Wheel of Time and Philosophy How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Originality and Love Robert Jordan Jacob M. Held Roughly six years ago, a friend of mine asked if I was familiar with the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I wasn’t, but I was informed by others that I should be. “Jake,…
I don’t know if this video was really made by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. But even if it wasn’t, it’s a pretty funny accompaniment to Alan Watts. You might also like: View the complete list of books:
By William Irwin, David Kyle Johnson published Inception and Philosophy a couple of years ago and delivered a terrific talk about it at Google. I’m a big fan of the films of Christopher Nolan, including Inception and Memento, but I had never noticed Nolan’s unique take on the femme fatale until I read this blog by…
By William Irwin I’m currently working on BioShock and Philosophy with volume editor Luke Cuddy. So far I’ve seen some terrific papers on personal identity, freedom, and possible worlds. I think it’s clear that some video games are works of art that are worthy of philosophical attention. It looks like I’m not alone in this…
By William Irwin I haven’t seen the new Robocop movie, but from the sound of this blog the movie was self consciously philosophical with characters named after contemporary philosophers of mind Daniel Dennett and Hubert Dreyfus.
John Candy and Philosophy Harry Crumb Meets Edmund Gettier David Kyle Johnson A friend of mine on Facebook (Chris Heimsoth) posted a request for his friends’ “favorite John Candy movie.” I immediately suggested Who’s Harry Crumb?, one of Candy’s lesser known comedies that I grew up on (because it happened to be on the same…
American Horror Story and Philosophy Can Horror Stories Have Happy Endings? Benjamin W. McCraw Unlike fairy tales, the protagonist of a horror story/movie doesn’t really live ‘happily ever after’ due to the carnage, death, and destruction often bobbing the wake of the struggle to survive the ordeal and slay the evil demon/ghost/monster/killer/alien/whatever. The hero/ine comes…
Queensrÿche and Philosophy The Metaphysics of Rock Groups William Irwin I’m going to see Queensrÿche in concert in July. Or am I? The band split into two Queensrÿches when the original lead singer, Geoff Tate, was fired in 2012. On April 17, 2014 the court ruled that the non-Tate version of the band has the…
House of Cards and Philosophy Why Write about Popular Culture J. Edward Hackett Philosophy is everywhere, but it conceals itself, hidden behind the debates internal to its own activities. There are many reasons why philosophy does not have a higher profile in the wider culture. Let me just suggest a few: First, philosophy is not…
X-Men and Philosophy The Metaphysical Daze of Future Past? Christian Cotton The newest installment in the X-Men movie franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past, presents us with a classic philosophical conundrum: time travel. This go-round, though, instead of time traveling bodies, we’re treated to a time traveling consciousness. Wolverine’s body stays put in the present…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 