Black Sabbath and Existentialism

The essay below originally appears as Chapter of Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality. Beyond Good and Evil Facing your Demons with Black Sabbath and Existentialism William Irwin You know about the lost Black Sabbath album, right? They recorded it with Ozzy in 1999, but legal battles kept it from being released. It was supposed…

Furiosa and Philosophy

Furiosa and Philosophy Matthew P. Meyer and David Koepsell George Miller’s Furiosa tells the backstory of the character we first met in Fury Road. As in the other Mad Max films, characters, including Furiosa, confront alternatives that stand in stark contrast to each other as modes of adapting to the Wasteland. So the choices made…

Metallica and the Freedom to Roam

Metallica and the Freedom to Roam William Irwin *This essay is excerpted and adapted from The Meaning of Metallica: Ride the Lyrics. Metallica means freedom, and “Wherever I May Roam” is a declaration of individual independence, a freedom manifesto. The song starts with sitar, evoking visions of the far East, but this is an American…

Rick and Morty: Meaning in a Meaningless Multiverse

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…

Review of Westworld and Philosophy

Review of Westworld and Philosophy Scott McLemee Philosophers and screenwriters follow the conundrum in different directions, of course, but Westworld displays a surprising awareness of where the philosophical discussion has already gone. The viewer may feel compelled to humanize the hosts — to imagine the androids as somehow, at some level of complexity, generating an interiority, a…

Free Market Fight Club

Free Market Fight Club by William Irwin I am Jack’s being-for-itself. I consider myself a free market existentialist. As an existentialist, I believe in individual freedom and responsibility. I believe that we get to define ourselves, if we’re willing to make the effort. As Tyler Durden says in Fight Club, “We are defined by the choices we…