Planet Of The Apes And Philosophy - Plot & Excerpts
A Madhouse! TOM MCBRIDE If you’re reading this right now, you are a human, not a simian. Of that I am certain. But what is certainty? In some notes he made towards the end of his life, collected and published as On Certainty eighteen years after his death (the same year human beings went to the Moon, by the way), Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein contemplates the statement “It is certain that we did not arrive on this planet from another one a hundred years ago,” and comments, “Well, it is as certain as such things are.” And so Wittgenstein, like Rod Serling, who wrote the original Planet of the Apes screenplay, was interested in planets. Following Wittgenstein’s methods, if someone said she was certain we did arrive on this planet from another one a hundred years ago, we wouldn’t respond, “No, I think you’re mistaken. I think it was a hundred and two years ago.” You don’t correct such a person; you assume she’s either kidding or crazy or hallucinating. Or writing a sci-fi novel—the next great Planet of the Apes.
What do You think about Planet Of The Apes And Philosophy?
