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?

Much philosophical work on pop culture apologises for its use; using popular culture is a necessary evil, something merely useful for reaching the masses with important philosophical arguments. But works of pop culture are important in their own right--they shape worldviews, inspire ideas, change minds. We wouldn't baulk at a book dedicated to examining the philosophy of The Great Gatsby or 1984--why aren't Star Trek and Superman fair game as well? After all, when produced, the former were considered pop culture just as much as the latter. This will be the first major reference work to right that wrong, gathering together entries on film, television, games, graphic novels and comedy, and officially recognizing the importance of the field. It will be the go-to resource for students and researchers in philosophy, culture, media and communications, English and history and will act as a springboard to introduce the reader to the other key literature in the field.

The Onion, with its unique brand of deadpan satirical humor, has become a familiar part of the American scene. The newspaper has a readership of over a million, and reaches millions more with its spin-off books and Onion News Network. The Onion has shown us that standard ways of thinking about the news have their grotesque and silly side, and this invites philosophical examination. Twenty-one philosophers were commissioned to provide witty philosophical perspectives on just what makes the Onion so truthful and insightful. Former Governor Sarah Palin reported: “I just couldn’t put it down. The Onion and Philosophy is the most exciting book I’ve read since Principia Mathematica.” Are the Onion writers truly cynical, or just cynically faking it? Does the Onion really have a serious point of view on religion? On sex? On politics? Who cares what Area Man thinks? If everyone’s so dumb, how come so many Onion readers keep on laughing at how dumb they are?

By many accounts, HBO's The Wire was and remains the greatest and most important television drama of all time. Conceived by writers David Simon and ex-Baltimore homicide detective Ed Burns, this five-season, sixty-episode tour de force has raised the bar for compelling, intelligent television production. With each season addressing a different arena of life in the city of Baltimore, and each season's narratives tapping into those from previous seasons, The Wire was able to reveal the overlapping, criss-crossing, and colliding realities that shape--if not control--the people, institutions, and culture of the modern American city. The Wire and Philosophy celebrates this show's realism as well as its intellectual and philosophical clarity. Selected philosophers who are fans of The Wire tap into these conflicts and interconnections to expose the underlying philosophical issues and assumptions and pursue questions, such as, can cops really tell whether they are smarter than their perps? Or do they fall victim to intellectual vanity? Do individuals really have free will to resist the temptations--of gangs, of drugs, or corruption--that surround them? Is David Simon a modern-day Marx who sees capitalism leading ultimately to its own collapse, or is Baltimore's story uniquely its own?

Fifteen philosophers look at the deeper issues raised in the highly popular TV drama, including common morality, legal correctness and legal ethics, discussing the gray areas of legal battles and maneuvering.

The Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy treats fans to dozens of new essays by experts who examine philosophical questions raised by the Game of Thrones story. This ultimate analysis provides the most comprehensive discussion to date and engages the Game of Thrones universe through the end of Season Six of the HBO series. Ned Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Joffrey, Cersei, Brienne, Arya, Stannis, and many other characters are used to apply the traditional philosophical questions that everyone faces. How should political leaders be chosen in Westeros and beyond? Is power merely an illusion? Is it immoral to enjoy overly violent and sexual stories like Game of Thrones? How should morally ambiguous individuals such as Jamie Lannister: The Kingslayer and Savior of King’s Landing be evaluated? Can anyone be trusted in a society like Westeros? What rules should govern sexual relationships in a world of love, incest, rape, and arranged marriage? How does disability shape identity for individuals like Tyrion, Bran, and others? How would one know whether there is a God in the Game of Thrones universe and what he is like?

