Leo Cookman performs an Unheimlich manoeuvre to review a disturbing android saga.
Uncanny is a word with which we’re all familiar, but perhaps slightly misunderstand. We often say that when something or someone is similar to another something or someone, the resemblance is ‘uncanny’, especially if it is one person doing an impression of another. In many ways this is accurate, but it’s normally used in a positive way in this instance. “It’s uncanny!” we may say in wonder. However, when something is truly uncanny there are few things more unsettling.
The concept of ‘the uncanny’ has been explored for centuries, but it was popularised by Ernst Jentsch in his essay On the Psychology of the Uncanny (1906) and Sigmund Freud in Das Unheimliche [The Uncanny] (1919). It is the idea of something that is familiar but just outside the realms of being the same. The etymology of the word ‘uncanny’ stems from the AngloSaxon ken (still used in the Scots dialect) meaning ‘understanding or knowledge’; thus ‘uncanny’ is ‘outside of understanding’. Essentially it is something we do not quite understand.
We all know the feeling of the uncanny when someone or something is not quite right. People have reported feeling this in the presence of psychopaths who act in a socially acceptable manner but whom they can instinctively tell are pretending. The disjunct is unsettling. This aligns with an idea that our sense of the uncanny may have evolved in order to help us avoid dangers revealed by that which is ‘not quite right’, including selecting better mates. It’s posited that this also ties in with our dislike of seeing a cadaver; something that looks human but which has no life inside it.
Esta historia es de la edición June/July 2017 de Philosophy Now.
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Esta historia es de la edición June/July 2017 de Philosophy Now.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.