Books published by Carus Books

The New York Times has praised Dave Chappelle as “an American folk hero” for his ability to communicate across lines of race, class, and culture at a time when Americans are more polarized than they have ever been.Dave Chappelle and Philosophy brings together twenty-five chapters by philosophers of diverse backgrounds and varying points of view, looking closely at the hilarious, annoying, exhilarating, upsetting, and thought-provoking aspects of Chappelle’s wonderfully rich output. This volume of the Pop Culture and Philosophy Series serves as an invitation to think about some of the most urgent moral and political questions of our time.

The Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson burst into public awareness when he opposed the compulsory use of newfangled gender-pronouns. He has since published two best-selling books, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021), and has become the leading public intellectual on social media. Although Peterson has an almost cult-like following, and arouses strong passions, both for and against, there has been very little focused, objective criticism of his provocative views on a wide variety of topics: the role of religion, the alleged need for more value and meaning in the modern world, the way young people should conduct their lives, the history of Marxism and postmodernism, male-female relations; the interpretation of Bible stories, the inevitability of hierarchy and inequality, and the application of Jungian archetypes. Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses brings together new and searching criticisms of various specific aspects of Peterson's ideas. Though on balance decidedly critical, the authors represent a range of different backgrounds and philosophical assumptions, and the criticisms are fair and temperate, eschewing the personal attacks which have marred many of the pronouncements of Peterson's opponents. -- Emily Cox

A lot of thought goes into making Hollywood films and television series. The best artists of the twentieth century chose this medium over the arts they would have practiced in previous centuries --the painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, actors, and most of all the director, the master auteur, packed up their gear and went west. As time has gone on, television and movie-making converged into one huge canvas for all that creative thinking. Let's think about some of the best things that got thunk in the last hundred years, see if we can uncover the deeper layers of that thinking and sling a little philosophy at the screen.

Better Call Sauland Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam is a collection of twenty-three essaysexploring the philosophical themes in the hit television show Better CallSaul, a prequel to the TV show Breaking Bad. The sixth and final season of Better CallSaul aired from April to August 2022.The central character is JimmyMcGill, whom we know from Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman. In Better Call Saul he first takes thename of Saul Goodman from the phrase ?S'all Good, Man!? Jimmy/Saul is a naturalcon artist who not only scams from self-interest but also because he enjoys it.He has a strange relationship with his brother, the distinguished lawyerCharles McGill, who resents Jimmy's delinquency and advantage in parentalaffection. Jimmy/Saul becomes a lawyer for a drug cartel, and most of the peoplehe meets are criminals and other kinds of villains.Like Breaking Bad, BetterCall Saul raises a wide range of philosophical issues including the natureof good and evil, personal identity, free will and determinism, the law as itrelates to morality, the ethical implications of the war on drugs, death anddying, and many more. Better Call Saul and Philosophy offers thoughtfulfans of the show deeper and more provocative insights into the story and thecharacters. Topics covered include: the moralityof keeping promises to wrongdoers, the nature of psychosomatic illness,difficult moral choices facing lawyers, just how good or bad are some of thecompromised characters in the show, the unintended consequences of the War onDrugs, the similarities between drug cartels and governments, whether badpeople are just unlucky, the perils of self-deception, and whether we everreally have much of a choice.Better Call Saul and Philosophyis Volume 8 in the path-breaking series, Pop Culture and Philosophy.

Microchips, government-replaced bird drones, QAnon and vaccine tracers: these are just a few of the most common conspiracies we have heard over and over again throughout most of 2020-2021's news cycles. There are common categories of conspiracy theories, variants of which pop up over and over again, and new and outrageous theories that seemingly appear overnight. While most of them are easily debunked, conspiracy theories and their root causes can be used to closely track people's most significant philosophical concerns at a point in time. In this up-to-date study of conspiracy theories, the authors look at the history of conspiracy theories, discuss the history and hallmarks of such theories, and examine what counts as a conspiracy theory--and what doesn't.