Posts Tagged “philosophy”

I saw the above book on Akibablog and instantly wanted to buy it. Published by Daiwa Shobo and retailing for 1400 yen (tax excluded), it contains profiles and illustrations of 54 philosophers paired with diagrams explaining their particular theories and Tetsu-chan (哲ちゃん) chiming in.

Profile on Socrates

It’s split into five chapters that cover ancient philosophers including Thales, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Marcus Antonius; medieval philosophers such as Jesus (really?), Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, and Machiavelli; early modern philosophers like Luther, Michel de Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, and Kant; “present-day” philosophers such as Sartre and Foucault; and Eastern philosophers like Confucius and Kitaro Nishida.

Light Yagami is one of the more popular male characters in the anime/manga world right now (especially when paired with L in some yaoi doujin) but I wonder people should be rooting for an anti-hero that quite frankly acts like a bastard. I think that anyone who is familiar with Death Note is well aware about Light’s arrogance so I would like to write a little bit about his actions in relation to ethical theory.

I’ll start by highlighting an important part of Death Note’s premise in that there is a combination of objectivity and subjectivity. The notebook itself follows strict rules in carrying out deaths such as the person needing to be visualized by the Note user for the death to occur and the option of specifying the cause of death and details relating to it. It doesn’t care who is being targeted because it views each person as equal to the next one – a person is a person is a person. The person who writes the names and details into the notebook, however, will always be influenced in some way by their feelings, whether they be anger, fear, frustration, or greed. (Shinigami are assumed to impartial mainly because they don’t particularly care about human affairs and simply use the Death Notes for entertainment.)

Read the rest of this entry »