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Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture
Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture: From Socrates to South Park, Hume to House
What can "South Park" tell us about Socrates and the nature of evil? How does "The Office" help us to understand Sartre and existentialist ethics? Can "Battlestar Galactica" shed light on the existence of God?"Introducing Philosophy Through Pop Culture" uses popular culture to illustrate important philosophical concepts and the work of the major philosophersWith examples from film, television, and music including "South Park," "The Matrix," "X-Men," "Batman," "Harry Potter, Metallica" and "Lost, " even the most abstract and complex philosophical ideas become easier to graspFeatures key essays from across the Blackwell "Philosophy and Pop Culture" series, as well as helpful editorial material and a glossary of philosophical termsFrom metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, this unique introduction makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself
381 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
20 people are currently reading
503 people want to read
About the author
William Irwin
125 books125 followersWilliam Irwin is Professor of Philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and is best known for originating the "philosophy and popular culture" book genre with Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing (1999) and The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer (2001).
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 19, 2013
So this is it - I've reviewed the last chapter, and the journey of reviewing the book chapter by chapter has left me in a reflective mood.
It all started because, while reviewing the book for fun, I ran across a bad, 1-star review that panned the book (without reading it) for reaching out only to a narrow section of pop culture. To that reviewer, introductory philosophy needed to be more welcoming, and that focusing that narrowly was inappropriate. I protested vigorously, but got nowhere in my conversation with the reviewer. While I did appreciate the fact that this person chose to communicate with me, I was disheartened by the closed response I received. I held, and hold, that comfort does not necessarily lead us to wisdom, and may, in fact, prevent us from attaining it. Chapter 30 of this book (Zen and House) illustrates this quite clearly - it is only when House unsettles old expectations that he allows new solutions and truths to emerge. Thus, if pop culture interests you, it should draw you in and help lead you to wisdom. If pop culture does not interest you, this book might work even better as a guide.
The aforementioned reviewer urged me to write my own review, and since it was already in progress, I continued doing so only this time more seriously. Below is the result - I give an overall assessment and a mini-review of each chapter. You see I think this is a good book. I'd actually give the book 4.5 stars out of the possible 5. The chapters are generally engaging and each one could be of great use as a complement to a main text in an introductory philosophy course. Some chapters are more appropriate for readers who have already been introduced to subjects, and I express that opinion as I go.
My advice? Let the book, using the wisdom of pop culture and philosophy, speak.
===
I. What is Philosophy?
Chapter 1: "Flatulence and Philosophy" - An interesting take on South Park. I've never watched an episode. Maybe I should start doing so to see how, as William W. Young III says, the show's vulgarity can be a shock to inattentive mindlessness, starting the philosophical process.
Chapter 2: "The Chewbacca Defense" - This chapter is about logic and it is pretty good. It uses South Park again as a philosophical vehicle, and most (but not all) of the examples are well-explained. A professor could easily use this to gently introduce a logic text/course. I liked the way the chapter ended, encouraging the reader to evaluate all claims in this (or any) book.
Chapter 3: "Doing Philosophy Colbert-Style" - A visit to the realm of Stephen Colbert's concept of truth. Despite our desires to shape the world to our desires (Colbert's "truthiness"), it doesn't work regardless of how many people believe false things to be the case. A gut feeling may be a helpful guide, but truth seekers need to acknowledge when those gut feelings are wrong.
II. Epistemology
Chapter 4: "Stan Marsh and the Ethics of Belief" - Evidence is required for belief, and belief without proof is considered mental laziness, which is a threat to intellectual progress. The chapter does not offer what constitutes the level of proof sufficient for belief, nor what to consider an area of inquiry while evidence is being gathered. The either/or tone of the chapter is off-putting, but it could be useful as 'a chapter to argue with' for a class.
Chapter 5: "Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole" - How can we know things are real? Here, we visit The Matrix with Rene Descartes, going on the skeptics journey. Is our experience a deception? How could we know? Descartes held that we can be sure that we exist because we think and and are aware that we do so. We also have experiences. We finish out the chapter with an exploration of naive realism with Bertrand Russell.
It's a good start on the topic, but I would consider it only the barest of introductions.
Chapter 6: "Earth and the Problem of Knowledge" - Examines the concept of justified true belief, and beliefs based on lies (are they true?) through the lens of (the more recent) Battlestar Galactica. This is a chapter to supplement the middle or even the end of an introductory section on epistemology. It's not comprehensive, but beginning students would need to know some background to make use of the material presented. Still, the effect of the chapter overall was to leave me in a thoughtful mood, and I consider that to be successful from a philosophical perspective.
III. Metaphysics
Chapter 7: "Mind and Body in Zion" - Of the theories of mind (in the context of the Matrix trilogy), the author explores differing schools of materialism after a brief discussion of dualism (the idea that mind and body are separate). While I did not find the given reasons for rejecting dualism to be particularly convincing (it is probably false, but for stronger reasons than are mentioned), the treatment of the different theories of mind offers a decent introduction.
Chapter 8: "Amnesia, Personal Identity, and the Many Lives of Wolverine" - It turns out that the concept of identity is more complicated than it looks. Wolverine, of X-Men fame, had many separate identities (and lots of memory losses between them), making it difficult to assign praise or blame for past acts to any particular version of "Wolverine." The upshot: be slow to judge both in fiction and the real world. An enjoyable introduction to the idea of identity.
Chapter 9: "Destiny in the Wizarding World" - What is the nature of prophecy? Of destiny? How philosophy is to understand them - and the whole concept of free will - is the task of this chapter using Harry Potter's world as context. The author spends more time in Harry's world with prophecy, luck, and time travel than with the philosophical concepts. Of possible use at the end of a class segment on free will.
Chapter 10: "The Terminator Wins" - The author considers what it means to be a "person" in the context of The Terminator. Can a machine be a person? While there may not be hard evidence in this regard, we may have sufficient grounds to accept some machines as people. An interesting exploration that includes the Turing Test & references to John Searle's "Chinese room" as well as references to all three Terminator movies. Explicit knowledge of the films is not necessary for the philosophical discussion.
IV. Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 11: "Cartman and the Problem of Evil" - Here we return to the realm of South Park and the logical problem of evil (omnipotent, loving God + Evil = problem). This problem is a staple in many introductory philosophy classes, and this reading would complement that initial discussion well, no knowledge of South Park required.
Chapter 12: "Aquinas and Rose on Faith and Reason" - The author consults Thomas Aquinas on the necessary relationship between faith and reason using the Rose character from the TV show Lost as a conversational vehicle. Having not watched the series, I had to consult our local Lost expert as to whether Rose actually knew things would be OK (as opposed to only believing). As with all things Aquinas, I had the strong urge to argue with the text and the assertions presented. That I wanted to dispute with the text as often as I did was a clear indication that the author had Aquinas right. Prior knowledge of both Aquinas' work and Lost is helpful here.
Chapter 13: "Religious Belief, Atheism, and Meaning" - This chapter is difficult to review in that covers a good deal of philosophical ground in the context of the recent version of Battlestar Galactica (or BSG). The balance between pop culture and philosophy is slightly skewed in the pop culture direction. While the chapter did make me interested in looking up the BSG references, it seemed like there was a struggle to find a central driving theme. It was enjoyable to read, I would consider it a complement to a philosophy of religion section of an introductory philosophy course.
V. Ethics
Chapter 14: "Plato on Gyges' Ring of Invisibility" - Using the TV show Heroes as a vehicle, the author visit's Plato's reasons for acting virtuously even when we have the power to do otherwise. Given the super-powers of the super heroes, giving into vice makes for super-vices. Instead, regardless of how much power we have, Plato would have us incorporate 4 cardinal Greek virtues - justice, wisdom, courage, & temperance - in order to live as successful human beings.
Chapter 15: "The Virtues of Humor" - Here we visit The Office for a look at Aristotle's Ethics. Individuals are considered virtuous when they act and feel appropriately given the situations in which they find themselves, allowing them to "function well." The chapter focuses on the virtue of humor, or wit, to explain how practical wisdom informs the virtuous person as to the correct time to be witty. The chapter offers a nice Office/Aristotle balance with enough explanation of both to make it useful as an Aristotle supplement, even to those not familiar with the television show.
