Monday, March 21, 2011

Gorillaz and Philosophy


Del tha Funkee Homosapien’s rap on the Gorillaz hit “Clint Eastwood” delves deeply into seemingly Descartes-ian philosophy. The line “Y’all can me now ‘cuz you don’t see with your eye, you perceive with your mind” is similar to what Descartes suggests in his 1st meditation –we cannot trust our senses because they deceive us.
“feelings, sensation that you thought was dead/ no squealing; remember that it’s all your head”
In Descartes’ 2nd meditation, he proposes dualism: the human mind and body are two separate entities entirely. Del urges us to realize that everything we know is perception and that it’s all in our heads. Our entire reality that we have made for ourselves is centered around our perceptions.

Kant dealt with the huge problem of phenomena vs. noumena, or the world as is appears vs. the world as it is. According to Del, if we see through phenomena, he does not appear to exist. But we can see him if we use noumena, because that is how the world actually is.
“Now, time for me is nothing because I'm counting no age”
Many people argue that time is nothing more than a Judeo-Christian concept and it is hard to describe exactly what is time and what would life be like without it? Del completely disregards the concept of time and refuses to count or measure it.

Anyone wanting to see the music video (recommended because it's awesome) can watch it at this address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQYw49saqc


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