Группа авторов
Список книг автора Группа авторовChuck Klosterman and Philosophy
Since he burst on the world with his heavy-metal memoir Fargo Rock City in 2001, Chuck Klosterman has been one of the most successful novelists and essayists in America. His collections of essays Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas have established Klosterman not only as a credible spokesman for intelligent purveyors of popular culture. His writings and regular columns (in Spin, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine and other venues) about music, sports, and modern culture have sometimes become themselves touchstones in popular culture. The success of his card-based game Hypertheticals: 50 Questions for Insane Conversations has demonstrated that Klosterman can connect with his fans and readers even off the printed page.As he writes in his contribution to this book, Klosterman “enjoys writing about big, unwieldy ideas” as they circulate in culture, in people, in music, and in sports. The twenty-two other philosophers writing alongside Klosterman couldn’t agree more. They offer their own take on the concepts and puzzles that fascinate him and take up many of Chuck’s various challenges to answer brain-twisting «hypertheticals» or classic ethical quandaries that would arise if, say, Aristotle wandered backstage at a Kiss concert.
The Walking Dead and Philosophy
Rick, Lori, Shane, Carl, Dale, Andrea, and Michonne–human survivors of a zombie apocalypse–don't know much about philosophy, but philosophical ideas continue to shamble on through their world, and there's no excape from them.The Walking Dead is both a hugely successful comics series and a popular TV show. This epic story of a zombie apocalypse is unique. It focuses on the long-term individual, social, and moral consequences of survival by small groups of humans in a world overrun by infected zombies.Guns, chainsaws, and machetes are not enough for survival: humans also need agreement on rules of conduct. Can equality or fairness have any polace in the post-apocalyptic world? Do theft or even assault and murder become okay under desperate circumstances? Who should be recognized as having political authority? What about eating human flesh? Should survivors have children?As zombies have low IQs, terrible manners, and the overpowering urge to eat people, do they have any rights at all? Am I still me if I become a zombie? Do zombies know anything? are they rational? Would it be ethical to train a zombie and keep it as a pet? What the heck are P-zombies? And why would we all jump at the chance
Neil Gaiman and Philosophy
Neil Gaiman is the imaginative wizard behind the best-selling novels American Gods (soon to be an HBO series) and The Anansi Boys, the graphic series The Sandman, and popular children’s books like Coraline and The Graveyard Book. Neil Gaiman and Philosophy looks at Gaiman’s work through a philosophical lens. How does fantasy interact with reality and what can each tell us about the other? Do we each have other selves who embody different personal qualities? If the unknown influences the known, is the unknown just as real as the known? What makes people truly valuable? In Neil Gaiman and Philosophy, eighteen philosophers explore Gaiman’s best-loved and unforgettable worlds: The Graveyard Book, a macabre parallel to The Jungle Book, in which the boy Bod is raised by the supernatural inhabitants of a graveyard.Coraline, in which a girl neglected by her parents finds another world with an Other Mother who pays her a lot of attention, but then turns out to be evil and won’t let her go. Neverwhere, in which a London man discovers a magical parallel city, London Below. The Sandman, best-selling comic books in which the Lord of Dreams attempts to rebuild his kingdom after years of imprisonment.Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett) treats biblical prophecy, the Antichrist, and the End Times as a hilarious comic tale, filled with sly but good-humored twists and turns.MirrorMask, where a young circus girl finds that the pictures she has drawn have given her access to a fantastic world of light and shadow, populated with characters who have designs on her.
Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy
In a promotional video for the eighth season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David appears as Godzilla, walking through the streets of New York City, terrorizing everyone who sees him. People scream and run for their lives. Larry, meanwhile, has a quizzical look on his face and asks, “What, are you people nuts?”What makes Larry a monster, and why doesn’t he know that he’s a monster? Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy discusses several answers to these questions.This book revolves around Curb-Larry, the character that the real Larry David plays on HBO’s popular television series: his outlook on life, his unusual ways of interacting with people, his inability or unwillingness to conform to the world. Many of the chapters discuss ethical and existential issues, such as whether Larry is a “bad apple.”Larry doesn’t ask questions about free will, or wonder whether the world outside our minds really exists because he’s more like Socrates than Descartes. He tells bitter truths about how we live our lives. There's something heroic about Larry's independence from social conventions, and something tragic about his tendency to hurt people with his frankness. It's hard not to ask, should we curb our enthusiasm?
Monty Python and Philosophy
From the 1970s cult TV show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, to the current hit musical [i]Spamalot, the Monty Python comedy troupe has been at the center of popular culture and entertainment. The Pythons John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam are increasingly recognized and honored for their creativity and enduring influence in the worlds of comedy and film. Monty Python and Philosophy extends that recognition into the world of philosophy. Fifteen experts in topics like mythology, Buddhism, feminism, logic, ethics, and the philosophy of science bring their expertise to bear on Python movies such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Flying Circus mainstays such as the Argument Clinic, the Dead Parrot Sketch, and, of course, the Bruces, the Pythons’ demented, song-filled vision of an Australian philosophy department. Monty Python and Philosophy follows the same hit format as the other titles in this popular series and explains all the philosophical concepts discussed in laymen’s terms.