Chapter 16: "Why Doesn't Batman Kill the Joker?" - The author visits the world of Batman to explore the major differences between deontology (right/rules) and utilitarianism (good/results). Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker when doing so would prevent him from committing many future murders? It is not a simple question, and the chapter left me more puzzled than ever as to whether there's actually an ethically justified answer to the question...as it should. This chapter illustrates why ethics may not be easy. Nicely done.
Chapter 17: "Means, Ends, and the Critique of Pure Superheroes" - Here we go to the dark universe of Watchmen as an another way of evaluating/contrasting deontological and utilitarian thought. Parodies of both schools of thought are portrayed in Watchmen with neither side acting morally. The author of this chapter then emphasizes the main focus of Watchmen - having too much power untrusted to too few individuals - and bridges over into social/political philosophy instead of ethics for individuals. This chapter could be useful as a transitional article between philosophical disciplines in a course where those disciplines - ethics and social/political philosophy - are consecutive.
VI: Challenges to Traditional Ethics
Chapter 18: "Metallica, Nietzsche, and Marx" - The author examine the relationship between Metallica's music and Nietzsche's & Marx's critique of religion and traditional morality. All three claim that traditional religion presents us with perverted morality, calling for rebellion against it. The author then examines Metallica's relationship to nihilism, or attraction to nothingness and destruction, as well as the group's Nietzschean power and further maturation. An interesting window into musicians and philosophers that would complement readings in introductory primary sources.
Chapter 19: "Nietzsche on the Cylon Uprising" - The author examines Nietzsche's concept of master/slave moralities (where slaves turn the morality of the master into 'that which is bad') in the context of Battlestar Galactica, taking a fairly complex concept and explaining it well. A nice, if rather specific, complement to a Nietzsche section of an introductory philosophy course.
Chapter 20: "Being-inThe Office" - The author deals with some of Sartre's major concepts - shame, pride, bad faith, and The Look - in the context of The Office in an interesting, very readable manner that made me think...a very good philosophical result. From an instructor's perspective, I would consider it an incomplete introductory treatment of Sartre's thought, but could be very useful for in-depth exploration of bad faith or The Look.
Chapter 21: "Batman's Confrontation with Death, Angst, and Freedom" - In short, the chapter focuses on Batman, Heidegger, & the free will/determinism debate. Heidegger produced work often viewed as a difficult (some would say impenetrable). The author introduces some of Heidegger's main concepts, the importance of the fact of our personal death and our knowledge of it, and the impact of the knowledge on us (that death makes our existence uniquely ours). All of this, for Heidegger and Batman, is a route to an authentic life choice, because of all the things Bruce Wayne can do, he does not have to become Batman. Again, this chapter would be a good complement to a Heidegger section of an introductory philosophy course.
Chapter 22: "Cameron's Ethics of Care" - Using the TV show House as a means of critiquing traditional justice-based (male) ethics, the author holds that there's no reason to favor it over a relationship-based (female) ethics. House is a jerk, if a very gifted one, who continually violates Kant's ethical prohibition of treating people as means instead of ends in themselves. He wants to solve medical puzzles (a.k.a., patients). Cameron, on the other hand, tends to care about her patients and the things that matter to them . The chapter contrasts the two approaches to ethics, clearly favoring an ethics of care. Despite the tendency to lump feminists into unified groups, this chapter provides a great conversation starter and a good complement to a section on feminist ethics.
Chapter 23: "Vampire Love" - The author explores Twilight through the feminist thought of Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir discussed 'woman as relative being' in 1949 in The Second Sex, and the chapter explores how this theme is alive and well in the 21st century in Twilight. Bella only becomes whole with the attention of, or through, male characters. In the end she attains an 'I can' body (235), but at the cost of self-annihilation. Concise and disturbing, an excellent complement to a philosophy course.
Chapter 24: "Killing the Griffins" - Postmodernism and Family Guy? Yep, it's here with a little Foucault thrown in for good measure. The author discusses the postmodern critique of Truth and meta-narratives while holding that this need not lead to cynicism and inaction ('if nothing is true, why bother to act?' goes the reasoning), especially about things that really matter to us. While the author starts out the chapter with a certain amount of "homicidal rage" toward the cartoon Griffins, but he allows by the end of the chapter that they may not need to "die"...yet anyway. A nice complement to a section on postmodernism as well as a nudge toward developing a sense of humor.
VII: Social and Political Philosophy
Chapter 25: "Lost's State of Nature" - The author investigates the so-called state of nature - people living collectively without government - using game theory and Lost. Generally speaking, the survivors of the downed flight tend to act to benefit all of those involved in the situation, and this chapter explains how cooperation occurs. Good for a complement for a class section on game theory or political philosophy, but toward the end of that section.
Chapter 26: "Laughter Between Distraction and Awakening" - The author not only introduces the reader to Marx in this chapter, but also provides the reader with a handy Marxist evaluation of life in the Office. With capitalism as the economic backdrop of the show, the exploited and bored Office workers live mostly meaningless and certainly reduced (or undeveloped) lives, unable to escape. Yet, flashes of actual happiness and humanity creep in, indicating that there could be some type of actual personhood available even to the Office prisoners. The chapter does introduce basic Marxist concepts, but also focuses on the theme of class in America.
Chapter 27: "The Ethics of Torture in 24" - The author covers various ethical approaches to torture (rules and results are emphasized) in reality and in the TV show 24. Throughout, torture is described as dangerous ethically, and not necessarily productive. An engaging chapter that could easily complement the torture section of an issues-based philosophy course.
Chapter 28: "Mutants and the Metaphysics of Race" - The concept of race, it turns out, is rather tricky to define. The author explores whether X-Men's mutants are a biological race apart from humans, a human subspecies, or something else. The author also discusses various efforts to treat mutant's differently as different, as deficient, mirroring not only the treatment of different races but also those with HIV. The chapter would be of particular use when attempting to determine what a race is philosophically speaking.
VIII: Eastern Views
Chapter 29: "Zen and the Art of Cylon Maintenance" - The author balances an introduction to Zen Buddhism and (the new)Battlestar Galactica nicely in this chapter. Though it would be helpful, a background in either topic is unnecessary for philosophical learning/insight. An interesting examination of Cylons from a Zen perspective, and trying to determine whether they would be capable of attaining enlightenment.
Chapter 30: "The Sound of One House Clapping" - Yes, it is TV's House combined with a different approach to Zen Buddhism that was seen in the previous chapter. House and his medical team encounter patients with enigmatic (and potentially fatal) medical and personal issues. To produce right results, House often has to act without knowing anything definite about the condition at hand in order to produce desired results. House does not act to produce the good results. Rather, he acts to change others' orientations to a given situation so that knowledge may be obtained, much as in the Zen Koan system. A medical cure may occur, but it's a by-product of the search for the truth instead of a desired result. A complement both to the previous chapter and introductory Buddhism sections.
Chapter 31: "The Tao of the Bat" - This chapter is unlike other chapters of the book. It is set up as an interview between the author and a Taoist Master and teacher of Batman, Bat-Tzu. Taoism is about balance, and the chapter discusses how Batman and (usually) Robin maintain their particular balance as they fight crime. The true sage of the series, however, is Alfred, the butler. Alfred makes his own openness an invaluable tool for Batman, noticing the unnoticed, healing wounds, etc., and this helps to balance the Batman's imbalances. While not extensive in coverage, this humorous piece is an ideal way to prevent any philosophical doldrums from taking hold in an introductory section on Taoism.
IX: The Meaning of Life
Chapter 32: "Life after Death and the Search for Meaning" - Harry Potter's world, death, and life's meaning are the elements of this chapter. The author appropriately brings in a number of philosophers - from Aristotle to Heidegger to Pascal and more - to explore how Harry (and we) make sense of life given the knowledge that we will, in fact, die. Some (like Harry) succeed in their evaluations, while others (like Voldemort, Harry's nemisis) fail. Regardless of whether there's an afterlife, much of the chapter's focus revolves around how we live our lives. A coherent way of discussing a complex idea.
Chapter 33: "Selfish, Base Animals Crawling Across the Earth" - This chapter concentrates on ancient Greek philosophers who asked the big question - what is it all about anyway? - and we've been dealing with it ever since. For House, it's not God, the promise of an afterlife, or even a soul. It's living an examined life of reason tied to action, our proper human function, according to Aristotle. A worthy finish to the book, and potentially quite useful in a philosophy class.
Read well and seek truth.
