“A New Hope”
Faith is an important element of the Star Wars galaxy, but it is also important in our own. As a college teacher, I have learned the value of faith in the classroom. Before meeting a new class, I have no good evidence about whether my students will be good students or bad students. By “good” I mean intellectually honest critical truth seekers who are enthusiastic about philosophy. In fact, one could argue that I have inductive or circumstantial evidence that at least some of my students will not be good. After all, in the past I always have had some students that lack enthusiasm or honesty or are not committed to finding truth. Nevertheless, when I walk into a new class, I choose to believe that all of my students are good students and I treat them as such. Although I could be wrong, I believe that my decision to believe in the goodness of my students helps bring about the virtues of enthusiasm and honesty and commitment to truth in them. My reasons for believing in the goodness of my students is not “truth-conducive,” that is, I don’t hold this belief based on good evidence. Rather, as a pragmatist, I believe that there are practical reasons why one might be justified in believing something. For example, I believe in the goodness of my students because I think some good will come of it and no harm will be done.
Yoda and Obi-Wan lack good evidence that Luke can become a Jedi and vanquish the Emperor and Vader. In fact, they have good reason to doubt Luke’s success because of Anakin’s failure. Like Anakin, Luke is “too old to begin the training,” lacks patience, and has “much anger in him.” Clifford would agree with Yoda’s initial reluctance to train Luke.170 James, however, would recognize the potential for a great good that could come from doing so. And as we all know, James’s pragmatic faith wins out in the end.
A better example of pragmatic thinking from our own galaxy can be found in Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In spite of a lack of truth-conducive evidence and in opposition to the prevailing social conservatism, Reverend King chose to believe that his dream of whites and blacks standing hand in hand as equals could become a real possibility. Although the struggle is not yet complete, his dream seems to be coming true in twenty-first-century America, and this could not have happened without his faith and the faith of others like him. Because of this faith, we are in a better world today. The example of Reverend King demonstrates how faith can allow us to find a good and a truth outside of ourselves and give us all “a new hope.” 171
Masters of the Jedi Council
JEROLD J. ABRAMS is Director of the Program in Health Administration and Policy, and Assistant Professor of Business Ethics at Creighton University. He has published several essays on semiotics, ethics, and continental philosophy. It’s true that he’s getting older, and his skin is getting greener. But when nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not. Hm?
ROBERT ARP received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Saint Louis University. He has published articles in philosophy of mind, ancient philosophy, modern philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of religion. He’s calculated that his chances of successfully making any money doing philosophy are approximately 3,720 to one against.
JUDY BARAD is Professor of Philosophy at Indiana State University. She has published several books, including The Ethics of Star Trek, and is currently completing Michael Moore: The American Socrates. In addition to teaching courses in ancient and medieval philosophy, she teaches a course on philosophy and Star Trek. She uses both mind melding and Jedi mind tricks to move back and forth between the Star Trek and Star Wars worlds.
CHRISTOPHER M. BROWN is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He has published in metaphysics and medieval philosophy and teaches courses in metaphysics, ethics, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. Inspired by Obi-Wan Kenobi, and fearing that Western civilization as we know it is soon coming to an end, he has found a safe place in northwest Tennessee to hide out with his family until “a new hope” arises.
BRIAN K. CAMERON teaches philosophy and other Jedi mind tricks at Saint Louis University. For a living, he bets on podraces, builds droids in his spare time, and engages in blind conformity.
ELIZABETH F. COOKE is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University. She has published several articles in applied ethics and American philosophy, particularly on Charles S. Peirce and Richard Rorty. She currently trains with the Rebel forces to fight the Evil Empire, although she knows that if they strike her down she will become more powerful than they can possibly imagine.
KEVIN S. DECKER teaches philosophy at Saint Louis University and Webster University. He writes on American philosophy, ethics, and social and political thought, and is active in progressive politics. These days, he’s got a bad feeling about this.
