I was at a gas station in Yuma, Arizona
a few years ago.  While filling my tank, a young man at another pump caught my
eye.  "You taught my logic class a few summers ago with all those Simpsons
references.  That class was cool!"  I had taught an intro to logic class
at UC San Diego a few years earlier.  During that class, I used The Simpsons
liberally to illustrate various points, in an effort to make a class that
is typically not a big hit with students a bit more palatable.  In this case,
at least, it worked.  It was with this scenario in mind that I approached The
Simpsons and Philosophy.

This book is one of a series of
books exploring philosophical themes through popular culture.  As such, it does
not deliver essays for the specialist on any aspect of philosophy€”neither does
it claim to.  Instead, it seeks to "use The Simpsons as a means of
illustrating traditional philosophical issues to effectively reach readers
outside the academy" (p. 3) and to "get our non-specialist readers to
read more philosophy, the kind that doesn’t involve television shows" (p.
2-3).  The Simpsons and Philosophy succeeds in presenting interesting
and thought-provoking essays on a variety of philosophical themes through the
lens of The Simpsons.  The result is an entertaining book that in turns
sheds light on some aspects of philosophy and also on The Simpsons.

The eighteen essays in The Simpsons
and Philosophy are divided into four parts:

I.          "The
Characters" €” in which each of the members of the Simpson nuclear family
is presented as illustrating some philosophical notion.

II.         "Simpsonian
Themes" €” in which The Simpsons is explored as it reflects several
aesthetic (and feminist) ideas.

III.       "I
Didn’t Do It: Ethics and The Simpsons" €” in which different ethical
notions are examined through Simpsons characters

IV.       "The
Simpsons and the Philosophers" €” in which the views of different
philosophers (Marx, Heidegger, and Roland Barthes as a representative of
semiotics) are explored through aspects of the show.

These characterizations of the parts are rough and far from
mutually exclusive; e.g., "Homer and Aristotle" and "Marge’s
Moral Motivation" both appear in Part I but concern Aristotelian ethics
and thus would be at home in Part III; and, "This Spake Bart: On Nietzsche
and the Virtues of Being Bad" also appears in Part I but could fit easily
into Part IV€”but that is just as well, because I would like to offer an
alternative ordering. 

In reading the book as both a
teacher of philosophy and a fan of the show, I found that the essays fell
rather neatly into two groups: (1) those that used the show to serve
philosophical ends, and, (2) those that used philosophical notions to deepen
the reader’s appreciation of the show.  These groupings are not mutually
exclusive, either€”the essays that fall under my #2 all elucidate some concept
(e.g., irony and allusion) applicable to aesthetics.  Still, in reading the
essays, I could not help finding some more inclined to press philosophy into
the service of deepening one’s appreciation of the show and others inclined to
use the show to nudge the reader towards philosophy.

Group Two is the smaller of the
two.  It consists of four essays: "The Simpsons and Allusion: ‘Worst
Essay Ever’" (by William Irwin and J.R. Lombardo); "Popular Parody: The
Simpsons Meets the Crime Film" (by Deborah Knight); "The Simpsons,
Hyper-Irony, and the Meaning of Life" (by Carl Matheson); and, to a lesser
extent, "’And the Rest Writes Itself’: Roland Barthes Watches The Simpsons"
(by David L.G. Arnold).  Each of these essays seemed to speak to the
intricacies of the show more than to those of philosophy.  This is not a bad
thing, insofar as the aim of the book is to foster greater appreciation of the
show’s nuance and subtlety.  However, that is not the avowed aim of this
collection.  As such, these essays failed, to my mind, in their efforts to
bring readers to non-television-related philosophy.

This is especially unfortunate
because these were also among the best essays.  Moreover, this criticism is
perhaps unfair.  Each of these essays covers an aspect of philosophy (either in
aesthetics or semiotics) which can rightly take The Simpsons not only as
a stepping off point but also as a topic of inquiry.  In each case, these
essays examine a concept or approach relevant to the analysis of texts and use The
Simpsons to explicate it while at the same time applying it to the show,
demonstrating its use "in the field," as it were.  The result is a
series of rich essays that fail to make clear exactly what is going on€”good
reading but unlikely to succeed at "get[ting] our non-specialist readers
to read more philosophy, the kind that doesn’t involve television shows"

Group One (the group of essays that
used The Simpsons to illustrate philosophical notions) is by far the
larger of the two, containing every essay not mentioned above.  Broken down by
subject, a whopping eight essays that concern aspects of ethical theory
(including two on Aristotle and two on Kant); four essays on social/political
theory (including a feminist analysis of Springfield, the town where the Simpsons
live, and its inhabitants); one touching on Eastern philosophy; and one in the
philosophy of mind (specifically Heidegger’s notion of thinking).  These essays
are all of roughly equal quality€”a nice treat in a collection such as this€”but
they do not represent philosophy all that well.  Or, rather, all that broadly. 
Outside of the related areas of ethics and politics (and possibly aesthetics,
based on the essays in group two), there is precious little representation of
any other area of philosophy.  Epistemology, metaphysics, mind (the essay on
Heidegger notwithstanding), personal identity all go largely undiscussed,
despite the fact that there is plenty of Simpsonian grist for those mills. 
Each of those areas could be touched on without ever leaving the "Treehouse
of Horrors" Halloween specials. 

All in all, this collection
includes more Simpsons references than it does philosophical references,
which is unfortunate.  Still, it is worth the read.  Its essays smartly employ The
Simpsons to draw attention to at least some aspects of philosophy,
improving the reader’s appreciation of both the discipline and the show. 
Certainly, using this book in teaching philosophy could prove valuable (and the
areas absent from it could perhaps be found in other books in the series, which
examine philosophy through Seinfeld and The Matrix, for
example).  Whether the book quite meets its own aims is debatable, but what is
does do is valuable in its own right.  Compared to it, my own use of The Simpsons
in teaching is scum.  I see how I’m scum.

© 2004 Paul Gatto

Paul Gatto is
completing his doctoral work at UC San Diego in epistemology and the philosophy
of mind.

Categories: Philosophical