Movie Review: The Philosophers

The Philosophers, a mind-blowing movie, which will make you pound on every

philosophy you've learned before. It could highly boost your curiousity all throughout the

film. The story evolved around the philosophy teacher, Mr.Zimit and his students. He

challenged his students to take the final test: surviving an apocalypse by choosing 10

people that will help in achieving this goal. This will test everything they've learned

during his class.

The philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Kant and Utilitarian are evident in this film.

Platonic philosophy was shown when the allegory of the cave was flashed and

explained during the class. Plato defined justice as the balance, order or harmony

among its components, and is governed by reason. In the movie we saw how they

carefully evaluated the people that they will keep in the bunker, each decision has

reasons and significance for the group's survival.

Aristotle's philosophy was like the foundation that holds every action in all the

situations. Their aim for survival is an obvious example, since Aristotle's philosophy

emphasized 'telos,' the aim or the end. The last round of the thought exercise, where

Petra volunteered to act as the leader and chose the people who could make them feel

happy even though they wouldn't be able to last longer than a year because none of

them has the necessary skills to survive. She explained that even though they've lived

briefly, imperfectly and stupidly, they don't mind it because that's the way they were

made. It brought happiness to them and that's what matters, because afterall that's what
we all aim for. This scene showed the importance of knowing one's aim, which is

Aristotle's philosophy, because it leads you to the appropriate actions you should take.

Kant's was shown during the second eound of the experiment, where the aim is

focused on reproducing. They partnered uo with each other and when they noticed that

no one is pregnant yet, Zimit suggested to switch partners or to start rotating partners

and for evryone to participate, even the gays. Though it appears inappropriate still it has

a good motive. The pronciple of universality was also shown during the first and second

round, where they chose people with skills that are apllicable for the situation, they did it

for the benefit of all. And in addition, what Mr.Zimit did was the opposite of Kant's

principle of humanity, because based on my understanding, he didn't only do that

exercise to challenge his students but also to let Petra realize that James is not worthy

of her love; to choose someone that matches her capabilities and that is him, Zimit.

Utilitarianism is focused on the majority-good for the greatest number. It was

seen during their discussion, where they mentioned the trolley problem. The situation is

there is a train coming, and one should choose whether he'd pull the lever to the group

of people or to the person. Most people would choose, the latter because it could save

many.