1. RATIONALE OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN ‘S
“INCEPTION” (2010)
THE LINK TO THE ALLEGORY OF PLATO’S THE
CAVE AND DESCARTES’ SKEPTICISM.
Subject: Philosophy 101
Lecturer: Mr. Gulvin
Class: 11BSM03
Group: N3T
Members:
 Nguyen Minh Nguyen
 Nguyen Quang Tuan
 Tran Thi Thanh Tam
 Truong Ngoc Lan Thanh

2. Summary of content:
Dominic Cobb is an extraction agent who is hired by a multi-millionaire to perform
inception - to plant an idea in someone's mind, without them knowing. To accomplish
this, Cobb (and his team) use something called "shared dreaming.“
Character:
• Cobb - orchestrates
• Ariadne - designs the dreams
• Saito - bankrolls
• Arthur - organizes
• Eames - puts on characters
• Yusuf - has the technical savvy
• Fischer - the mark
• Mal - Cobb’s wife
Did the spinning top fall?
Whenever Cobb is unsure whether he is awake or still dreaming, he takes out his totem
(top) and spins it. If it continually spins, that indicates that he is still dreaming, but if it
falls that is supposed to assure him that he is awake. At the end of the film, when he
returns to his children, Cobb spins his top one final time to see if he is awake - but his
kids distract him, and the film finishes before we see whether it falls or not.
Whether the top falls or not doesn’t matter!
 Consider how totems work.

3. You are never supposed to let anyone else touch your totem because they might figure
out how it is supposed to behave in the real world. And if they do, the totem will not be
able to tell you whether or not you are in their dream.
 Cobb is not the only one who knows how his totem works.
When Ariadne calls totems an "elegant solution for keeping track of reality" and asks
Cobb if it was his idea, he just told Ariadne how it works!
The top was once Mal's - so she knows how it works too. So, even if the top did fall at the
end of the movie, Cobb could still be in Ariadne's or Mal's dream.
 Cobb’s totem is backwards
How do tops behave in the real world? Wouldn't you assume that it would fall? Isn't that
how tops behave in the real world? So, if Cobb spins a top in your dream, he should
expect it to fall!
Cobb's totem is backwards!1 Its behavior should be unique in the real world. Instead, its
behavior in the real world is ordinary (it falls) and in a dream it's unique (it spins
continuously.) Everyone knows that tops fall, but no one can know how Cobb's totem
works in the real world if it is going to be reliable as a dream detector.
So, more than likely, the top did fall at the end of the film.
It was all a dream?
Cobb could be in his, Ariadne's, Mal's...or anyone's dream for that matter. Cobb's totem is
not reliable. And, truth to be told, neither is Cobb. Cobb is the one who spends most of
the time telling the audience how things work—totems, shared dreaming, Limbo. But we
can't be sure that any of it is accurate. Were they still dreaming?
1 Author@Google: Kyle Johnson “Inception and Philosophy”

4. Might the entire movie have been a dream?
In fact, Christopher Nolan seems to have left multiple clues that suggest Cobb is
dreaming—dreaming the entire movie, even when he is supposed to be in the real world.
 The chase scene in Mombasa, has many dream-like qualities. Not only do
the overhead shots establish that Mombasa is a maze - just like one of Ariadne's designed
dreams - but agents inexplicably pop up around every corner and the walls of buildings
literally close in around Cobb - just like they do in a dream.
 Consider where Mal sits as she threatens suicide: in the window of another hotel
room across from their suite. If she had climbed out their window, she would be on the
same side of the building as Cobb. Yet her inexplicably being in the window of another
hotel room is exactly the kind of thing that happens in a dream. In fact, when Cobb
speaks to his father-in- law Miles about Mal's death and getting home to his children,
Miles specifically tells him to "Come back to reality."
 The song the dreamers use to herald the end of a dream is Edith Piaf's original
recording of "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" (No, I Regret Nothing.)2 When the song is done,
the dream is over. That recording is 2 minutes and 28 seconds. Inception is, exactly, 2
hours and 28 minutes. Could it be, just like with shared dreaming, when the movie is
done, the dream is over?
Life is a dream?
This is a classic philosophical problem, first hinted at by Plato but most clearly
articulated by Descartes.
2 Psychology.com/inception-and-philosophy

