Philosophy and Terry Pratchett

by Held, Jacob M.; South, James B.

• ISBN13: 9781137360151
• ISBN10: 1137360151
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-12-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

It's time to pick up your fedora and embark on a philosophical journey through Discworld!

Terry Pratchett is world-famous for the narrative verve and surreal humour of his novels. But now meet another Terry Pratchett – a man of serious metaphysical ideas and sophisticated philosophical insights. In Philosophy and Terry Pratchett thirteen professional philosophers survey such key philosophical issues as personal identity, the nature of destiny, the value of individuality, the meaning of existentialism, the reality of universals and the existence of alternative realities. In considering these and many other equally fascinating themes, close reference is made to more than 35 Discworld novels as well as to the ideas of some of history's greatest philosophers including Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and Rawls.

During your journey, you will be surprised by numerous provocative conclusions including the startling claim that the existence of Discworld is logically possible!

Author Biography

Jacob M. Held is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas, USA. His previous works include Dr. Seuss and Philosophy: Oh, the Thinks You can Think!, Roald Dahl and Philosophy: A Little Nonsense Now and Then, and most recently, with Lindsay Coleman, The Philosophy of Pornography: Contemporary Perspectives.

James B. South is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University, USA. He has edited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy (2003), and co-edited works on James Bond and Mad Men, and has written on comic books, the Beatles, and other topics in popular culture.

Table of Contents

Introduction; James B. South

PART I: SELF-PERCEPTION, NARRATIVE, AND IDENTITY
1. A Golem is not Born, but Rather Becomes, a Woman: Gender on the Disc; Jacob M. Held
2. 'Nothing Like a Bit of Destiny to Get the Old Plot Rolling:' A Philosophical Reading of Wyrd Sisters; James B. South
3. 'Feigning to Feign:' Pratchett and the Maskerade; Andrew Rayment
4. 'Knowing things that other people don't know is a form of magic:' Lessons in Headology and Critical Thinking from The Lancre Witch; Tuomas W. Manninen
PART II: SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
5. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy on the Discworld; Kevin Guilfoy
6. Plato, the Witch and the Cave: Granny Weatherwax and the Moral Problem of Paternalism; Dietrich Schotte
7. Equality and Difference: Just because the Disc is flat, doesn't make it a Level Playing Field for All; Ben Saunders
PART III: ETHICS AND GOOD LIFE
8. Millennium Hand and Shrimp: On the Importance of Being in the Right Trouser Leg of Time; Susanne E. Foster
9. Categorically Not Cackling: The Will, Moral Fictions and Witchcraft; Jennifer Jill Fellows
10. The Care of the Reaper Man: Death, the Auditors, and the Importance of Individuality; Erica L. Neely
11. 'YES, SUSAN, THERE IS A HOGFATHER:' Hogfather and the Existentialism of Søren Kierkegaard; J. Keeping
PART IV: LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS
12. On the Possibility of the Discworld; Martin Vacek
13. Pratchett's The Last Continent and the Act of Creation; Jay Ruud