[Popular Culture and Philosophy 01] • Seinfeld and Philosophy by Irwin, William -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Popular Culture and Philosophy Series Editor: George A. Reisch Title Page Dedication Preface Monologue Act I - The Characters, aka “The New York Four”

1 - Jerry and Socrates: The Examined Life?

The Jerry Problem and The Socratic Problem The Life and Death of Socrates Jerry and Socrates, Flies on a Horse’s Ass The Fates of Socrates and Seinfeld

2 - George’s Failed Zest for Happiness: An Aristotelian Analysis

3 - Elaine Benes: Feminist Icon or Just One of the Boys?

Is She a Feminist? Elaine and Feminist Ethics Elaine’s Dating Ethics Elaine’s Moral Character

4 - Kramer and Kierkegaard: Stages on Life’s Way

Kramer, Despair, and the Aesthetic Stage Kramer, Aestheticism, and “Crop Rotation” Kramer the “Seducer” Kramer and the Ethical Kramer and the Religious Conclusion

Act II - Seinfeld and the Philosophers

5 - Making Something out of Nothing: Seinfeld, Sophistry, and the Tao

Seinfeld and the Problem of a Show about Nothing Parmenides, Plato, and Nothing The Tao of Seinfeld Was it a Show about Nothing?

6 - Plato or Nietzsche?: Time, Essence, and Eternal Recurrence in Seinfeld

Time as a Problem Recurrence in Seinfeld Plato and the Changing vs. the Unchanging The Seinfeldians as Fixed Essences

7 - Seinfeld, Subjectivity, and Sartre

8 - Wittgenstein and Seinfeld on the Commonplace

Philosophical Investigations Seinfeld Philosophical Investigations, Again Seinfeld, Again Musicalizing the Commonplace Finale

Act III - Untimely Meditations by the Water Cooler

Reason and Right Three Kinds of Rationality Getting What You Want What are the Odds? Long-Term Feasibility Impulse Problems Indeterminacy of the Opposite [Cue Bass]

10 - Peterman and the Ideological Mind: Paradoxes of Subjectivity

Ideology I Laugh, Therefore I Buy Mr. Peterman, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Me

11 - The Secret of Seinfeld’s Humor: The Significance of the Insignificant

Comedy, Tragedy, and Seinfeld “The Outing”: Queering Seinfeld? What’s so Funny about That?

Act IV - Is There Anything Wrong with That?

12 - Seinfeld and the Moral Life

The Moral Life The Pursuit of the Moral Life in Seinfeld Some Considerations Conclusion

13 - Virtue Ethics in TV’s Seinfeld

Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics Jerry, George, and Aristotle? Elaine, Kramer, and Newman: Not Wise

14 - The Final Episode: Is Doing Nothing Something?

Good Samaritans and Common Law Minimally Decent Samaritans and Uncommon Law Crime and Character

EPISODE GUIDE A CHRONOLOGY OF SOME BIG-TIME PHILOSOPHERS NOTES ON THE SCRIPT WRITERS, AKA THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME Index of Everything Copyright Page