5.  The allegory of Plato’s The Cave and Inception
Plato gives us the allegory of the cave: A group of prisoners forced to watch shadows on
the wall of a cave since birth. The shadows are all they have ever known. They think the
shadows are the highest reality and are perfectly happy living a life of "shadow games."
But when one of the prisoners breaks loose and learns about the real world outside the
cave, he looks back at his former life and pities those still stuck in it. In fact, he returns to
teach them about the true nature of reality. Unfortunately, they reject this and try to kill
him.
Plato's message is that there is something intrinsically valuable about knowledge – about
knowing the way the world really is. And that makes knowledge preferable to blissful
ignorance, even when the truth is uncomfortable.
• A group of prisoners, forced to
watch shadows on the wall of a
cave since birth. The shadows are
all they have ever known; they
think the shadows are the highest
reality and are perfectly happy
living a life of "shadow games.“
• But when one of the prisoners
breaks loose and learns about the
real world outside the cave he looks
back at his former life and pities
• As the people in the cave believe
they are in the real world, and will
fight to stay there, the main
characters of Inception has the
world that they believe to be real.
• “You are just a shade of my real
life.” Cobb admits while talking to
Mal of the dream world that she is
only a shadow of reality.
• Mal is uncomfortable living in the
world which is believed is the real

6. those still stuck in it.
• There is something intrinsically
valuable about knowledge – about
knowing the way the world really
is. And that makes knowledge
preferable to blissful ignorance,
even when the truth is
uncomfortable.
• Projection of the shadows on the
cave wall
• The shadows were projected onto
the walls
world by Cobb. Over time, she
doesn't know which world is reality
anymore. She becomes trapped
within the dream world completely,
and kills herself to stay in that
world – the world she’s comfortable
living with.
• Creating dreamscapes
• They presented specific skewed
ideas to dreamers
 Descartes’ Skepticism and Inception
Is Cobb in a dream or reality? And perhaps, can he know whether or not he’s dreaming?
Descartes pondered the same question back in 1641 in his Meditations on First
Philosophy. He argued essentially that because we can’t know whether or not we’re
dreaming, knowledge is impossible.
Descartes then set out trying to solve the problem in order to create a foundation for
knowledge. The cogito – “I think, therefore I am” – was a partial solution to the problem

7. by providing a basis for knowledge of our own selves. Knowledge of the external world,
on the other hand, requires a further counter to the Dream Argument. What that basically
means is that in order to have any knowledge beyond our own existence, we need to be
able to distinguish dreams from reality.3
But the premise behind Inception is ultimately a rejection of Descartes’ solution to the
Dream Argument. Even when Cobb’s dreaming in the movie, he’s aware of the
possibility that he might be dreaming. Since the impossibility of considering within a
dream that you might be dreaming is what proves for Descartes that you’re awake, then
in the movie it’s impossible to tell whether you’re dreaming or not.
That’s why Inception could only have ended in doubt over whether Cobb’s dreaming or
awake. What distinguishes dreams from reality for Descartes is that it can’t occur to us
within a dream that we might be dreaming. By supposing that we can, Inception makes
dreams indistinguishable from reality.
Inception explores the philosophical problem of whether we can truly know whether
we’re dreaming or not.
• René Descartes, in 1639, worried
that all of reality might be a dream.
What distinguishes dream from
reality?
• Whenever Cobb is unsure about
whether he’s dreaming or not, he
spins his totems. In fact, he’s been
wondering all the time.
3 Philosophynow.org/inception

8. • Descartes tell us that we cannot
dream what we have not
experienced
• It is impossible to consider within a
dream that you might be dreaming
is what proves for Descartes that
you’re awake, then in the movie it’s
impossible to tell whether you’re
dreaming or not.
• Dreamers who create the worlds or
‘levels’ of the dreams always use
pieces of places that are familiar to
them4
• Even when Cobb’s dreaming in the
movie, he’s aware of the possibility
that he might be dreaming.
Inception ends in doubt over
whether Cobb is still dreaming or
awake
References:
 Author@Google: Kyle Johnson “Inception and Philosophy”
 Psychology.com/inception-and-philosophy
 Philosophynow.org/inception
 Skepticnorth.com/inception
4 Skepticnorth.com/inception