It all started because, while reviewing the book for fun, I ran across a bad, 1-star review that panned the book (without reading it) for reaching out only to a narrow section of pop culture. To that reviewer, introductory philosophy needed to be more welcoming, and that focusing that narrowly was inappropriate. I protested vigorously, but got nowhere in my conversation with the reviewer. While I did appreciate the fact that this person chose to communicate with me, I was disheartened by the closed response I received. I held, and hold, that comfort does not necessarily lead us to wisdom, and may, in fact, prevent us from attaining it. Chapter 30 of this book (Zen and House) illustrates this quite clearly - it is only when House unsettles old expectations that he allows new solutions and truths to emerge. Thus, if pop culture interests you, it should draw you in and help lead you to wisdom. If pop culture does not interest you, this book might work even better as a guide.
The aforementioned reviewer urged me to write my own review, and since it was already in progress, I continued doing so only this time more seriously. Below is the result - I give an overall assessment and a mini-review of each chapter. You see I think this is a good book. I'd actually give the book 4.5 stars out of the possible 5. The chapters are generally engaging and each one could be of great use as a complement to a main text in an introductory philosophy course. Some chapters are more appropriate for readers who have already been introduced to subjects, and I express that opinion as I go.
My advice? Let the book, using the wisdom of pop culture and philosophy, speak.
===
I. What is Philosophy?
Chapter 1: "Flatulence and Philosophy" - An interesting take on South Park. I've never watched an episode. Maybe I should start doing so to see how, as William W. Young III says, the show's vulgarity can be a shock to inattentive mindlessness, starting the philosophical process.
Chapter 2: "The Chewbacca Defense" - This chapter is about logic and it is pretty good. It uses South Park again as a philosophical vehicle, and most (but not all) of the examples are well-explained. A professor could easily use this to gently introduce a logic text/course. I liked the way the chapter ended, encouraging the reader to evaluate all claims in this (or any) book.
Chapter 3: "Doing Philosophy Colbert-Style" - A visit to the realm of Stephen Colbert's concept of truth. Despite our desires to shape the world to our desires (Colbert's "truthiness"), it doesn't work regardless of how many people believe false things to be the case. A gut feeling may be a helpful guide, but truth seekers need to acknowledge when those gut feelings are wrong.
II. Epistemology
Chapter 4: "Stan Marsh and the Ethics of Belief" - Evidence is required for belief, and belief without proof is considered mental laziness, which is a threat to intellectual progress. The chapter does not offer what constitutes the level of proof sufficient for belief, nor what to consider an area of inquiry while evidence is being gathered. The either/or tone of the chapter is off-putting, but it could be useful as 'a chapter to argue with' for a class.
Chapter 5: "Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole" - How can we know things are real? Here, we visit The Matrix with Rene Descartes, going on the skeptics journey. Is our experience a deception? How could we know? Descartes held that we can be sure that we exist because we think and and are aware that we do so. We also have experiences. We finish out the chapter with an exploration of naive realism with Bertrand Russell.
It's a good start on the topic, but I would consider it only the barest of introductions.
Chapter 6: "Earth and the Problem of Knowledge" - Examines the concept of justified true belief, and beliefs based on lies (are they true?) through the lens of (the more recent) Battlestar Galactica. This is a chapter to supplement the middle or even the end of an introductory section on epistemology. It's not comprehensive, but beginning students would need to know some background to make use of the material presented. Still, the effect of the chapter overall was to leave me in a thoughtful mood, and I consider that to be successful from a philosophical perspective.
III. Metaphysics
Chapter 7: "Mind and Body in Zion" - Of the theories of mind (in the context of the Matrix trilogy), the author explores differing schools of materialism after a brief discussion of dualism (the idea that mind and body are separate). While I did not find the given reasons for rejecting dualism to be particularly convincing (it is probably false, but for stronger reasons than are mentioned), the treatment of the different theories of mind offers a decent introduction.
Chapter 8: "Amnesia, Personal Identity, and the Many Lives of Wolverine" - It turns out that the concept of identity is more complicated than it looks. Wolverine, of X-Men fame, had many separate identities (and lots of memory losses between them), making it difficult to assign praise or blame for past acts to any particular version of "Wolverine." The upshot: be slow to judge both in fiction and the real world. An enjoyable introduction to the idea of identity.
Chapter 9: "Destiny in the Wizarding World" - What is the nature of prophecy? Of destiny? How philosophy is to understand them - and the whole concept of free will - is the task of this chapter using Harry Potter's world as context. The author spends more time in Harry's world with prophecy, luck, and time travel than with the philosophical concepts. Of possible use at the end of a class segment on free will.
Chapter 10: "The Terminator Wins" - The author considers what it means to be a "person" in the context of The Terminator. Can a machine be a person? While there may not be hard evidence in this regard, we may have sufficient grounds to accept some machines as people. An interesting exploration that includes the Turing Test & references to John Searle's "Chinese room" as well as references to all three Terminator movies. Explicit knowledge of the films is not necessary for the philosophical discussion.
IV. Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 11: "Cartman and the Problem of Evil" - Here we return to the realm of South Park and the logical problem of evil (omnipotent, loving God + Evil = problem). This problem is a staple in many introductory philosophy classes, and this reading would complement that initial discussion well, no knowledge of South Park required.
Chapter 12: "Aquinas and Rose on Faith and Reason" - The author consults Thomas Aquinas on the necessary relationship between faith and reason using the Rose character from the TV show Lost as a conversational vehicle. Having not watched the series, I had to consult our local Lost expert as to whether Rose actually knew things would be OK (as opposed to only believing). As with all things Aquinas, I had the strong urge to argue with the text and the assertions presented. That I wanted to dispute with the text as often as I did was a clear indication that the author had Aquinas right. Prior knowledge of both Aquinas' work and Lost is helpful here.
Chapter 13: "Religious Belief, Atheism, and Meaning" - This chapter is difficult to review in that covers a good deal of philosophical ground in the context of the recent version of Battlestar Galactica (or BSG). The balance between pop culture and philosophy is slightly skewed in the pop culture direction. While the chapter did make me interested in looking up the BSG references, it seemed like there was a struggle to find a central driving theme. It was enjoyable to read, I would consider it a complement to a philosophy of religion section of an introductory philosophy course.
V. Ethics
Chapter 14: "Plato on Gyges' Ring of Invisibility" - Using the TV show Heroes as a vehicle, the author visit's Plato's reasons for acting virtuously even when we have the power to do otherwise. Given the super-powers of the super heroes, giving into vice makes for super-vices. Instead, regardless of how much power we have, Plato would have us incorporate 4 cardinal Greek virtues - justice, wisdom, courage, & temperance - in order to live as successful human beings.
Chapter 15: "The Virtues of Humor" - Here we visit The Office for a look at Aristotle's Ethics. Individuals are considered virtuous when they act and feel appropriately given the situations in which they find themselves, allowing them to "function well." The chapter focuses on the virtue of humor, or wit, to explain how practical wisdom informs the virtuous person as to the correct time to be witty. The chapter offers a nice Office/Aristotle balance with enough explanation of both to make it useful as an Aristotle supplement, even to those not familiar with the television show.
Chapter 16: "Why Doesn't Batman Kill the Joker?" - The author visits the world of Batman to explore the major differences between deontology (right/rules) and utilitarianism (good/results). Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker when doing so would prevent him from committing many future murders? It is not a simple question, and the chapter left me more puzzled than ever as to whether there's actually an ethically justified answer to the question...as it should. This chapter illustrates why ethics may not be easy. Nicely done.
Chapter 17: "Means, Ends, and the Critique of Pure Superheroes" - Here we go to the dark universe of Watchmen as an another way of evaluating/contrasting deontological and utilitarian thought. Parodies of both schools of thought are portrayed in Watchmen with neither side acting morally. The author of this chapter then emphasizes the main focus of Watchmen - having too much power untrusted to too few individuals - and bridges over into social/political philosophy instead of ethics for individuals. This chapter could be useful as a transitional article between philosophical disciplines in a course where those disciplines - ethics and social/political philosophy - are consecutive.
VI: Challenges to Traditional Ethics
Chapter 18: "Metallica, Nietzsche, and Marx" - The author examine the relationship between Metallica's music and Nietzsche's & Marx's critique of religion and traditional morality. All three claim that traditional religion presents us with perverted morality, calling for rebellion against it. The author then examines Metallica's relationship to nihilism, or attraction to nothingness and destruction, as well as the group's Nietzschean power and further maturation. An interesting window into musicians and philosophers that would complement readings in introductory primary sources.
