Concept of Epistemology and Ontology
Ontology is a field of philosophy that revolves around reality’s nature and the different categories and entities in the realm of life’s reality. On the other hand, epistemology revolves around knowledge and how it can be achieved. In 2010, Christopher Nolan based a film dubbed “inception” on these two contexts. The film was a complicated spiral of corporate espionage and raised epistemological, morality, and ontological questions. The film raises fascinating queries regarding the difference between the two states of the human mind’s consciousness; dreaming and waking. Concerning these two, an essential context happens to be epistemological and poses the question of how people know they are dreaming or are awake. How does one know what is reality and what is a dream? The psychological argument is that reality is detailed, while dreams occur with blank shots. The film portrayed the dreams to be equally accurate to reality. This study aims to utilize Christopher Nolan’s film “Inception” for its perspective on epistemology and ontology. The paper will then analyze the information through a comparison of the given explanation of epistemology and ontology, as provided by the eleventh chapter of “Theory and Methods in Political Science” by Vivien Lowndes, David Marsh Gerry Stoker. Learning about epistemology and ontology is essential in the field of political science because it aids in appraising, differentiating, and choosing between various analytical traditions, theories, and philosophies hence providing knowledge in the techniques of benign disruption, role-taking and making inquiries.
“Inception” involves a character known as Dominic Cobb. He is a skilled thief who thrives in the horrific style of extraction by stealing essential secrets from a person’s subconscious while dreaming because that is when the mind is in a vulnerable state. He does this with the aid of “Inception,” a dream-sharing technological advancement. The rare ability makes him a coveted asset within the treacherous era of corporate espionage, but then it costs him his family as he leads a fugitive’s life. However, he is offered a redemption shot by Mr. Saito, one of his subjects. Conducting this job will give him what he most desires, having his healthy family life back. All he has to do is plant the inception in Robert Michael Fischer, an heir to a billion-energy company that could potentially rule the world. He agrees and assembles the necessary team. Unfortunately, he fails to hand out essential information to the team, and it proves to be significant jeopardy to the team. Cobb’s subconscious begins to take over the happenings of the dreams, and Cobb has to face his demons.
In “A Skin not a Sweater,” a chapter in “Theory and Methods in Political Science,” as reviewed by David Marsh and Paul Furlong, a term every social scientist to be pinned down to either an epistemological or ontological position, which may either be more implicit than explicit. Regardless of whether the positions are acknowledged, they form the individual’s approach to theory and methods. They are like skin rather than sweater; they can easily be put on or off at the scientist’s content. The central idea of the book is that ontology is a theory of being and existence. The question is on what is real and what is not. On the other hand, epistemology is a theory of knowledge. It questions whether an individual can identify realness from a subconscious narrative.
The film “Inception” bases on the context of epistemology and ontology by raising questions that cover the two elements; how does a person know that they are dreaming? How can they distinguish real from dreams? To tell dreams apart from reality, the film uses fetishes for the dreamer characters. They use personal objects that cannot be recreated in dreams. When the purpose fails to act as it would in real life, the person can know it is merely a dream.
Unfortunately, the technique cannot apply in real life; the film is exaggerated, which makes it essential to understand ontology and epistemology. It also makes it imperative to study it from a social scientist’s point of view, especially political science, because it aids me as a learner to acknowledge and recognize my own ontological and epistemological positions on various issues and to defend my stand against critiques. The study of ontology and epistemology in political science applies in taking a stand on fundamental aspects of life in terms of recognizing myth from fact and expressing the position to other individuals with different views for the sake of study and research.