Publisher's Summary

The choice is yours, and you'll have to live with the consequences for at least the rest of your life. Will you take the blue pill - put this audiobook back and go on thinking of The Matrix as just a movie? Or will you take the red pill - listen to this book, and find out just how far down the rabbit-hole goes?

Is the world around us truly as it appears or are we inert bodies in tanks, our brains electronically stimulated to create a make-believe world which is all we know? This old philosophical puzzle has become cutting-edge cool with the appearance of the Keanu Reeves cult sci-fi movie, The Matrix.

The Matrix is the most philosophical film ever made, every step of its fast-paced plot pivoting on a philosophical conundrum. If the world as we know it is nothing more than our dream, does this make the dream real? If we had the choice to step out of our world into a more real but less pleasant one - to take the red pill - would it be a moral failure not to do so? Why do humans have a value above that of intelligent electronic mechanisms? Can the mind live without the body or the body without the mind?

In The Matrix and Philosophy, professional philosophers analyze The Matrix from many angles: metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic. They uncover hidden depths in this intricate work of art, and often reach disturbing conclusions. Those who take the red pill never look at 'the real world' the same way again.

The Matrix and Philosophy is also available in print from Open Court Books.

William Irwin, assistant professor of Philosophy at King's College, Pennsylvania, has edited Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (with Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble), and Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction (with Gregory Bassham, H. Nardone, and J. Wallace). He is the author of Intentionalist Interpretation: A Philosophical Explanation and Defense and The Death and Resurrection of the Author. Professor Irwin has written numerous articles and reviews on hermeneutics, Sartre, Plato, philosophy of law, and philosophical pedagogy. Oliver Wyman is a founding member and associate director of New York City's Collective: Unconscious Theater. As an actor, he has appeared in many plays and several independent films. As a voice-over artist, he has recorded everything from cartoons to language programs. Rick Adamson is an award-winning narrator of dozens of audiobooks for adults and kids, including Random House Audio's Fast Food Nation and Why We Buy. Jennifer Jay Myers won rave reviews for her performance in the Off-Broadway hit Nunsense. She has also toured across the country in Broadway musicals, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.