World-Breaker Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, and the Divine in FX’s Legion Darian Shump First introduced in March 1985, David Haller, son of the X-Men’s Charles Xavier, has always been depicted as a troubled soul. As a child, his telepathic powers were triggered by a terrorist attack upon his home, obliterating the minds of the attackers and…
Questioning Innovation and Shark Tank By Roger Hunt A Rosy Picture: The Sharks are good TV. They are super cool, wicked smart, friendly, honest. They treat everyone who comes on the show like the friend that person needs. In fact, it would be awesome if every entrepreneur had a friend like one of the…
Rick and Morty: Meaning in a Meaningless Multiverse by Danny Krämer The American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars diagnosed a conflict between what he called “the scientific and the manifest image of man-in-the-world.” The scientific image contains things like quarks, bosons, and black holes. By contrast, the “manifest image” is our everyday way of viewing the world…
“I Simply Must Get Rid of Him” Peep Show and the Philosophy of Friendship By Tiddy Smith Peep Show follows the lives of flatmates, Mark and Jeremy, the hopeless and socially bumbling “El Dude Brothers”. Each man is exceptionally dysfunctional in his own way: Mark is a hopeless pessimist, plagued by self-doubt and incapable…
Wayne: An Exploration of Justice Porn By Caleb McGee Husmann “I know it when I see it.” When tasked with providing a definition for pornography during the Jacobellis v. Ohio case, this is what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart came up with. Some applauded him for being frank and realistic, others chastised him for being…
Way Past Cool Sonic and Robotnik’s Symbiosis of Absurdity Ashley L. Whitaker Celebrating 30 years of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2021, Paramount Pictures unleashed a live-action film where the blue hedgehog’s supersonic speed and electrifying energy in the film become his arch-nemesis Dr. Robotnik’s bounty. In the games, comic books, and cartoons in the Sonic…
When the Golden Rule Fails Larry David’s Ethics in Curb Your Enthusiasm By Justin Kitchen Curb your Enthusiasm is a TV series broadcast on HBO, created, produced, starring and co-written by Larry David and returning for a tenth season this year. Larry plays a fictionalized version of himself and the show revolves around his…
Call for Abstracts The Expanse and Philosophy Edited by Jeffery Nicholas With a foreword by the creator, James S.A. Corey The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 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. We are looking…
No Exit from Black Mirror Philosophy, Morality, and Decision Making in the Multiverse Listen to David Kyle Johnson discuss all these topics and more on the Black Mirror Cracked podcast. Click here to hear.
Enacting Reflection Through Sci-fi Black Mirror & Philosophy Sergio Urueña Editor’s Note: In the following, Sergio Urueña outlines how some Black Mirror stories—the ones that seem to have a certain dose of reality wrapped in halos of fantasy—not only tell something about our social realities but could also shape reality itself. Science Fiction & Philosophy How…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 