not Justify the Method
Moral Hazard
Family Matters
The Oxymoron of Ethical Corporate Espionage
Downward Is the Only Way Forward
Part Four: What is Dreaming?: Exploring The Nature of (Shared) Dreams (Upon Dreams)
Chapter 12: Shared Dreaming and Extended Minds
Extended Minds
Collective Minds
Blended Minds
The Movie as Shared Thought
Chapter 13: Morally Responsible Dreaming: Your Mind Is the Scene of the Crime
Moral Responsibility
Is Cobb’s “Dream Self” Cobb?
The Dream Is Real
But They Know It’s a Dream
Alternative Dream Possibilities
Dream Actions That Have Effects in the Real World
“I Need to Get Home. That’s All I Care about Right Now”
Facing the Moral Dream Problem
Chapter 14: Dream Time: Inception and the Philosophy of Time
Trying to Make Sense of Time
The Measure of Movement
Believing in Time
The Sense of Time
The Speed of Thought
The Speed of a Dream
Dream Simultaneity
Chapter 15: Dreams and Possible Worlds: Inception and the Metaphysics of Modality
A Possible World Primer
Men Possessed by Radical Notions: Spinoza, Leibniz, and Lewis
Architects, God, and Evil Worlds
The Laws of Nature and the Possibility of Miracles
Dreams and the Possibility of Paradox
It’s Never Just a Dream: Reality in Inception
Chapter 16: Do Our Dreams Occur While We Sleep?
Norman Malcolm’s Dreaming
Temporal Location and Duration of Dreams
Mental Activity during Sleep
Is Malcolm’s Extraction Successful?
Is Inception Nonsense?
Part Five: Should I Take A Leap of Faith?: Religious Themes in Inception
Chapter 17: Taking a Leap of Faith: A How-to Guide
What Is Faith?
The Pitfalls of Blind Faith
Existential Matters
An Example of Rational Faith
Faith That We Are Not Dreaming
A Rule to Follow
Unavoidable Irrationality?
The Ethics of Belief
Chapter 18: Limbo, Utopia, and the Paradox of Idyllic Hope
On the Shores of Utopia
Nolan’s Dystopian Future and the Emergence of a New Global Superpower
“Downwards Is the Only Way Forwards”
Who Wants to Be Stuck in a Dream?
Does It Depend on the Dream?
Why Is Dreaming So Important?
Chapter 19: Unlocking the Vault of the Mind: Inception and Asian Philosophy
Wake Up and Smell the Wasabi: Dreams in Asian Philosophy
Mind as Fortress and Vault: The Paradox of Accessing the Inaccessible
Mind as Mirror: Just What Exactly Is Being Reflected, and Who Reflects?
Mind as Womb: The Ethics of Insemination
Cobb’s Wet Dream: The Ocean as a Consummate Metaphysical Metaphor
Mind as Emptiness: What Happens When the Spinning Top Stops Spinning?
Is Saito an Old Man Dreaming That He Is Flying?
Lucid Ambiguity: Paradoxically Obscuring and Clarifying Dreams
Part Six: What Does It All Mean?: Finding The Hidden Lessons of Inception
Chapter 20: Mal-Placed Regret
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned
“One Simple Idea Could Change Everything”
Regret and Guilt
Descartes on Regret
Well-Placed Regret
Postscript
Chapter 21: “You’re Just a Shade”: Knowing Others, and Yourself
Mission Planning
“You’re Keeping Her Alive”: The Problem of Projections
Is Consciousness “Windowless”?
Is Shared Privacy an Oxymoron?
Can We Still Feel the World through the Walls?
Can We Even Know Ourselves?
Encountering the Other
Chapter 22: Paradox, Dreams, and Strange Loops in Inception
What Is a Paradox?
Why Thinking about Paradox Is Useful
The Paradox of Dreaming
Strange Loops
The Paradox of Human Subjectivity
Paradox, Creation, and Memory
Paradoxes and a Leap of Faith
Appendix: A Safe Full of Secrets: Hidden Gems You May Have Missed
Contributors
Index
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