What Philosophy Can Tell You About Your Lover
Be warned—in your journey through this volume you will encounter many true stories. Some will make you laugh, others could make you cry, and all are enough to thoroughly embarrass the authors. These stories would never be allowed to see the light of day if they did not open the door to important truths about love. The authors speak to you, sometimes in their own voices, sometimes through dialogue, and sometimes through fiction. You will recognize yourself in their struggles and triumphs. Can the good life be attained without true love? What is jealousy? Is it possible to be a feminist and a heterosexual lover at the same time? What is the logic of the lovers’ quarrel? Is rough sex immoral? Is pornography a great lover’s friend or a foe? What did Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Russell, Beauvoir, and other great geniuses of Western history have to say about what goes on under the boardwalk? Is there any freedom in love? Is erotic desire a function of body or spirit? What is the best kind of love? Is there such a thing as a soul mate? You will have to face these questions and more when you dare to ask what philosophy can tell you about your lover. Everyone who has experienced it knows that romantic love truly is a “crazy little thing.” It keeps us awake at night and makes us do things we would never have dreamed we were capable of. In this volume twenty-five philosophy professors are gathered together to discuss various connections between romantic love and philosophy. They have left their tweed jackets and spectacles behind. It is as though you have run into them by chance at a bar in some far away city where they are at ease, ready to tell you what they really think. Perhaps you have taken a few philosophy classes, or perhaps you always kind of wanted to. This is your chance to enjoy some deep reflection on one of life’s greatest mysteries without any of the scholarly jargon, the academic pretenses, or the impossible exams. This volume will explain the lasting value of their ideas in simple, modern terms without the use of a single footnote.
Pink Floyd and Philosophy
With their early experiments in psychedelic rock music in the 1960s, and their epic recordings of the 1970s and '80s, Pink Floyd became one of the most influential and recognizable rock bands in history. As «The Pink Floyd Sound,» the band created sound and light shows that defined psychedelia in England and inspired similar movements in the Jefferson Airplane's San Francisco and Andy Warhol's New York City. The band's subsequent recordings forged rock music's connections to orchestral music, literature, and philosophy. «Dark Side of the Moon» and «The Wall» ignored pop music's ordinary topics to focus on themes such as madness, existential despair, brutality, alienation, and socially induced psychosis. They also became some of the best-selling recordings of all time. In this collection of essays, sixteen scholars expert in various branches of philosophy set the controls for the heart of the sun to critically examine the themes, concepts, and problems—usually encountered in the pages of Heidegger, Foucault, Sartre, or Orwell—that animate and inspire Pink Floyd's music. These include the meaning of existence, the individual's place in society, the interactions of knowledge and power in education, the contradictions of art and commerce, and the blurry line—the tragic line, in the case of Floyd early member Syd Barrett (died in 2006)—between genius and madness. Having dominated pop music for nearly four decades, Pink Floyd's dynamic and controversial history additionally opens the way for these authors to explore controversies about intellectual property, the nature of authorship, and whether wholes—especially in the case of rock bands—are more than the sums of their parts.
Facebook and Philosophy
Facebook and Philosophy is an entertaining, multi-faceted exploration of what Facebook means for us and for our relationships. With discussions ranging from the nature of friendship and its relationship to «friending,» to the (debatable) efficacy of «online activism,» this book is the most extensive and systematic attempt to understand Facebook yet. And with plenty of new perspectives on Twitter and Web 2.0 along the way, this fun, thought-provoking book is a serious and significant contribution for anyone working with social media, whether in academia, journalism, public relations, activism, or business. Exploring far-reaching questions — Can our interactions on Facebook help us care about each other more? Does Facebook signal the death of privacy, or (perhaps worse yet) the death of our desire for privacy? — Facebook and Philosophy is vital reading for anyone involved in social networks today.
Breaking Bad and Philosophy
Breaking Bad, hailed by Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and many others as the best of all TV dramas, tells the story of a man whose life changes because of the medical death sentence of an advanced cancer diagnosis. The show depicts his metamorphosis from inoffensive chemistry teacher to feared drug lord and remorseless killer. Driven at first by the desire to save his family from destitution, he risks losing his family altogether because of his new life of crime. In defiance of the tradition that viewers demand a TV character who never changes, Breaking Bad is all about the process of change, with each scene carrying forward the morphing of Walter White into the terrible Heisenberg. Can a person be transformed as the result of a few key life choices? Does everyone have the potential to be a ruthless criminal? How will we respond to the knowledge that we will be dead in six months? Is human life subject to laws as remorseless as chemical equations? When does injustice validate brutal retaliation? Why are drug addicts unsuitable for operating the illegal drug business? How can TV viewers remain loyal to a series where the hero becomes the villain? Does Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty rule our destinies? In Breaking Bad and Philosophy, a hand-picked squad of professional thinkers investigate the crimes of Walter White, showing how this story relates to the major themes of philosophy and the major life decisions facing all of us.
Peter Singer Under Fire
One of the leading ethical thinkers of the modern age, Peter Singer has repeatedly been embroiled in controversy. Protesters in Germany closed down his lectures, mistakenly thinking he was advocating Nazi views on eugenics. Conservative publisher Steve Forbes withdrew generous donations to Princeton after Singer was appointed professor of bioethics. His belief that infanticide is sometimes morally justified has appalled people from all walks of life. Peter Singer Under Fire gives a platform to his critics on many contentious issues. Leaders of the disability rights group Not Dead Yet attack Singer’s views on disability and euthanasia. Economists criticize the effectiveness of his ideas for solving global poverty. Philosophers expose problems in Singer’s theory of utilitarianism and ethicists refute his position on abortion. Singer’s engaging “Intellectual Autobiography” explains how he came by his controversial views, while detailed replies to each critic reveal further surprising aspects of his unique outlook.