‘The Simpsons’ as Philosophy

		<a href='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9cd87eb&cb=890009661' target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.truthdig.com/banners/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=1&cb=890009661&n=a9cd87eb' border='0' alt='' /></a>	February 17, 2012 Log in / Register
			Text Size

Past Events Upcoming Events

The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2

Comes the Revolution

Apple's China Comes Home to Haunt Us

'Losing' the World: American Decline in Perspective, Part 1

What's Really at Stake in 2012

Interracial Love Is No Societal Cure-All
By Marcia Alesan Dawkins

Comes the Revolution
By Richard Reeves

Pay Close Attention to China
By Eugene Robinson

Will We Choose a Chinese Future?
By David Sirota

Gay Marriage Bill Awaits Governor’s Call in N.J.

Target Knows Your Secrets

OWS Might Get a Super PAC

Gore: End Quarterly Reporting, Save the World

Russian Authorities Aren’t Toying Around

Consumer Agency Puts Debt, Credit Companies on Notice

Putin on Trial ... Almost

‘Colbert Report’: Contraception Crusade

Boehner: Time to Stop Playing ‘Political Games’ With the Tax Cut Bill

‘Freedom Watch’ Goes Dark

This Gay Man Represented the President
By Mel White

Whither ‘Colbert Report’?

Herman Cain Will Not Dance With the Stars

Giving Famous Nudes the Photoshop Treatment

The Questions Education Reformers Aren’t Asking

Dig led by Mike Rose

Financial Meltdown 101

A Dig compiled by the editors of Truthdig

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
$26.00

The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future

By Robert Darnton
$16.29

Ringer T

$23

‘The Simpsons’ as Philosophy

From the BBC

The writers of “The Simpsons” have been expertly and playfully inserting philosophical treatises into their shows for years.

The BBC takes a look at the philosophy of the show: “It’s not that the Simpsons is atheist propaganda; its main target is not belief in God or the supernatural, but the arrogance of particular organised religions that they, amazingly, know the will of the creator.”

BBC:

The Simpsons is more than a funny cartoon, it reveals truths about human nature that rival the observations of great philosophers from Plato to Kant… while Homer sets his house on fire, says philosopher Julian Baggini.

With the likes of Douglas Coupland, George Walden and Stephen Hawking as fans, taking the Simpsons seriously is no longer outre but de rigeur.

It is, quite simply, one of the greatest cultural artefacts of our age. So great, in fact, that it not only reflects and plays with philosophical ideas, it actually does real philosophy, and does it well.

Link

More Below the Ad