August 27, 2010

Interview with James B. South

James B. South, co-editor of Mad Men and Philosophy, was interviewed for this piece on Mad Men — in Danish! Any Danish speakers out there?

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August 26, 2010

Magical Menagerie on The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy

[The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy] explores many of the themes that are present in the Harry Potter books, such as morality, choice, freedom, racism, love and the soul in a fun way by relating them to Harry Potter. [...] The book even pointed out a few things that I, a Harry Potter encyclopedia as some friends call me, had never noticed before.  So that is definitely a bonus!  Most of the contributors for this book definitely know their Potter and it shows in their understanding and love of JK Rowling’s wonderful world.

Read the full review on Magical Menagerie.

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August 23, 2010

Contributor Christopher Robichaud on Spider-Man and moral responsibility

Does Peter Parker Have a Moral Responsibility to Be Spider-Man? Series contributor Christopher Robichaud answers:

Often, Peter wonders whether he should remain Spider-Man. The role taxes him significantly, hurting his studies and his personal life. Is Peter morally permitted to throw in his costume?

I believe that he is. Taking up the role of a superhero is a supererogatory act—an act that’s good to do, but not wrong not to do. If we were consequentialists and thought that the rightness and wrongness of actions depends entirely on the good or bad outcomes produced, we would believe that Peter is morally obligated to be Spider-Man, at least on the assumption that being a superhero produces more overall good than being a good scientist, boyfriend, etc. As appealing as consequentialism might seem at first blush, it’s riddled with problems.

Read the whole answer at Heather Wax’s blog.

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August 19, 2010

James B. South at Boswell Book Company

James B. South, editor of Mad Men and Philosophy, will be appearing at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, September 28th at 7 PM.

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August 17, 2010

Publishers Weekly on True Blood and Philosophy

Can John Locke’s memory theory explain the nature of vampire identity? Is there a PETA message buried in True Blood’s take on vampire-human relations? These and other biting issues constitute the smart and amusing essays in the latest William Irwin-edited Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series (after Mad Men and Philosophy). Authors invoke the likes of Kant, Sartre, and Freud and approach their topics with the seriousness of a devoted fan balanced with the levity and wit the series is known for.

Read the whole review at Publishers Weekly.

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August 16, 2010

Announcing Inception and Philosophy

We’re very pleased to announce the newest title in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, Inception and Philosophy. The science fiction thriller, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, took the #1 box office spot for three weeks after its release. The complex, mind-altering plot and stunning visuals make it popular among viewers and a natural fit for And Philosophy.

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• “Their dream has become their reality”: Inception and Nozick’s Experience Machine
• “How did you get here?” Can We Tell if We are Dreaming?
• Your Very Own Token: Solving the Skeptical Problem with a Spinning Top
• “They come to be woken up”: If Life is a Dream, Does it Matter?
• Living in Limbo: Convenient Dreams vs. Inconvenient Reality
• Is That Your Idea? A New Kind of Skeptical Problem
• Self, Mind, and Free Will: Could Your Brain be an Inceptor?
• Is the top still spinning? Does an Author’s Intent Matter?
• “An idea is like a virus”: The Power of Ideas
• “Take a leap of faith”: Is it Ever Acceptable to Believe without Evidence?
• “Only a fraction of our brain’s potential”: Separating Myth from Reality
• Penrose Steps: The Possibility of Paradox
• Real Life Inception: The Challenge of Changing People’s Minds
• “Your mind is the scene of the crime”: The Ethics of Inception
• What is a Dream Made Of? The Nature of Mind
• Is Shared Dreaming Possible? The Problem of Neural Interpretation
• Shared Dreaming and the Problem of Other Minds
• The Nature of Free Will: Inception in Frankfurt-style Counterexamples
• Could Cobb be Insane? Demons, Dreamers & Madmen
• The Nature of Time: Time Moves More Slowly, the Further Down You Go
• Populating a Dream with Your Sub-conscious: Split Minds and Personal Identity

You can submit an abstract at the And Philosophy website.

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August 13, 2010

BBC examines philosophical questions that arise from Superheroes and Comic books

For years, fans of the Batman comics have puzzled over a mystery at the heart of the series: why doesn’t Batman just kill his arch-nemesis, the murderous Joker?

The two have engaged in a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse. The Joker commits a crime, Batman catches him, the Joker is locked up, and then invariably escapes.

Wouldn’t all this be much simpler if Batman just killed the Joker? What’s stopping him?

Enter philosopher Immanuel Kant and the deontological theory of ethics.

Read the full article on BBC

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August 9, 2010

Time’s take on Mad Men and Philosophy and the Philosophy series

Don Draper, meet Friedrich Nietzsche. You might not think that the fictional ad exec from the critically acclaimed AMC drama Mad Men and the German philosopher have much in common, but consider this: Nietzsche believed happiness requires that a person forget the past in order to act boldly in the present — a methodology that Draper, who has denied his past by stealing a dead man’s identity, seems to embrace.

That allusion, and more, come from Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems — a book of essays that examines the show through a philosophical lens. In it, philosophy professors reference classic works of philosophy by the likes of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Simone de Beauvoir to explore topics like Draper’s identity crisis, the ethical lapses of the advertising business and the burgeoning feminism of the 1960s. For readers of a bloodier bent, there’s also a companion to HBO’s Southern Gothic vampire series, called — Freudian primal instincts, anyone? — True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You, which examines, for example, whether John Locke’s theories on an individual’s right to life, liberty and property should be expanded to include the undead.

Read the full article at Time.com

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August 6, 2010

Mad Men and Philosophy on vvb32 reads

In-a-word(s): remembering and forgetting

As a fan, I enjoyed reading this somewhat in-depth look into this tv series, Mad Men. I liked learning about the possible meanings and reasons for the portrayal of the different characters and settings.

Read the full article at VVB32 Reads

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August 2, 2010

Review: True Blood and Philosophy on readreactreview.com

If you read these volumes with the same expectations you would have for an issue of peer reviewed academic journal, you aren’t being fair.  I suppose some critics object to using examples from popular culture to teach philosophy (and by “teach”, I mean both in formal settings like classrooms, and the kind of self-teaching average fans might do when they pick up such books at Borders). That may be because they think popular culture is harmful (we should all be reading Proust instead), or because they don’t think using popular culture to teach philosophy works.

I have no comment on the former, but for the latter I will need to see some argument. What I know, after being in the front of a philosophy classroom for 12 years, is that starting from a place where students feel knowledgeable and comfortable can work very well to introduce them to a subject they have likely never directly encountered, a subject which in the absence of direct knowledge, signifies for many students obsolescence and irrelevance … if it signifies anything at all.

Read the full article at Readreactreview.com.

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