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September 8, 2003
Given this state of affairs in Canadia and Australia, then we can understand the attractiveness of this as one way for philosophy to engage with popular culture.
First the negative side. In response to the standard academic charges that it represents a dumbing down of philosophy, the defence of philosophy engaging with popular culture is that it is not an attempt at groundbreaking philosophy but rather to bring philosophy to an audience who might otherwise not have read it.
From the other side the view is that outside the academic context the “nonphilosophical understanding of philosophy” can be rather hard to pursue. The books can be difficult and hard going (eg. Deleuze), and people look for good introductions that make the philosophy text produced by philosophers in the academy accessible. It is true that people do not read the classical philosophical texts such as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. These are difficult texts and few ever read them.
But the defence overlooks that philosophy in embodied our everyday lives in the presuppositions of common sense that we make and often live, the categories we use to make sense of the flow of life, the way we challenge the views of others and our views are challenged in turn. The defence presupposes that philosophy is identical with the practice of academic philosophy.
That presupposition can be questioned.
In being critical of the spin of politicians the lack of analysis in the media, and the advertisements on free-to-air television we are reading texts critically and doing philosophy. This kind of critical thinking is something that we do everyday. We actually live philosophy without knowing that we do so.
Now the positive side of philosophy's engagement with popular culture. We can contrast texts such as Seinfeld and Philosophy, The Simpsons and Philosophy, The Matrix and Philosophy with this kind of engagement with popular culture. Here philosophy primarily engages with films that overlap with the philosophical tradition, such as Derek Jarman's film of Wittgenstein, and then dips it's toes into others including The Matrix This approach often pulls the material into the traditional concerns of philosophers and before long we are back discussing philosophical issues as understood by a particular philosophy school. It is a very safe way for academics to connect philosophy to the broader culture.
The Simpsons and Philosophy starts from the television programme and philosophy arises out of that programme. It is a much more adventurous way of working as it opens up philosophy to diverse and more experimental modes of writing and thinking. It enables philosophy to step outside the horizons of its academic confinement.
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