RICHARD DEES is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester, with secondary appointments in neurology and medical humanities. He writes on political philosophy and has just published a book on the social and conceptual foundations of religious toleration, Trust and Toleration. He also works in medical ethics, and is particularly interested in technologies that enhance neurological functions. With his colleagues in neurology, he is currently looking into ways to increase midi-chlorian levels.
JEROME DONNELLY has taught at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), the University of Wisconsin (Madison), and the University of Central Florida (Orlando) from which he recently retired. He has published criticism ranging from neoclassicism to popular culture and maintains that many great works of literature and art have been popular, but that mere popularity isn’t what makes works great. That includes Star Wars.
JASON T. EBERL is Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Master’s degree program in Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. He has published in metaphysics, bioethics, and medieval philosophy. He was once involved in a duel at point-blank range, but foolishly waited until the other guy shot first—Thankfully, he missed.
SHANTI FADER received a B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1993. She is currently the associate editor of Parabola magazine (a journal devoted to the study of myth and religious tradition), which has published a number of her essays, stories, and reviews. She can use her own hair to make the Princess Leia buns, and has won awards for her recreation of Padmé’s “picnic dress.”
RICHARD HANLEY is from Australia, where they make the good movies these days, and is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Delaware. He is the author of The Metaphysics of Star Trek, as well as articles on The Matrix, time travel, and more. Rumor has it he’s a protocol droid.
JAN-ERIK JONES is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Southern Virginia University. He has published on metaphysics and early modern philosophy, and has been known to subject innocent bystanders to hours of detailed discussions of why lightsabers are impossible—Light doesn’t just stop three feet from its source!!
JAMES LAWLER teaches philosophy at SUNY-Buffalo. He has written The Existentialist Marxism of Jean-Paul Sartre, and a book on IQ theory that criticizes biological determinism: IQ, Heritability, and Racism. He has edited a book on the U.S. Constitution, The Dialectic of the U.S. Constitution: Selected Writings of Mitchell Franklin, and participated in a debate on socialism in Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists. His current book, Matter and Spirit: The Battle of Metaphysics in Early Modern Philosophy before Kant, will be published by University of Rochester Press. Recognized at the age of two as being strong with the Force, Jim was nevertheless rejected for being “too young.” He never forgave the Council, and chose philosophy instead. This was no accident.
JOSEPH W. LONG holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from Colorado State University and is expecting a Ph.D. in philosophy from Purdue University in 2005. He has published articles on epistemology and critical race theory and currently makes his home in northwest Iowa where it is only slightly colder than on Hoth.
WALTER ROBINSON, whose Buddhist name is Ritoku (which
means “Gathering Virtue”), is a Zen monk and teaches East-West philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The focus of his academic interest is Buddhist philosophical psychology, and his fantasy is to discourse with Yoda on Zen koans.
WILLIAM O. STEPHENS is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at Creighton University. He has published on fate, love, ethics and animals, the concept of the person, sportsmanship and the Cubs fan, and various topics in Stoicism. He can easily be mistaken for a Wookiee when he rouses in the morning.
The Phantom Index
Absolute Spirit (Hegel)
Academy, Imperial
Ackbar, Admiral
acklay
Aikido
Alderaan
Alexander the Great
altruism
Amidala, Padmé
androids (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
angels
anger
Antilles, Wedge
Aquinas, St. Thomas
archetypes
aristocracy
“universal,”
Aristotle
De interpretatione
army, Imperial
art. See artifacts
Arthur, King
artifacts
Artoo. See R2-D2
asceticism
asteroid field
AT-AT Walkers
Attack of the Clones (Episode II)
attunement (Heidegger)
Augustine, St.