Chapter 19: "Nietzsche on the Cylon Uprising" - The author examines Nietzsche's concept of master/slave moralities (where slaves turn the morality of the master into 'that which is bad') in the context of Battlestar Galactica, taking a fairly complex concept and explaining it well. A nice, if rather specific, complement to a Nietzsche section of an introductory philosophy course.
Chapter 20: "Being-inThe Office" - The author deals with some of Sartre's major concepts - shame, pride, bad faith, and The Look - in the context of The Office in an interesting, very readable manner that made me think...a very good philosophical result. From an instructor's perspective, I would consider it an incomplete introductory treatment of Sartre's thought, but could be very useful for in-depth exploration of bad faith or The Look.
Chapter 21: "Batman's Confrontation with Death, Angst, and Freedom" - In short, the chapter focuses on Batman, Heidegger, & the free will/determinism debate. Heidegger produced work often viewed as a difficult (some would say impenetrable). The author introduces some of Heidegger's main concepts, the importance of the fact of our personal death and our knowledge of it, and the impact of the knowledge on us (that death makes our existence uniquely ours). All of this, for Heidegger and Batman, is a route to an authentic life choice, because of all the things Bruce Wayne can do, he does not have to become Batman. Again, this chapter would be a good complement to a Heidegger section of an introductory philosophy course.
Chapter 22: "Cameron's Ethics of Care" - Using the TV show House as a means of critiquing traditional justice-based (male) ethics, the author holds that there's no reason to favor it over a relationship-based (female) ethics. House is a jerk, if a very gifted one, who continually violates Kant's ethical prohibition of treating people as means instead of ends in themselves. He wants to solve medical puzzles (a.k.a., patients). Cameron, on the other hand, tends to care about her patients and the things that matter to them . The chapter contrasts the two approaches to ethics, clearly favoring an ethics of care. Despite the tendency to lump feminists into unified groups, this chapter provides a great conversation starter and a good complement to a section on feminist ethics.
Chapter 23: "Vampire Love" - The author explores Twilight through the feminist thought of Simone de Beauvoir. De Beauvoir discussed 'woman as relative being' in 1949 in The Second Sex, and the chapter explores how this theme is alive and well in the 21st century in Twilight. Bella only becomes whole with the attention of, or through, male characters. In the end she attains an 'I can' body (235), but at the cost of self-annihilation. Concise and disturbing, an excellent complement to a philosophy course.
Chapter 24: "Killing the Griffins" - Postmodernism and Family Guy? Yep, it's here with a little Foucault thrown in for good measure. The author discusses the postmodern critique of Truth and meta-narratives while holding that this need not lead to cynicism and inaction ('if nothing is true, why bother to act?' goes the reasoning), especially about things that really matter to us. While the author starts out the chapter with a certain amount of "homicidal rage" toward the cartoon Griffins, but he allows by the end of the chapter that they may not need to "die"...yet anyway. A nice complement to a section on postmodernism as well as a nudge toward developing a sense of humor.
VII: Social and Political Philosophy
Chapter 25: "Lost's State of Nature" - The author investigates the so-called state of nature - people living collectively without government - using game theory and Lost. Generally speaking, the survivors of the downed flight tend to act to benefit all of those involved in the situation, and this chapter explains how cooperation occurs. Good for a complement for a class section on game theory or political philosophy, but toward the end of that section.
Chapter 26: "Laughter Between Distraction and Awakening" - The author not only introduces the reader to Marx in this chapter, but also provides the reader with a handy Marxist evaluation of life in the Office. With capitalism as the economic backdrop of the show, the exploited and bored Office workers live mostly meaningless and certainly reduced (or undeveloped) lives, unable to escape. Yet, flashes of actual happiness and humanity creep in, indicating that there could be some type of actual personhood available even to the Office prisoners. The chapter does introduce basic Marxist concepts, but also focuses on the theme of class in America.
Chapter 27: "The Ethics of Torture in 24" - The author covers various ethical approaches to torture (rules and results are emphasized) in reality and in the TV show 24. Throughout, torture is described as dangerous ethically, and not necessarily productive. An engaging chapter that could easily complement the torture section of an issues-based philosophy course.
Chapter 28: "Mutants and the Metaphysics of Race" - The concept of race, it turns out, is rather tricky to define. The author explores whether X-Men's mutants are a biological race apart from humans, a human subspecies, or something else. The author also discusses various efforts to treat mutant's differently as different, as deficient, mirroring not only the treatment of different races but also those with HIV. The chapter would be of particular use when attempting to determine what a race is philosophically speaking.
VIII: Eastern Views
Chapter 29: "Zen and the Art of Cylon Maintenance" - The author balances an introduction to Zen Buddhism and (the new)Battlestar Galactica nicely in this chapter. Though it would be helpful, a background in either topic is unnecessary for philosophical learning/insight. An interesting examination of Cylons from a Zen perspective, and trying to determine whether they would be capable of attaining enlightenment.
Chapter 30: "The Sound of One House Clapping" - Yes, it is TV's House combined with a different approach to Zen Buddhism that was seen in the previous chapter. House and his medical team encounter patients with enigmatic (and potentially fatal) medical and personal issues. To produce right results, House often has to act without knowing anything definite about the condition at hand in order to produce desired results. House does not act to produce the good results. Rather, he acts to change others' orientations to a given situation so that knowledge may be obtained, much as in the Zen Koan system. A medical cure may occur, but it's a by-product of the search for the truth instead of a desired result. A complement both to the previous chapter and introductory Buddhism sections.
Chapter 31: "The Tao of the Bat" - This chapter is unlike other chapters of the book. It is set up as an interview between the author and a Taoist Master and teacher of Batman, Bat-Tzu. Taoism is about balance, and the chapter discusses how Batman and (usually) Robin maintain their particular balance as they fight crime. The true sage of the series, however, is Alfred, the butler. Alfred makes his own openness an invaluable tool for Batman, noticing the unnoticed, healing wounds, etc., and this helps to balance the Batman's imbalances. While not extensive in coverage, this humorous piece is an ideal way to prevent any philosophical doldrums from taking hold in an introductory section on Taoism.
IX: The Meaning of Life
Chapter 32: "Life after Death and the Search for Meaning" - Harry Potter's world, death, and life's meaning are the elements of this chapter. The author appropriately brings in a number of philosophers - from Aristotle to Heidegger to Pascal and more - to explore how Harry (and we) make sense of life given the knowledge that we will, in fact, die. Some (like Harry) succeed in their evaluations, while others (like Voldemort, Harry's nemisis) fail. Regardless of whether there's an afterlife, much of the chapter's focus revolves around how we live our lives. A coherent way of discussing a complex idea.
Chapter 33: "Selfish, Base Animals Crawling Across the Earth" - This chapter concentrates on ancient Greek philosophers who asked the big question - what is it all about anyway? - and we've been dealing with it ever since. For House, it's not God, the promise of an afterlife, or even a soul. It's living an examined life of reason tied to action, our proper human function, according to Aristotle. A worthy finish to the book, and potentially quite useful in a philosophy class.
Read well and seek truth.
May 2, 2018
This book with its nine sections and thirty-three chapters by a variety of authors is endlessly engaging. Some programs and philosophers reoccur throughout, but always with a fresh perspective. This would make an enlightening text for a course in either subject. One imagines philosophers turning on their television sets for relaxation and being unable to resist the larger themes that emerge for them. The reader does not need to be familiar with either the philosophers or the particular examples of popular culture to benefit from considering the issues the authors raise. Despites the scorn of some academics, popular culture has always been a way for people to ponder life’s basic issues, such as the nature of truth and morality. A comparison of the British and American versions of The Office provides insights into the nature of the contemporary work place, but how different cultures deal with it. To discuss the lessons in the comics and series we enjoy without taking away our pleasure in them is an impressive achievement. Who of us hasn’t pondered the changes in Batman over time? Why doesn’t he kill the Joker? Battlestar Galaticia, like much science fiction, raises the issues of what it means to be human.Young readers of Harry Potter are keenly aware of the range of issues those books offer. There are a number of publishers who have series on specific popular culture topics. The Introducing Graphic Guides series covers such as diverse as Genetics, Quantum Theory and the work of individuals such as Stephen Hawking and Heidegger in graphic novel form demonstrate how effective popular culture can be in teaching complex ideas. This volume is a fine example of the tradition, keeping the reader engaged in philosophical issues throughout.
