Star Wars and Philosophy

Abstract

Now this may shock you, but there's an arcane, little-known quotation, one rich in meaning, that appears in every Star Wars movie: I've got a bad feeling about this. In each episode of George Lucas's space opera, one of the main characters expresses this basic existential anxiety.1 It's an intuitive response to an undefined problem. Yet it has its root in the essentially philosophical thought that our relationship to the world is one of questioning. Questions sometimes emerge from wonder, sometimes from doubt. We stare up at the heavens, much as Luke did on Tatooine, and wonder about the extent of the universe, its origin, and its meaning. In a crisis of faith, much as Luke had when confronted by his parentage on Cloud City, we may doubt many of our firmly-held beliefs and preconceptions. We search our inner selves, as did Leia when Han was being lowered into the carbonfreezing chamber, and wonder about what it means to love or be virtuous. Sharing Han's skeptical worldly point of view, we may doubt that we have any existence as a mind or soul after our bodily processes are nullified by death. We comb through our junkyard, much as Watto constantly does, and wonder whether there are formulas describing the variances of the value character of the products of labor.