Mr. Monk and Philosophy (text only) by D. E. Wittkower

Popular Culture and Philosophy #46

by D.E. Wittkower

Mr. Monk and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy) [Paperback]D. E. Wittkower (Editor)

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

D.E. Wittkower received a Ph.D in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University in 2006. His training concentrated on German philosophy and the history of value theory (ethics, aesthetics, social/political philosophy), and his research has concentrated primarily on issues of ethics, technology, and political philosophy. Prior to accepting the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University, he taught at Coastal Carolina University, Sweet Briar College, Virginia Tech, University of Missouri - St. Louis, and University of Maine - Orono.

He is contributing editor of Facebook and Philosophy (Open Court, in press), Mr. Monk and Philosophy (Open Court, 2010), and iPod and Philosophy (Open Court, 2008); contributor to Applying Care Ethics to Business (Springer, forthcoming 2011), Audiobooks, Literature, and Sound Studies (Routledge, forthcoming 2011), Encyclopedia of Social Networking (SAGE, forthcoming 2010), Putting Knowledge to Work and Letting Information Play (Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, forthcoming 2010), The Psychology of Facebook (Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, forthcoming 2010), Anime and Philosophy (Open Court, 2010), Ethical Issues in E-Business (IGI Global, 2010), and Radiohead and Philosophy (Open Court, 2009); and author of articles appearing in Social Identities and Fast Capitalism.

Reviews

[Hina Ansari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pop culture and philosophy books are usually my go-to book when I need to read something that makes me think and entertains me. It is a guarantee. Even if I’m not a huge fan of the genre, I still find compelling arguments to be found. The books are comprised of philosophy teachers/professors, in theory, fans of the genre as well. In this book, Mr. Monk and Philosophy, I’m not sure that was the case. I’ve never read a more poorly edited book in the history of the series, and this is close to my 20th book of the series. This one was not edited by long-time editor William Irwin, but someone named DE Wittkower. I think Wittkower could have taken another stab at finding better contributions to this compilation.

I had debated really making a mockery of this book, but if nothing else, if anyone reads this review, at least they will be prepared for the slapdash manner the book was written in and lower their expectations accordingly. There were grammatical errors in all but three of the eighteen essays in the book. Two of the essays I didn’t even read, so the number could be one of eighteen. That alone made it impossible to take the concepts seriously. In one entire section, the authors talked more about the TV show House than they did Monk, citing the similarities between both protagonists. I fully expect that the same essays were recycled into that compilation. There was an entire essay written as a script between fictional versions of the fictional characters. I couldn’t read more than a page of it before putting the book down.

I keep all of the copies of Pop Culture and Philosophy but this is one edition I will gladly discard. There is a certain quality that I expect from the series. Even after reading the Twilight and Philosophy book I was able to take positives away. This book wasn’t about philosophy. There was an essay about Library science mixed in, and that was the one without any grammatical errors. A simple proofread would catch the instances where the authors use ‘my’ instead of ‘by’ or use incomplete sentences or missing verbs. It was embarrassing. Monk deserved better and the fans did too.

[Margot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Monk. And I love Julie Kane's chapter "Mr. Monk Goes to the Library." Monk would indeed make a great cataloger.

[Joy]

"It's a jungle out there" and I miss Monk! This should be a great book for Monk fans!

[lingga ambarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

lemayanlah

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a huge Monk fan, so when I saw this in my library’s ebook catalogue, I had to check it out.

Unfortunately, this book wasn’t at all what I was expecting it to be. It’s a collection of little essays from many different authors, but only a few of them held my attention. I freely admit that I skimmed any of the pages that weren’t directly about Monk, of which there were many. (There was also a lot of talk about the show “House” which I’ve never watched, so I skipped all of those too.)

There were some interesting points made here, but they were few and far between. Some of the essays just rambled on with no real point, some barely even mentioned Monk at all, and some got their facts wrong about the episode they were talking about. I also didn’t agree with some of the points made about Monk, and there were a few opinions on Stottlemeyer and Randy that I also didn’t agree with.

Maybe if I had more interest in the subject of philosophy in general this would have been better. However, for a book that makes you think you’re going to be exploring the world of Monk, this is a huge let-down.