May 19, 2012
I picked this up on a whim yesterday at the library. I wish I hadn't. This book was infuriating. What the editors mean by "pop culture" is actually pop-culture-for-white-middle-class-adolescent-socially-awkward-males. There was a token chapter written by a woman on the twilight series about girls' relationships with boys. Other than that, it was pretty much exclusively targeted to white males who like science fiction, comic books, and south park.
It's exclusionary, in that if you don't fit into that demographic this book is basically pointless. And that's particularly infuriating because it reflects the problems with philosophy as a discipline. Philosophy departments are over-run with the type of people that this book targets. And while one could try to defend this by saying that the authors knew who their students were and wrote specifically to them, I think that's wrong. I think it's more accurate to say that within philosophy departments, you have a lot of grown up white-middle-class-socially-awkward-men teaching who cater to white-middle-class-adolescent-socially-awkward-male, which discourages other young people from taking up philosophy.
Philosophy needs women. It needs non-white people. It needs working class and poor people. It needs a diverse range of people because doing philosophy is reasoning together. And that reasoning is better when it is informed by diverse perspectives.
Additionally, this book is basically dumbing down philosophy till it's unrecognizable. Philosophy is interesting when good teachers make it interesting. And good teachers do that by teaching with passion and making it relevant through personal examples. This book is like a knock-off of that. It's pandering and dumbing down. I can't imagine why this would ever be used at the college level.
It's exclusionary, in that if you don't fit into that demographic this book is basically pointless. And that's particularly infuriating because it reflects the problems with philosophy as a discipline. Philosophy departments are over-run with the type of people that this book targets. And while one could try to defend this by saying that the authors knew who their students were and wrote specifically to them, I think that's wrong. I think it's more accurate to say that within philosophy departments, you have a lot of grown up white-middle-class-socially-awkward-men teaching who cater to white-middle-class-adolescent-socially-awkward-male, which discourages other young people from taking up philosophy.
Philosophy needs women. It needs non-white people. It needs working class and poor people. It needs a diverse range of people because doing philosophy is reasoning together. And that reasoning is better when it is informed by diverse perspectives.
Additionally, this book is basically dumbing down philosophy till it's unrecognizable. Philosophy is interesting when good teachers make it interesting. And good teachers do that by teaching with passion and making it relevant through personal examples. This book is like a knock-off of that. It's pandering and dumbing down. I can't imagine why this would ever be used at the college level.
December 20, 2021
A collection of essays, each of which explains a philosophical concept using a contemporary culture, namely television shows, movies, or music.
• “The burden of proof always lies with the one who makes the additional claim, not with those who doubt its truth” (40).
• “Blaise Pascal (1623-62), a French mathematician and philosopher, came up with a well-known attempt to justify religious belief . . . His argument came to be known as Pascal’s Wager. Think of a belief in God as a bet. If you wager on God (if you believe) and God exists, you win. God rewards believers with eternal joy and happiness. But if you do not believe and God exists, then you lose” (42).
• “The computer-simulated dreamworld of the Matrix trilogy is a technological version of Descartes’s evil demon. In essence it represents the idea of a mind (the Architect) more powerful than our own that is intent on deceiving us whenever, and however, it sees fit” (49).
• “According to the atomic theory of matter, the atoms that constitute [solids] only account for a fraction of the space [they occupy] . . . hardly the solid object we perceive” (55).
• “How should beliefs be chosen in an uncertain world? W.K. Clifford (1845-79) says it’s unethical to believe anything without sufficient evidence. This view, known as evidentialism, claims that if there isn’t enough evidence to support a belief, one mustn’t consent to its truth. One premise supporting evidentialism is that incorrect beliefs can have a damaging effect on society” (62).
• “All cells in the human body, including neurons (a very special type of cell found only in the brain), break down and are replaced with new versions. It takes about seven years for all of the matter in the human brain to get completely broken down and changed. Due to this, [contemporary philosopher Derek] Parfit concluded that personhood can persist for only, at most, seven years” (87).
• “A compatibilist about freedom and predetermination thinks we can be free even if our choices are determined by things outside our control” (95).
• “The fact that the story of Job doesn’t answer the problem of evil is not that surprising to biblical scholars. The story was not intended for that purpose. More than likely, if Job actually existed, he would not consider his suffering a reason to not believe in God’s existence. The belief that God was “all good” and would thus never cause suffering didn’t become prevalent until after Plato’s philosophical influence had worked its way through Christianity” (113).
• “ . . . the existence of evil does not stand in logical contradiction with God’s existence because it is false that God would necessarily prevent all evil. God would—and in fact should—allow evil that accomplishes a greater good, and thus the mere existence of evil is not conclusive evidence against the existence of God” (116).
• “A solution that attempts to solve both the moral and natural evil problem is John Hick’s soul making theodicy . . . Action derived from bestowed perfected characters are not as good as actions derived from developed perfected characters. To ensure that the world contains the best kind of actions, God allows evil to exist so that we may respond to it, thus developing and eventually perfecting our characters . . . ” (117-118).
• “In his first argument for the existence of God, Aquinas states that every change from a state of potency to an actual state must be brought about by something that’s already actual in a relevant way. To use an example from Newtonian physics, if an object is at rest, it has the potential to be in motion, but in order to be actually in motion, something must move it or it must have a part of itself capable of self-propelling it. This ties into Aquinas’s second argument, which begins by noting that every effect must have a cause, and each cause is itself an effect of some other cause. In both cases, a chain of ‘moved movers’ or ‘caused causes’ forms that is discoverable by reason” (130).
• “A standard metaphysical axiom is ex nihilo nihil fit—‘out of nothing, nothing comes.’ This axiom alone supports the notion that something had to exist out of which the universe came to be—in other words, there must be a sufficient reason for the universe to exist at all ”(131).
• “Augustine identifies the source of moral evil as ‘inordinate desire’ for ‘temporal goods’: ‘So we are in a position to ask whether evildoing is anything other than neglecting eternal things [for example truth], which the mind perceives and enjoys by means of itself and which it cannot lose if it loves them; and instead pursuing temporal things . . .’” (132).
• “The stories of our heroes aren’t new, nor are the questions about them. They go back at least as far as Plato, who considered the tale of Gyges, a man who finds an invisibility ring. Gyges uses the ring to viciously, but secretly, depose the king and take his wife. No one is the wiser; he is invisible while he does it. Such stories raise the question: do such ‘superpowered’ individuals have good reason to be virtuous, even though they can get away with being immoral? Or maybe their actions aren’t even immoral? After all, isn’t it ‘only natural’ for people to use their own powers to their own advantage? But is that an excuse? Is human nature really that selfish, or is there part of us that doesn’t want to take advantage of others for their own aims, but instead wants to join with and help them? . . . Plato argued that our nature is to be heroes and that there is good reason to be a hero” (141-142).
• “For Plato, the virtue of justice is to the human soul what health is to the body: as the various systems in the body need balance and harmony in order to for you to thrive biologically, so you also need the various parts of your soul to be in balance and harmony with one another in order for you to thrive psychologically . . . And just as a healthy diet and healthy exercise help to keep your body in good condition, wise, courageous, and temperate actions help to keep your soul in healthy condition” (146).
• “For Aristotle, ethics is not a matter of duty or promoting good outcomes, it’s about being a certain sort of person—the sort of person who lives a life expressive of the virtues. In this, Aristotle’s thought differs from most modern moral philosophy, which tends to take either notions of duty or the notion of a good outcome to be fundamental. A virtue ethics, such as Aristotle’s takes the virtues—traits such as courage, wisdom, temperance, honesty, generosity, kindness, and the like—to be morally fundamental. Instead of defining virtue in terms of duty by saying a virtuous person is someone who does her duty, a virtue ethics would define duty in terms of virtue, holding that an action is my duty if and only if a virtuous person would perform that action in these circumstances” (151-152).
• “For Aristotle, a virtue is a state that enables its possessor to achieve its function or purpose well . . . Our virtues, then, are the states that enable us to think and act well. When we are functioning well, we are eudiamon, which is usually rendered as happy, though flourishing is a much better Greek translation of that word” (152).