Frank Herbert's Dune is the biggest-selling science fiction story of all time; the original book and its numerous sequels have transported millions of readers into the alternate reality of the Duniverse. Dune and Philosophy raises intriguing questions about the Duniverse in ways that will be instantly meaningful to fans. Those well-known characters--Paul Atreides, Baron Harkkonen, Duncan Idaho, Stilgar, the Bene Gesserit witches--come alive again in this fearless philosophical probing of some of life's most basic questions. Dune presents us with a vast world in which fanaticism is merciless and history is made by the interplay of ruthless conspiracies. Computers have long been outlawed, so that the abilities of human beings are developed to an almost supernatural level. The intergalactic empire controlled by a privileged aristocracy raises all the old questions of human interaction in a strange yet weirdly familiar setting. Do secret conspiracies direct the future course of human political evolution? Can manipulation of the gene pool create a godlike individual? Are strife and bloodshed essential to progress? Can we know so much about the future that we lose the power to make a difference? Does reliance on valuable resources--such as "spice," oil, and water--place us at the mercy of those who can destroy those resources? When gholas are reconstructed from the cells of dead people and given those people's memories, is the ghola the dead person resurrected? Can the exploitation of religion for political ends be reduced to a technique? Philosophers who are fans of Dune will trek through the desert of the Duniverse seeing answers to these and other questions.

Not only is Doctor Who the longest-running science fiction TV show in history, but it has also been translated into numerous languages, broadcast around the world, and referred to as the “way of the future” by some British politicians. The Classic Doctor Who series built up a loyal American cult following, with regular conventions and other activities. The new series, relaunched in 2005, has emerged from culthood into mass awareness, with a steadily growing viewership and major sales of DVDs. The current series, featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith, is breaking all earlier records, in both the UK and the US. Doctor Who is a continuing story about the adventures of a mysterious alien known as “the Doctor,” a traveller of both time and space whose spacecraft is the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space), which from the outside looks like a British police telephone box of the 1950s. The TARDIS is “bigger on the inside than on the outside”—actually the interior is immense. The Doctor looks human, but has two hearts, and a knowledge of all languages in the universe. Periodically, when the show changes the leading actor, the Doctor “regenerates.”

Martial arts and philosophy have always gone hand in hand, as well as fist in throat. Philosophical argument is closely paralleled with hand-to-hand combat. And all of today's Asian martial arts were developed to embody and apply philosophical ideas. In his interview with Bodidharma, Graham Priest brings out aspects of Buddhist philosophy behind Shaolin Kung-Fu -- how fighting monks are seeking Buddhahood, not brawls. But as Scott Farrell's chapter reveals, Eastern martial arts have no monopoly on philosophical traditions: Western chivalry is an education in and living revival of Aristotelian ethical theories. Several chapters look at ethical problems raised by the fighting arts. How can the sweaty and brutal be exquisitely beautiful? Every chapter is easily understandable by readers new to martial arts or new to philosophy.

Since the Doom series, First Person Shooter (FPS) videogames have ricocheted through the gaming community, often reaching outside that community to the wider public. While critics primarily lampoon FPSs for their aggressiveness and on-screen violence, gamers see something else. Halo is one of the greatest, most successful FPSs ever to grace the world of gaming. Although Halo is a FPS, it has a science-fiction storyline that draws from previous award-winning science fiction literature. It employs a game mechanic that limits the amount of weapons a player can carry to two, and a multiplayer element that has spawned websites like Red vs. Blue and games within the game created by players themselves. Halo’s unique and extraordinary features raise serious questions. Are campers really doing anything wrong? Does Halo’s music match the experience of the gamer? Would Plato have used Halo to train citizens to live an ethical life? What sort of Artificial Intelligence exists in Halo and how is it used? Can the player’s experience of war tell us anything about actual war? Is there meaning to Master Chief’s rough existence? How does it affect the player’s ego if she identifies too strongly with an aggressive character like Master Chief? Is Halo really science fiction? Can Halo be used for enlightenment-oriented thinking in the Buddhist sense? Does Halo's weapon limitation actually contribute to the depth of the gameplay? When we willingly play Halo only to die again and again, are we engaging in some sort of self-injurious behavior? What is expansive gameplay and how can it be informed by the philosophy of Michel Foucault? In what way does Halo’s post-apocalyptic paradigm force gamers to see themselves as agents of divine deliverance? What can Red vs. Blue teach us about personal identity? These questions are tackled by writers who are both Halo cognoscenti and active philosophers, with a foreword by renowned Halo fiction author Fred Van Lente and an afterword by leading games scholar and artist Roger Ngim.