Introducing philosophy through pop culture : from Socrates to South Park, Hume to House
INITIAL_TITLE_SRCH:
Introducing philosophy through pop culture : from Socrates to South Park, Hume to House
AUTHOR:
Irwin, William, 1970-
Johnson, David Kyle.
ISBN:
9781444334531
PUBLICATION_INFO:
Chichester, UK : Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
PHYSICAL_DESC:
viii, 368 p. ; 25 cm
CONTENTS:
Flatulence and philosophy : a lot of hot air, or the corruption of youth? / The Chewbacca defense : a South Park logic lesson / Wikiality, truthiness, and gut thinking : doing philosophy Colbert-style / You know, I learned something today : Stan Marsh and the ethics of belief / Tumbling down the rabbit hole : knowledge, reality, and the pit of skepticism / Adama's true lie : Earth and the problem of knowledge / Mind and body in Zion / Amnesia, personal identity, and the many lives of Wolverine / Destiny in the wizarding world / The Terminator wins : is the extinction of the human race the end of people, or just the beginning? / Cartmanland and the problem of evil / Aquinas and Rose on faith and reason / "I am an instrument of God" : religious belief, atheism, and meaning / Plato on Gyges' ring of invisibility : the power of Heroes and the value of virtue / The virtues of humor : what The office can teach us about Aristotle's ethics / Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker? / Means, ends, and the critique of pure superheroes
Metallica, Nietzsche, and Marx : the immorality of morality / When machines get souls : Nietzsche on the cylon uprising / Being-in-The-office : Sartre, the look, and the viewer / Batman's confrontation with death, angst, and freedom / "You care for everybody" : Cameron's ethics of care / Vampire love : the second sex negotiates the twenty-first century / Killing the Griffins : a murderous exposition of postmodernism / Lost's state of nature / Laughter between distraction and awakening : Marxist themes in The office / The ethics of torture in 24 : shockingly banal / Mutants and the metaphysics of race / Zen and the art of cylon maintenance / The sound of one House clapping : the unmannerly doctor as Zen rhetorician / The tao of the bat / Beyond Godric's hollow : life after death and the search for meaning / Selfish, base animals crawling across the earth : House and the meaning of life
ABSTRACT:
"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 philosophers. With 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 grasp. This unique, thorough introduction to philosophy features essays from the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, as well as newly-commissioned chapters. From metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself"-- Provided by publisher.
SUBJECT:
| Philosophy and civilization. |
| Popular culture -- Philosophy. |
BIBSUMMARY:
"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 philosophers. With 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 grasp. This unique, thorough introduction to philosophy features essays from the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, as well as newly-commissioned chapters. From metaphysics to epistemology; from ethics to the meaning of life, Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture makes philosophy as engaging as popular culture itself"--