Description
Book SynopsisDesigned for philosophers as well as readers with no particular philosophical background, the essays in this lively book are grouped into four amusing acts. Act One looks at the four Seinfeld characters through a philosophical lens and includes Jerry and Socrates: The Examined Life? Act Two examines historical philosophers from a Seinfeldian standpoint and offers Plato or Nietzsche? Time, Essence, and Eternal Recurrence in Seinfeld. Act Three, Untimely Meditations by the Water Cooler, explores philosophical issues raised by the show, such as, Is it rational for George to do the opposite? And Act Four, Is There Anything Wrong with That?, discusses ethical problems of everyday life using Seinfeld as a basis. Seinfeld and Philosophy also provides a guide to Seinfeld episodes and a chronological list of the philosophers cited in this book.
Table of ContentsMonologue - Seinfeld, the Field of Being, William Irwin. Act One - The Characters, AKA the New York Four: Jerry and Socrates - the Examined Life?, William Irwin; George's Failed Quest for Happiness - an Aristotelian Analysis, Daniel Barwick; Elaine - Feminist Icon or Just One of the Boys?, Sarah Worth; Kramer and Kierkegaard - Stages on Life's Way, William Irwin. Act Two - Seinfeld and the Philosophers: Making Something Out of Nothing - Seinfeld, Sophistry, and the Tao, Eric Bronson; Plato or Nietzsche? Time, Essence, and Eternal Recurrence in Seinfeld, Mark Conard; Seinfeld, Subjectivity, and Sartre, Jennifer McMahon; Seinfeld and Wittgenstein on the Commonplace, Kelly Dean Jolley. Act Three - Untimely Meditations by the Water Cooler: The Costanza Manoeuvre - Is it Rational for George to "Do the Opposite"?, Jason Holt; Peterman and the Ideological Mind - Paradoxes of Subjectivity, Norah Martin; Comedy and the Insignificant, Jorge J.E. Gracia. Act Four - Is There Anything Wrong With That?: Seinfeld and the Moral Life, Robert Epperson; Virtue Ethics and TV's Seinfeld, Aeon J. Skoble; Ethics in the Final Episode - Is Doing Nothing Something?, Theodore J. Schick Jr. Appendices: Episode Guide; A Chronology of Philosophers.
