Midnight Mass Merits in Morally Ambiguous Media By Tylor Cunningham Often, interpretive disagreements about artworks are the very things that make those works interesting and worth engaging in further. When two people pull seemingly contradictory themes or messages from a story, that’s an opportunity to come together and compare notes; to see if there’s something…
Tove Jansson’s Moomins: Just Stories? Peter West In this short discussion of the Moomins and philosophy, I want to do two things. First, I want to point out some obvious instances of philosophy at work in the Moomins. Second, I want to suggest that the way Tove Jansson treats the relation between fiction and reality…
Moana and the Wonder of Disney Philosophy Tyler Shores All of philosophy begins with a question. And every good story begins with a question. In Moana (2016) the seemingly straightforward question is: “What if … we fished beyond the reef?” Inspiring feelings of wonder, the question becomes the catalyst for a tale of mythology, philosophical…
30 Years of Master of Puppets and Philosophy “Honesty is my only excuse” By William Irwin It was 30 years ago today, March 3, 1986, and I was about to turn sixteen. Actually, I remember hearing “Battery” for the first time on my friend Joe’s boom box weeks earlier. He had taped it off…
Plato and the Groundhog Michael Ventimiglia People are always surprised when I mention my favorite holiday. There’s no party in Times Square. No fireworks or barbeques. It doesn’t come with presents. It’s the sort of day you forget about until someone reminds you, and then you forget about it again. But, for me, it’s my…
Inside Out and Philosophy What Does it Mean to be Okay? By Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) hinges on a tough adjustment faced by eleven-year-old Riley when her parents decide to move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco. This is a very simple event, a change from one place…
Check out Mark Edmundson on Louis C.K. and Plato over at VQR. Click here.
Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy The Pleasures and Perils of Revenge (Part I) George A. Dunn “And where the offense is, let the great ax fall.” ~ Claudius in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V In this current and final season of Sons of Anarchy, one thing has become unmistakably clear: Jax Teller’s…
Shark Tank and Philosophy: Mr. Wonderful and Plato’s Pursuit of Truth Brandon Kirby Plato taught us to have reverence for mathematics. He saw it as the pathway to truth. The inscription above the Academy read, Let none ignorant of geometry enter here. On Shark Tank (and the Canadian version of the show, Dragons’ Den) Kevin…
The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 