• “The virtue of generosity is a mean between profligacy and stinginess, the virtue of proper pride is a mean between vanity and excessive humility, and so on for the other character virtues. (The intellectual virtues do not have this mean-between-extremes structure . . . episteme, or knowledge, is not a mean between knowing too much and knowing too little” (153).
• “The burden of proof always lies with the one who makes the additional claim, not with those who doubt its truth” (40).
• “While utilitarians would generally endorse killing one person to prevent killing more, members of the school of ethics known as deontology would not. Deontologists judge the morality of an act based on features intrinsic to the act itself, regardless of the consequences stemming from the act” (165).
• “One of the many classic moral dilemmas debated by philosophers is the ‘trolley problem,’ introduced by Philippa Foot and elaborated upon by Judith Jarvis Thomas. Imagine that a trolley car is going down a track. Further down the track are five people who do not hear the trolley and who will not be able to get out of the way. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time to stop the trolley before it hits and kills them. The only way to avoid killing these five people is to switch the trolley to another track. But, unfortunately, there is one person standing on that track, also too close to for the trolley to stop before killing him. Now imagine there is a bystander standing by the track switch who must make a choice: do nothing, which leads to the death of five people on the current track, or act to divert the trolley to the other track, which leads to the death of the single person” (166). This problem illustrates the difference between utilitarian and deontological approaches. The utilitarian would pull the switch to save five people, but the deontologist would not. “This is simply a different way of contrasting the utilitarian’s emphasis on good outcomes with the deontologist’s focus on right action. While throwing the switch to kill the one rather than five may be good, it may not be right (because of that that specific person has to do)” (167) . . . “Thompson introduces several modification to suggest that it does. What if the five people on the track collapsed there drunk early that morning, and the one person on the track is a repairman performing track maintenance for the railroad? The repairman has a right to be there, while the drunkards do not. Would this make us less comfortable about pulling the switch? (168).
• “In the history of philosophy, this sort of weighing, calculating consequentialism is most associated with the doctrine of utilitarianism. Although the basic idea behind utilitarianism has been around forever, the doctrine didn’t really begin to flourish until the work of the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748-1892) and John Stuart Mill (1806-73). The core idea is simple ‘actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.’ Utilitarianism is built from consequentialism by adding elements, as one adds ingredients to a soup. The first new ingredient is hedonism . . . The other new ingredient is egalitarianism. Everybody’s happiness is weighed equally” (174).
• “One of the most common criticisms of consequentialist doctrines such as utilitarianism is that they are unable to embrace a doctrine of universal human rights” (175).
• “According to deontologist Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), morality begins with the good will. Anything else you might value in life—intelligence, strength, even happiness itself—can be used for evil. The only thing good, really, is the will to do good” (177).
• “Kant taught that we should no do things for the sake of ends, but for the sake of doing the right thing. Still, this does not mean that ‘the right thing’ has to be something simpleminded or rigid. For Kant, doing the right thing meant obeying what he called the ‘categorical imperative,’ a rule he phrased a couple of different ways. The first was to ‘Act as though the maxim of your action were to become, through your will, a universal law of nature’ . . . in the second formulation of his categorical imperative, [Kant writes]: ‘Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means’” (179).
• “Postmodernism is the philosophical movement that declares an end to stories or narratives that can tell us what life is all about” (184).
• “Nietzsche depicts Christianity as a ‘slave morality.’ Originating among the members of a relatively insignificant ethnic group living under the heel of Roman rule, Christian morality fount its origins in a sentiment both puny and dishonorable—‘resentment’ (ressentiment). Resenting Roman power, members of the Jesus movement argued that it’s really the meek who are blessed” (186).
• “ . . . common heavy metal tropes [can] advance a message of defiant freedom. The inversion of standard ideas of good and evil, the use of demonic perspectives, and blasphemy as a form of rebellion all serve as devices to loosen the grip of Christian authority” (188).
• “According to Neitzsche, morality has never been created through reason, or appeals to civility or practicality, or any other method traditionally described by philosophers. Instead those in power decide what’s good” (195).
• “By shifting the focus of virtue from the body to the soul, slave morality permits anyone to be good, regardless of their worldly circumstances” (200).
• “One key idea of Sartre’s existentialism is that ‘existence precedes essence’ (Satre 438) . . . Satre claims that the meaning of life isn’t something we discover in the world or within ourselves. It’s something we create through the lives we live: it is through our actions and choices that our lives acquire meaning. There is no model ” (205).
• “In bad faith we fool ourselves into believing we have no control over a situation, when actually we do” (205).
• “Sartre calls something that can choose a ‘being-for-itself’ and something which cannot choose a ‘being-in-itself.’ Thus, when we are in bad faith, we’re pretending to be what Sartre calls the in-itself—some object that cannot change—instead of being a person who can” (206).
• “A few decades after Sartre, the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) appropriated the perfect scenario for such and uncontrolled-controller from the earlier English philosopher Jermey Bentham (1748 – 1832). The scenario was the panopticon. In its original form it was a plan for a highly efficient prison. In the panopticon there is a central tower with obscured class surrounded by stories of cells that only have an opening toward the center tower. The result is that the guard in the tower could be looking at you at any time, but as a prisoner you are unable to see him. As a result the prisoners learn to police themselves. The power, as Foucault puts it, is visible, but unverifiable” (207).
• “In the absolutely radical response to the subject/object, inner/outer world problem that is developed in his major book Being and Time, Heidegger’s claim is that there simply is no meaningful inner/outer world distinction for human existence. On the contrary, Heidegger argues that human existence (to which he gives the technical name Dasein, German for ‘existence’ or, more literally, ‘being there’) is fundamentally always already ‘out there,’ in the world, among things, and outside the self” (215).
• “What is unique about the [feminist] ethic of care is that it promotes ethical deliberation that values the role of emotions—sympathy, empathy, sensitivity—in deciding what the best course of action would be” (227).
• “For de Beauvoir in 1949 France, the tragedy of adolescence in the feminine was its demand that the girl give up both herself and her hold on the world. As she enters womanhood, she learns that she is destined to be a ‘relative being’ whose existence has meaning only in relation to the man who loves her” (230).
• “Postmodernism is a literary and philosophical movement that began in the second half of the twentieth century. The movement suggests that ‘truth’ is merely a social construction—that what we call ‘true’ is just a product of the games we play with language. If this is correct, postmodernism seems to deliver a death blow to ethical and political critique” (238).
• Postmodernism “emphasizes the absence of any real structure to the world or our lives, and of any overarching meaning to our activities. It systematically calls into question our most serious ideas: Truth, Progress, Freedom, Rationality, and the Individual. Instead, postmodernism see the world as disjointed, with pockets of power relations and politics and nothing to unify it all” (238).
• “Modernism is the philosophical movement typically associated with the 17th and 18th century intellectual climate of Europe. The philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is often cited as the father of modern philosophy. Rather than submitting to traditional views ordained by the church, Descartes insisted that we must use rationality to discern the true nature of reality—and in doing this, he contended, we would vastly improve the world. This ideal was perhaps best instantiated by the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant claimed that the use of reason was enabling human beings to come into their own—to develop morally and socially, into something far better than we have ever been before. / These stories of progress–of using Reason to grasp Truth and attain Freedom—are at the very center of modernism. The story of how society and human beings will improve their lot in the universe is what French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998) call a meta-narrative. It is a story that makes sense of every other story—a story that allows us to see the world as a fundamentally unified place with real significance. Post-modernism, on the other hand, concerns the death of such stories. It is infatuated with disunity. Whereas the modernist looked for the unity of things, the postmodernist looks for the difference (or différance, if you’re French).
• “Jean-Jacques Rousseau is credited with thinking that, by nature, man is a compassionate and altruistic creature, and, hence, that the state of nature offers an ideal against which the corruptions of society can be measured” (251).
• “Hobbes is generally interpreted as regarding man as wholly egotistical and suspicious of his fellows” (252).
• “That the accumulated knowledge, science, and technology does not free human beings from labor—that it, in fact, tends to reduce the majority of laborers to a kind of empty, repetitive labor that neither sustains nor develops their abilities—is, for Marx, one of the cruelest paradoxes of the capitalist world” (263).
• “Ethics is concerned with how we treat one another. One approach called deontology says we should never act in ways that treat people as merely means toward our end goals” (268).
• “According to the United Nations, ‘No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” (270).
