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Babel and Philosophy


iseah100
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Have any of you seen the movie 'Babel'? I have to write a term paper for my philosophy class about the films metaphysics and epistemology. I am totally lost and any help would be appreciated.

I will see the film. Is a PhD in philosophy and teaching it for 10 plus years enough? Ps: drop me a pm.

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I can't really remember it but I seem to recall and overarching theme of devastating personal issues relative to each person's respective lives. While on an objective view, SIDS and getting shot on a bus is probably the most traumatic event, the Japanese girl's mother's suicide and getting lost in the desert are relatively traumatic for the respective person. The film is about how different people in different cultures react to emotional and traumatic stimuli differently.

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I can't really remember it but I seem to recall and overarching theme of devastating personal issues relative to each person's respective lives. While on an objective view, SIDS and getting shot on a bus is probably the most traumatic event, the Japanese girl's mother's suicide and getting lost in the desert are relatively traumatic for the respective person. The film is about how different people in different cultures react to emotional and traumatic stimuli differently.

So the metaphysical view of the movie would be how different people percieve tragedy? Their reality? What about the Epistemology of the movie? Tbh idk the difference between metaphysics and epistemology. Fml.
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I have troubles with expressing myself in English but I try to do my best. I'm not able to write an essay but I have a few ideas you may consider.

1. What is metaphysics? It's hard to define it. It's something like the study of existense, being a human and things that exist but we don't understand.

2. Babel is about people that seem to be very different: rich couple from the US, poor Mexican community, a young girl from Japan after a huge loss and a simple family from Africa. At first sight, they lives just couldn't be different. At the end of the movie we figure it out that they can affect each others lives even if they don't speak the same language. The poor African kid could take the rich American woman's life in a minute because of the Japanese buisnessman's fault. The Mexican employees can endanger and save the American kids.

3. The story of the tower of Babel is about how God punished people with creating multiple languages. I think the conclusion of the movie is that people finally learned the lesson.Even though they can't speak to each other - like the American couple and the Moroccan people, the Japanese girl and the agent or the Mexican people and the American children - they can love and help each other. They can communicate and understand each other - just like before God punished people.

So how does these points connect? Our place in the society, our work, our nationality and our wealth are not the most important things. Our situation can turn in a minute. The most important thing is that we EXIST and we are HUMANS. We need and depend on each other. Even the two very different people are equal in a spiritual level. No life worths more than the other. That's the metaphysical part.


Epistemology is the study of knowledge. There are multiple types of knowledge: based on our experience and based on our individual thoughts - there are more but these two are the important ones now.


At the beginning of the film the American couple are full of stereotypes - they don't think the Mexican woman's plans are that important, they have troubles with Moroccan food and hygiene. This is knowledge based on our thoughts, not experience. The Moroccans and the Mexican lady were all very helpful and sympathetich towards them so they(and we) had to realize that knowledge based on experience is what matters. The same happened to the Japanese girl: nobody understood and nobody knew her deal until the policeman learnt it. People judged her for her behaviour. The conclusion is that we shouldn't judge people we know nothing about. Acquire knowledge from experience before we judge people.

I hope you find some of these ideas useful. As I mentioned before I can't express myself properly so I had to keep it simple, I hope it's understandable and not a complete mess. Also, I'm not a philosophy major nor a critic, this is just my personal point of view. Your teacher might laugh about it these ideas, this is just my opinion.

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I have troubles with expressing myself in English but I try to do my best. I'm not able to write an essay but I have a few ideas you may consider.

1. What is metaphysics? It's hard to define it. It's something like the study of existense, being a human and things that exist but we don't understand.

2. Babel is about people that seem to be very different: rich couple from the US, poor Mexican community, a young girl from Japan after a huge loss and a simple family from Africa. At first sight, they lives just couldn't be different. At the end of the movie we figure it out that they can affect each others lives even if they don't speak the same language. The poor African kid could take the rich American woman's life in a minute because of the Japanese buisnessman's fault. The Mexican employees can endanger and save the American kids.

3. The story of the tower of Babel is about how God punished people with creating multiple languages. I think the conclusion of the movie is that people finally learned the lesson.Even though they can't speak to each other - like the American couple and the Moroccan people, the Japanese girl and the agent or the Mexican people and the American children - they can love and help each other. They can communicate and understand each other - just like before God punished people.

So how does these points connect? Our place in the society, our work, our nationality and our wealth are not the most important things. Our situation can turn in a minute. The most important thing is that we EXIST and we are HUMANS. We need and depend on each other. Even the two very different people are equal in a spiritual level. No life worths more than the other. That's the metaphysical part.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. There are multiple types of knowledge: based on our experience and based on our individual thoughts - there are more but these two are the important ones now.

At the beginning of the film the American couple are full of stereotypes - they don't think the Mexican woman's plans are that important, they have troubles with Moroccan food and hygiene. This is knowledge based on our thoughts, not experience. The Moroccans and the Mexican lady were all very helpful and sympathetich towards them so they(and we) had to realize that knowledge based on experience is what matters. The same happened to the Japanese girl: nobody understood and nobody knew her deal until the policeman learnt it. People judged her for her behaviour. The conclusion is that we shouldn't judge people we know nothing about. Acquire knowledge from experience before we judge people.

I hope you find some of these ideas useful. As I mentioned before I can't express myself properly so I had to keep it simple, I hope it's understandable and not a complete mess. Also, I'm not a philosophy major nor a critic, this is just my personal point of view. Your teacher might laugh about it these ideas, this is just my opinion.

Ahh, I see. I was looking at it all wrong and trying to understand it like if it was in my book. But you looked at it in a way I understand. It's not a mess, I understand what you're saying. Thank you, this will definitely help me jump start this paper.
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Ahh, I see. I was looking at it all wrong and trying to understand it like if it was in my book. But you looked at it in a way I understand. It's not a mess, I understand what you're saying. Thank you, this will definitely help me jump start this paper.

I'm not sure if it's the "right" way nor your point of view was wrong but I'm glad you find it helpful. Good luck with your paper.

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