The Philosophy of Film and Music
Art is the sensuous appearance of Spirit. For Hegel, art, religion and philosophy are the three forms of absolute Spirit, each expressing the same truth in its own way. Great films and great music are not mere entertainment; through images and sound they present the deepest questions of life: love and death, freedom and fate, solitude and redemption, the finite and the infinite.
This series reads film and music philosophically. We will look at classic and contemporary films to see how they think through the human condition in story and image, and listen to the great music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to see how sound reaches straight into the inner world of the spirit, and why music has been called the most inward of the arts. We will also discuss the nature of beauty, the relation between art and truth, the meaning of tragedy and comedy, and the value of art in the age of AI.
Once we learn to see art with a philosopher’s eye, it is no longer just a passing emotion, but a way to know and to raise ourselves. And in turn, the philosophy in art makes deep thought vivid and tangible.