• “Only .2 percent of human genetic material will differ between any two randomly selected people. Only 6 percent of that .2 percent is due to differences between racial groups, which amounts to .012 percent of all human variation” (281).
• “Many contemporary philosophers take a
• “The burden of proof always lies with the one who makes the additional claim, not with those who doubt its truth” (40).
• “Blaise Pascal (1623-62), a French mathematician and philosopher, came up with a well-known attempt to justify religious belief . . . His argument came to be known as Pascal’s Wager. Think of a belief in God as a bet. If you wager on God (if you believe) and God exists, you win. God rewards believers with eternal joy and happiness. But if you do not believe and God exists, then you lose” (42).
• “The computer-simulated dreamworld of the Matrix trilogy is a technological version of Descartes’s evil demon. In essence it represents the idea of a mind (the Architect) more powerful than our own that is intent on deceiving us whenever, and however, it sees fit” (49).
• “According to the atomic theory of matter, the atoms that constitute [solids] only account for a fraction of the space [they occupy] . . . hardly the solid object we perceive” (55).
• “How should beliefs be chosen in an uncertain world? W.K. Clifford (1845-79) says it’s unethical to believe anything without sufficient evidence. This view, known as evidentialism, claims that if there isn’t enough evidence to support a belief, one mustn’t consent to its truth. One premise supporting evidentialism is that incorrect beliefs can have a damaging effect on society” (62).
• “All cells in the human body, including neurons (a very special type of cell found only in the brain), break down and are replaced with new versions. It takes about seven years for all of the matter in the human brain to get completely broken down and changed. Due to this, [contemporary philosopher Derek] Parfit concluded that personhood can persist for only, at most, seven years” (87).
• “A compatibilist about freedom and predetermination thinks we can be free even if our choices are determined by things outside our control” (95).
• “The fact that the story of Job doesn’t answer the problem of evil is not that surprising to biblical scholars. The story was not intended for that purpose. More than likely, if Job actually existed, he would not consider his suffering a reason to not believe in God’s existence. The belief that God was “all good” and would thus never cause suffering didn’t become prevalent until after Plato’s philosophical influence had worked its way through Christianity” (113).
• “ . . . the existence of evil does not stand in logical contradiction with God’s existence because it is false that God would necessarily prevent all evil. God would—and in fact should—allow evil that accomplishes a greater good, and thus the mere existence of evil is not conclusive evidence against the existence of God” (116).
• “A solution that attempts to solve both the moral and natural evil problem is John Hick’s soul making theodicy . . . Action derived from bestowed perfected characters are not as good as actions derived from developed perfected characters. To ensure that the world contains the best kind of actions, God allows evil to exist so that we may respond to it, thus developing and eventually perfecting our characters . . . ” (117-118).
• “In his first argument for the existence of God, Aquinas states that every change from a state of potency to an actual state must be brought about by something that’s already actual in a relevant way. To use an example from Newtonian physics, if an object is at rest, it has the potential to be in motion, but in order to be actually in motion, something must move it or it must have a part of itself capable of self-propelling it. This ties into Aquinas’s second argument, which begins by noting that every effect must have a cause, and each cause is itself an effect of some other cause. In both cases, a chain of ‘moved movers’ or ‘caused causes’ forms that is discoverable by reason” (130).
• “A standard metaphysical axiom is ex nihilo nihil fit—‘out of nothing, nothing comes.’ This axiom alone supports the notion that something had to exist out of which the universe came to be—in other words, there must be a sufficient reason for the universe to exist at all ”(131).
• “Augustine identifies the source of moral evil as ‘inordinate desire’ for ‘temporal goods’: ‘So we are in a position to ask whether evildoing is anything other than neglecting eternal things [for example truth], which the mind perceives and enjoys by means of itself and which it cannot lose if it loves them; and instead pursuing temporal things . . .’” (132).
• “The stories of our heroes aren’t new, nor are the questions about them. They go back at least as far as Plato, who considered the tale of Gyges, a man who finds an invisibility ring. Gyges uses the ring to viciously, but secretly, depose the king and take his wife. No one is the wiser; he is invisible while he does it. Such stories raise the question: do such ‘superpowered’ individuals have good reason to be virtuous, even though they can get away with being immoral? Or maybe their actions aren’t even immoral? After all, isn’t it ‘only natural’ for people to use their own powers to their own advantage? But is that an excuse? Is human nature really that selfish, or is there part of us that doesn’t want to take advantage of others for their own aims, but instead wants to join with and help them? . . . Plato argued that our nature is to be heroes and that there is good reason to be a hero” (141-142).
• “For Plato, the virtue of justice is to the human soul what health is to the body: as the various systems in the body need balance and harmony in order to for you to thrive biologically, so you also need the various parts of your soul to be in balance and harmony with one another in order for you to thrive psychologically . . . And just as a healthy diet and healthy exercise help to keep your body in good condition, wise, courageous, and temperate actions help to keep your soul in healthy condition” (146).
• “For Aristotle, ethics is not a matter of duty or promoting good outcomes, it’s about being a certain sort of person—the sort of person who lives a life expressive of the virtues. In this, Aristotle’s thought differs from most modern moral philosophy, which tends to take either notions of duty or the notion of a good outcome to be fundamental. A virtue ethics, such as Aristotle’s takes the virtues—traits such as courage, wisdom, temperance, honesty, generosity, kindness, and the like—to be morally fundamental. Instead of defining virtue in terms of duty by saying a virtuous person is someone who does her duty, a virtue ethics would define duty in terms of virtue, holding that an action is my duty if and only if a virtuous person would perform that action in these circumstances” (151-152).
• “For Aristotle, a virtue is a state that enables its possessor to achieve its function or purpose well . . . Our virtues, then, are the states that enable us to think and act well. When we are functioning well, we are eudiamon, which is usually rendered as happy, though flourishing is a much better Greek translation of that word” (152).
• “The virtue of generosity is a mean between profligacy and stinginess, the virtue of proper pride is a mean between vanity and excessive humility, and so on for the other character virtues. (The intellectual virtues do not have this mean-between-extremes structure . . . episteme, or knowledge, is not a mean between knowing too much and knowing too little” (153).
• “The burden of proof always lies with the one who makes the additional claim, not with those who doubt its truth” (40).
• “While utilitarians would generally endorse killing one person to prevent killing more, members of the school of ethics known as deontology would not. Deontologists judge the morality of an act based on features intrinsic to the act itself, regardless of the consequences stemming from the act” (165).
• “One of the many classic moral dilemmas debated by philosophers is the ‘trolley problem,’ introduced by Philippa Foot and elaborated upon by Judith Jarvis Thomas. Imagine that a trolley car is going down a track. Further down the track are five people who do not hear the trolley and who will not be able to get out of the way. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time to stop the trolley before it hits and kills them. The only way to avoid killing these five people is to switch the trolley to another track. But, unfortunately, there is one person standing on that track, also too close to for the trolley to stop before killing him. Now imagine there is a bystander standing by the track switch who must make a choice: do nothing, which leads to the death of five people on the current track, or act to divert the trolley to the other track, which leads to the death of the single person” (166). This problem illustrates the difference between utilitarian and deontological approaches. The utilitarian would pull the switch to save five people, but the deontologist would not. “This is simply a different way of contrasting the utilitarian’s emphasis on good outcomes with the deontologist’s focus on right action. While throwing the switch to kill the one rather than five may be good, it may not be right (because of that that specific person has to do)” (167) . . . “Thompson introduces several modification to suggest that it does. What if the five people on the track collapsed there drunk early that morning, and the one person on the track is a repairman performing track maintenance for the railroad? The repairman has a right to be there, while the drunkards do not. Would this make us less comfortable about pulling the switch? (168).
• “In the history of philosophy, this sort of weighing, calculating consequentialism is most associated with the doctrine of utilitarianism. Although the basic idea behind utilitarianism has been around forever, the doctrine didn’t really begin to flourish until the work of the English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748-1892) and John Stuart Mill (1806-73). The core idea is simple ‘actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.’ Utilitarianism is built from consequentialism by adding elements, as one adds ingredients to a soup. The first new ingredient is hedonism . . . The other new ingredient is egalitarianism. Everybody’s happiness is weighed equally” (174).
• “One of the most common criticisms of consequentialist doctrines such as utilitarianism is that they are unable to embrace a doctrine of universal human rights” (175).
