MovieChat Forums > Superman III (1983) Discussion > Does Kant's philosophy make any sense?

Does Kant's philosophy make any sense?


It's rare for a movie to stump me this completely. I figured I could prove she's not necessarily particularly intelligent by asking questions about some philosophy, and I could unpack what she's saying and then answer the question.

What a naïve fool I was.

It seemed so cringy to me to give us this ditzy blonde character, and then, OF_FRIGGIN_COURSE 'reveal' to us that she's ACTUALLY (implying, all women) a Mary Sue when it comes to intellect (or is it intelligence?).

It seems so manufactured, so manipulative, so clichéic, so lazy, and they always seem to do this to women, but not men. Remember Starship Troopers, where women are not only perfectly OK with Unisex showers (thinking about Robocop also having something like this, maybe Verhoeven is just a pervert?), but also better than men in many areas that are male-dominated in real life;

- Hand-to-hand combat
- Mathematics
- Piloting and spatial awareness

..but typically, women are not shown to be even close to as strong as men when it comes to taking punishment - women never take a punch or kick to the face, are never thrown around indiscriminatorily, never have their hand impaled by a knife, half a brain shot to pieces, or have the back of their completely naked torso whipped.

To get back to Superman 3 and this blonde that's reading Kant, I figured I will just destroy this scene easily, as these hollyweird action (?) movies don't usually utilize real philosophy or understand logic that goes deeper than 'ooh, an explosion'.

I could not understand what she says even after reading and listening it multiple times, pausing, trying to take it to pieces, trying to ingest it bit by bit.. it just doesn't open to me. What the heck? This sounds like just abstract mental labyrinthism instead of anything that has any basis on actual reality or even philosophical thought (part of so-called philosophy is exactly this kind of mental m*sturbation in abstract labyrinths of superficial mind-constructs, so it's not exactly new to me that ACTUAL wisdom is missing here)..

..however, reading wikipedia and trying to understand Kant's 'philosophy' eventually lead me to two separate conclusions;

Either..

01) Kant is just redefining words as he sees fit, constructing as convoluted, overly-complex, abstract and superficial verbal mazes as possible without any of it having to do with actual existence in any way, but it 'sounds cool'

02) Kant's 'philosophy' makes no sense, as he never experienced Zen or Zatori, so he doesn't truly understand the nature of reality or existence, and yet is trying to define it uselessly by using convoluted jargon, pseudo-language that he invented, then slapping some kind of 'philoso-logic' on top of it all to make it fit and calls it a day.

03) Kant is just using his own jargon, his own words and other words that are supposed to actually mean something a bit different, to define something undefinable or at least hard to explain, in a honest attempt to explain reality and self exactly as it is, without trying to mislead the audience in any way, and his texts actually delve deep into the mysteries of reality while describing it, but you have to be familiar with the jargon he uses and how he uses words slightly differently than what people are generally used to.

The frustrating part is, I have no idea which one of these is true, or if there is a fourth category I did not consider.

It's also possible I am just too stupid to understand it all, so I guess I should congratulate the writers of this movie - they can't make movies that make sense, but they can stump me if they use enough 'philosophical jargon'.

I am still not 100% convinced the blonde bimbo character is actually intelligent - it could be possible she has just meticulously studied Kant and how Kant uses words, maybe some man has taught her this kind of useless skill, so now she's able to read and understand what Kant is saying, and then question his conclusions, while still using Kant's own jargon to do it.

It's like, you can be a really proficient swimmer or maybe even a Chess player without being super intelligent, if you just learn the right techniques, the right 'counters', read 1000 hours of theory and then practice the fjord out of it with enough determination without giving up. Maybe you can even become a really good PvP-WoWplayer without being 'smart' or 'intelligent', just by never giving up and bruteforcing it with overcaffeinating yourself.

Or maybe I should confess I lost to a darn hollyweird-written character, because I had no clue what the heck she was talking about, and although I am convinced the actor doesn't, either, I am stupider than a character in a bad movie.

I may not have needed a motivation to drink, but it's good to know I have one.. (bonus point to anyone who gets this reference)

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BEWARE! Avortac4 is a troll trying to waste everyone's time with such idiotic comments. Look at his posts. He doesn't think anything in any film makes sense. His post may seem like it makes sense in the first sentence or two. But he always quickly wanders off into a completely idiotic idea, and then writes a wall of text that makes no sense. And his sole purpose is to waste your time, thinking he's cute for doing so. Don't feed the troll. If you write a comment, you're giving this troll EXACTLY what he wants. Don't comment after my comment.

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