Aurelius, Marcus
authenticity
authority, political
autonomy
awareness
Bacon, Francis
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,”
Baum, L. Frank
beauty
being
“being-in-the-world,” (Heidegger)
beliefs
justification for
Benjamin, Walter
Bentham, Jeremy
Bespin. See also Cloud City
billiard ball example (Hume)
Binks, Jar-Jar
biodiversity
Bishop (Aliens)
Blade Runner (film)
blaster
Bodhidarma
body
Borgia family
bounty hunters
brains
artificial
brainwashing. See also conditioning, mind control
Buddha
BuddhismSee also Zen Buddhism
Bushido
C-3PO
Caligula, Gaius
Calrissian, Lando
Cambyses of Persia
Campbell, Joseph
categorical imperative
cause and effect
law-governed connection of
necessary connection of
relation in time
transfer of motion through
causal laws. See laws, physical
Cave Allegory (Plato)
ch’an. See Zen Buddhism
chance. See coincidence
character, moral
Chewbacca
ch’i
Chosen One. See prophecy of the Chosen One
Christianity
Cicero
citizenship
Clifford, William
“The Ethics of Belief,”
clone army
cloning
Clone Wars
Cloud City. See also Bespin
coercion
cognitive capacities
coincidence
Cold War, the
communication
community
“eco-communities,”
compassion. See also love, unconditional
consciousness
corruption
Coruscant
cosmopolitanism
cost-benefit analysis
courage
creativity
culture
versus nature
Dagobah
Dantooine
Darth Sidious. See Palpatine
Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
death
Death Star
first
second
death sticks
deception
Dedalus
dehumanization
democracy
as a “way of life” (Dewey)
direct
liberal
representative
desires
destiny
Dewey, John
Dianoga
dictatorship
dictator perpetuus
dignity
Diotima
diversity
divinity
“distillation of” (Hegel)
Dooku, Count
Droid Control Ship
Droidekas
droids
battle
liberation of
dualism. See also body, mind
duty
Earth
Eckhart, Meister
ecosystems. See also environment
education
ego
egoism
enlightened
ethical
egotism
Eliot, T.S.
embryos, human
emotions
Emperor. See Palpatine
Empire, Galactic
Empire Strikes Back, The (Episode V)
Endor, moon of
energy
“enframing” (Heidegger)
enlightenment
environment
Epictetus
epistemology
equality
equanimity, virtue of
ethicsSee also good, evil, morality, virtue, vice
animal
anthropocentric
environmental
EV-9D9
evidence
evil
inherent
natural
problem of
Ewoks
experience
experiments
faith
as immoral
as morally good
falsehoods. See lies
fantasy
fatalism
fate
Faust
fear
feelings
Fett, Boba
Fett, Jango
Few Good Men, A (film)
Fisher, Carrie
“flesh and blood,”
forces
electromagnetic
Force, The
balance of
Dark Side of
Light Side of
“living,”
“will of,”
Ford, Harrison
foreknowledge
form (Aristotle)
forgetfulness (Heidegger)
forgiveness
Forster, E.M.
Frankenstein’s monster
freedom
of choice
friendship
future. See time
Ganno, Zen Master
Geach, Peter
genetics
genetic manipulation
genetic material
Geneva Convention
genuine option, criteria for (James)
Geonosis
Gilson, Etienne
Gimer stick
God
as eternal
as omnibenevolent (all-good)
as omnipotent (all-powerful)
as omniscient (all-knowing)
Manichean conception of
Stoic conception of
will of
“God’s-eye view,”
“Golden Mean” (Aristotle)
good
intrinsic
public
Good, the (Plato)
government
self-government
grace
Grand Army of the Republic. See clone army
gravit
y
Greece, ancient
Greedo
Guardians (Plato)
Gulliver, Lemuel
Gungans
Gunray, Nute
happiness
harmony
hate
Hawking, Stephen
Hegel, Georg W.F.
Phenomenology of Spirit
Heidegger, Martin
Hephestus
Heraclitus
heroism
hero, journey of
Hippias of Athens
history
Hobbes, Thomas
holism, environmental
hologram generators
Holy Spirit
Homer
homosexuality
honesty
honor
Hoth
human beings
excellence of
human nature
humanism
humanity
“humanizing technology,”
Hume, David
Hwa Rang
hyperdrive
identity
lIiad
imagination
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (film)
individualism, environmental
individuality
inducements
induction, problem of
infinity
innocence
Star Wars and Philosophy Page 24