• “According to deontologist Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), morality begins with the good will. Anything else you might value in life—intelligence, strength, even happiness itself—can be used for evil. The only thing good, really, is the will to do good” (177).
• “Kant taught that we should no do things for the sake of ends, but for the sake of doing the right thing. Still, this does not mean that ‘the right thing’ has to be something simpleminded or rigid. For Kant, doing the right thing meant obeying what he called the ‘categorical imperative,’ a rule he phrased a couple of different ways. The first was to ‘Act as though the maxim of your action were to become, through your will, a universal law of nature’ . . . in the second formulation of his categorical imperative, [Kant writes]: ‘Act in such a way as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of anyone else, always as an end and never merely as a means’” (179).
• “Postmodernism is the philosophical movement that declares an end to stories or narratives that can tell us what life is all about” (184).
• “Nietzsche depicts Christianity as a ‘slave morality.’ Originating among the members of a relatively insignificant ethnic group living under the heel of Roman rule, Christian morality fount its origins in a sentiment both puny and dishonorable—‘resentment’ (ressentiment). Resenting Roman power, members of the Jesus movement argued that it’s really the meek who are blessed” (186).
• “ . . . common heavy metal tropes [can] advance a message of defiant freedom. The inversion of standard ideas of good and evil, the use of demonic perspectives, and blasphemy as a form of rebellion all serve as devices to loosen the grip of Christian authority” (188).
• “According to Neitzsche, morality has never been created through reason, or appeals to civility or practicality, or any other method traditionally described by philosophers. Instead those in power decide what’s good” (195).
• “By shifting the focus of virtue from the body to the soul, slave morality permits anyone to be good, regardless of their worldly circumstances” (200).
• “One key idea of Sartre’s existentialism is that ‘existence precedes essence’ (Satre 438) . . . Satre claims that the meaning of life isn’t something we discover in the world or within ourselves. It’s something we create through the lives we live: it is through our actions and choices that our lives acquire meaning. There is no model ” (205).
• “In bad faith we fool ourselves into believing we have no control over a situation, when actually we do” (205).
• “Sartre calls something that can choose a ‘being-for-itself’ and something which cannot choose a ‘being-in-itself.’ Thus, when we are in bad faith, we’re pretending to be what Sartre calls the in-itself—some object that cannot change—instead of being a person who can” (206).
• “A few decades after Sartre, the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984) appropriated the perfect scenario for such and uncontrolled-controller from the earlier English philosopher Jermey Bentham (1748 – 1832). The scenario was the panopticon. In its original form it was a plan for a highly efficient prison. In the panopticon there is a central tower with obscured class surrounded by stories of cells that only have an opening toward the center tower. The result is that the guard in the tower could be looking at you at any time, but as a prisoner you are unable to see him. As a result the prisoners learn to police themselves. The power, as Foucault puts it, is visible, but unverifiable” (207).
• “In the absolutely radical response to the subject/object, inner/outer world problem that is developed in his major book Being and Time, Heidegger’s claim is that there simply is no meaningful inner/outer world distinction for human existence. On the contrary, Heidegger argues that human existence (to which he gives the technical name Dasein, German for ‘existence’ or, more literally, ‘being there’) is fundamentally always already ‘out there,’ in the world, among things, and outside the self” (215).
• “What is unique about the [feminist] ethic of care is that it promotes ethical deliberation that values the role of emotions—sympathy, empathy, sensitivity—in deciding what the best course of action would be” (227).
• “For de Beauvoir in 1949 France, the tragedy of adolescence in the feminine was its demand that the girl give up both herself and her hold on the world. As she enters womanhood, she learns that she is destined to be a ‘relative being’ whose existence has meaning only in relation to the man who loves her” (230).
• “Postmodernism is a literary and philosophical movement that began in the second half of the twentieth century. The movement suggests that ‘truth’ is merely a social construction—that what we call ‘true’ is just a product of the games we play with language. If this is correct, postmodernism seems to deliver a death blow to ethical and political critique” (238).
• Postmodernism “emphasizes the absence of any real structure to the world or our lives, and of any overarching meaning to our activities. It systematically calls into question our most serious ideas: Truth, Progress, Freedom, Rationality, and the Individual. Instead, postmodernism see the world as disjointed, with pockets of power relations and politics and nothing to unify it all” (238).
• “Modernism is the philosophical movement typically associated with the 17th and 18th century intellectual climate of Europe. The philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is often cited as the father of modern philosophy. Rather than submitting to traditional views ordained by the church, Descartes insisted that we must use rationality to discern the true nature of reality—and in doing this, he contended, we would vastly improve the world. This ideal was perhaps best instantiated by the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant claimed that the use of reason was enabling human beings to come into their own—to develop morally and socially, into something far better than we have ever been before. / These stories of progress–of using Reason to grasp Truth and attain Freedom—are at the very center of modernism. The story of how society and human beings will improve their lot in the universe is what French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998) call a meta-narrative. It is a story that makes sense of every other story—a story that allows us to see the world as a fundamentally unified place with real significance. Post-modernism, on the other hand, concerns the death of such stories. It is infatuated with disunity. Whereas the modernist looked for the unity of things, the postmodernist looks for the difference (or différance, if you’re French).
• “Jean-Jacques Rousseau is credited with thinking that, by nature, man is a compassionate and altruistic creature, and, hence, that the state of nature offers an ideal against which the corruptions of society can be measured” (251).
• “Hobbes is generally interpreted as regarding man as wholly egotistical and suspicious of his fellows” (252).
• “That the accumulated knowledge, science, and technology does not free human beings from labor—that it, in fact, tends to reduce the majority of laborers to a kind of empty, repetitive labor that neither sustains nor develops their abilities—is, for Marx, one of the cruelest paradoxes of the capitalist world” (263).
• “Ethics is concerned with how we treat one another. One approach called deontology says we should never act in ways that treat people as merely means toward our end goals” (268).
• “According to the United Nations, ‘No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” (270).
• “Only .2 percent of human genetic material will differ between any two randomly selected people. Only 6 percent of that .2 percent is due to differences between racial groups, which amounts to .012 percent of all human variation” (281).
• “Many contemporary philosophers take a
February 24, 2022
From the guy who brought you Seinfeld and Philosophy: A book About Everything and Nothing now we get answers to vexing questions such as: What can South Park tell us about Socrates and the nature of evil?; how does The Office help us to understand Sartre and existentialist ethics?; can Battlestar Galactica shed light on the existence of God?
Also, Is Batman a Utilitarian or a Deontologist? If Batman is good why does he kill the Joker? Why does he keep an indentured valet? Chewbacca and Cartman also make appearances, plus their individual relativism vs a Wiki world of cultural relativism.
Put together two of my favourite time-consuming pursuits: Pop Culture and the circular arguments that pass for street philosophy, and this is it.
Not easy-going at times. But fun.
Also, Is Batman a Utilitarian or a Deontologist? If Batman is good why does he kill the Joker? Why does he keep an indentured valet? Chewbacca and Cartman also make appearances, plus their individual relativism vs a Wiki world of cultural relativism.
Put together two of my favourite time-consuming pursuits: Pop Culture and the circular arguments that pass for street philosophy, and this is it.
Not easy-going at times. But fun.
October 25, 2024
I think the topics discussed in this book were interesting and kept my attention and curiosity. The book was based on the philosophy of pop culture. I hadn’t heard about a lot of the topics and they were though provoking. A few times the author did bring up religion and it was obvious he was against it so there definitely was some bias. I didn’t read the whole thing but did read specific chapters for class.
February 8, 2018
Having pop culture helps out quiet a bit with introducing philosophy.
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Chapter 2
Chapter 2
August 10, 2024
This is my least favorite in the “Philosophy and Pop Culture” series. It takes itself far too seriously and turns into a bit of drudgery as a result. There are still things to glean if one is new to philosophy but this one takes effort to get through.
October 1, 2011
I am not a philosophy professor, nor do I ever intend to be. However, IF i was, I would definitely use this book! And if philosophy is taught in high school, this should be required reading. Furthermore, for anyone who read Twilight and thought, "something is not right about this..." read the chapter titled Vampire Love!
August 8, 2014
Library book - attracted. by its cover- enjoyed chapter 18 on Metallica - The immorality of morality
March 21, 2018
I imagine it would be a really great teaching resource, and it was helpful for revision of topics I haven't looked at in a while, or have't done in much detail.
November 15, 2016
Not as interesting as it sounded
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