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SUMMARY:Metalepsis and Metaphysics - Professor Duncan Kennedy\, Bristol Un
 iversity
DTSTART:20151117T171500Z
DTEND:20151117T184500Z
UID:TALK62270@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:39489
DESCRIPTION:Perhaps the most interesting recent venture to exploit the nar
 ratological model of metalepsis is Christopher Nolan’s 2010 movie\, Ince
 ption. Three distinct narrative levels ‘down’ (the van chase\; the til
 ting hotel\; the snow-fortress/hospital) are presented as dreams and dream
 s within dreams\, with a fourth\, limbo or unconstructed dream space\, bel
 ow that. Metalepsis becomes a ‘diegetic concept’[1] within the movie (
 and is visually represented as a cartoonish machine that\, complete with l
 arge button\, enacts the metaleptic jump). The orchestrator of these embed
 ded narratives is Cobb\, together with the team he has assembled\, and the
  plan is\, at the instigation of a business rival Mr Saito\, to insert an 
 idea (breaking up his father’s business empire after his death) into the
  mind of Robert Fischer within these dreams in such a way that it will see
 m to have occurred spontaneously to him as the right thing to do (‘incep
 tion’ in the movie’s terminology). The narrative frame for these embed
 ded dreams is a flight from Sydney to Los Angeles\, during which Cobb and 
 his team have placed themselves and Fischer in an induced sleep. The movie
  ends on arrival in LA with the apparent success of Cobb’s plan\, and wi
 th Cobb’s longed-for re-union with his children\, but at this point Nola
 n introduces a metaphysical conundrum characteristic of his plots: as Cobb
  goes out into the garden to see his children\, the camera focuses in on t
 he spinning top which he has used as a ‘totem’ to ensure himself that 
 he is not ‘within’ a dream. Before we know whether the top will fall\,
  Nolan cuts to black\, generating a trope for the moment metalepsis gives 
 way to metaphysics. Is this level\, to use a crude term\, Cobb’s ‘real
 ity’\, or is he within a dream (his own or someone else’s)? One could 
 happily discuss the metaleptic strategies of Inception at length\, but thi
 s is not my plan\; it is rather to accept the movie’s challenge to relat
 e metalepsis and metaphysics. Cut to black. For many (though the crucial q
 uestion may be: for most…or for all?) who inhabit the world of empirical
  experience\, that world is not ‘reality’\, which rather lies at one l
 evel removed. Thus they might see themselves as characters ‘within’ so
 me grander plot. The locus classicus for this is of course Virgil’s Aene
 id\, and (as in Inception)\, metalepsis is a diegetic concept\, troped as 
 particular manifestations of narrative: in telling the story of Rome’s h
 istory and empire\, the Virgilian narrator seeks to descry the master narr
 ative of Fate or History\, personified in the figure of Jupiter the narrat
 or\, and accessed by the human characters through various modes of superna
 tural revelation (dreams\, prophecy\, oracles). But one might also see thi
 s (as I have argued in Antiquity and the Meanings of Time [2013]) in provi
 dential (personified) or quasi-providential (non-personified) explanation\
 , such as Augustine’s City of God\, Marxism\, or Fukuyama’s ‘end of 
 History’\; or the ‘Invisible Hand’ of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Natio
 ns\, or Hegel’s Reason. If these can be accounted ‘metaleptic’\, wha
 t about the Platonic appeal to the world of the Forms? The Forms that even
  Socrates himself can do no more than ‘dream’ of (e.g. Republic 533b6-
 c3\, but often elsewhere\; a metaleptic trope that will come in for close 
 analysis)? There is\, of course\, resistance to such appeals to a ‘highe
 r’ reality: Lucretius represents Epicurus as rebelling against a religio
 n that ‘stands over’ (super…instans\, 1.65) humankind\, and many wou
 ld raise their eyes and stand up against equivalent modern ‘superstition
 s’ that similarly enjoin unthinking submission and obeisance (the Market
  of neo-liberal economics\, perhaps\, though examples from across the ideo
 logical spectrum could readily be multiplied). However\, Lucretius no less
  appeals to another level of ‘reality’\, in his case troped as ‘belo
 w’ (nec tellus obstat quin omnia dispiciantur/sub pedibus quaecumque inf
 ra per inane geruntur\, 3.26-7)\, the unconstructed space of primordial at
 omic motion visible only in ‘the mind’s eye’[2]— an Epicurean idea
 lism of matter equivalent to the Platonic idealism of form\, and accessibl
 e only through an equivalent metaleptic jump. But this brings us to the me
 taphysical crunch-point: are all attempts at explanation or understanding 
 metaleptic in this sense\, appealing to another level of ‘reality’\, a
 nother world that in some sense exists beyond what ‘appears’ to be the
  case? How many of us have never uttered words along the lines of ‘This 
 is really all about such-and-such’\, appealing that other ‘world’ (a
 nd perhaps oblivious of the tropes we use to access that world\, or – In
 ception-wise – of ideas and concepts that have been historically ‘plan
 ted’ below our conscious awareness and strike us as being\, just\, ‘ri
 ght’)? [1] This term taken from Miklós Kiss\, ‘Narrative Metalepsis a
 s Diegetic Concept in Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010)’\, Acta Uni
 v. Sapientiae\, Film and Media Studies 5 (2012)\, 35-54. [2] For all their
  familiarity\, Daryn Lehoux has recently reminded us how unusual Lucretius
 ’s appeals to visualize the unseen world of atoms and void are in ancien
 t philosophical discourse: ‘Seeing and Unseeing\, Seen and Unseen’ in 
 (eds) Lehoux\, Morrison and Sharrock\, Lucretius: Poetry\, Philosophy\, Sc
 ience (Oxford\, 2013)\, 131-52.\n
LOCATION:Classics Faculty\, Room G.21
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