The Philosophy Smackdown blog has had a brief hiatus while I adjust to life with our newborn daughter (and help our 2 year old with the adjustment!). Two weeks of no sleep = this: ...Back soon!
Too Tweet? Pro Wrestling and Social Media
This week my mentor and friend Michael P. Lynch was awarded the 2019 George Orwell award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of Teachers of English for his book Know It All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture (W.W. Norton, 2019). You can find a video of …
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AEW Dynamite: Vision Becomes Reality
A central plank of Anselm's Ontological Argument for the existence of God is the claim that it is greater to exist in reality than in the mind alone. Simplifying somewhat, Anselm reasons that this, along with the idea that God is the greatest being we can conceive of, leads us unavoidably to the conclusion that …
Philosophers and Pro Wrestling Catchphrases II
It's time once again to match the philosopher to the pro wrestling catchphrase! (Part I with 1-5 is here.) 6. Mr Perfect and Plato, 'And that's absolutely perfect.' Whether it was playing football, bowling, or executing the perfect-plex, everything Mr Perfect did was flawless. This makes him the wrestler of choice for Plato, who was …
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Professors Cutting Promos: Pro Wrestling and Teaching Philosophy
This past weekend I went to Planet Wrestling, a show put on by my awesome local wrestling company, New York Championship Wrestling, in Whitesboro, NY. Obviously, as the author of Philosophy Smackdown (Polity Press, 2020), I can't help connecting philosophy and pro wrestling, but perhaps because we're now a couple of weeks into the teaching …
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Charlotte Flair and Socrates, ‘Heels are for shoes’
This week in my intro philosophy class we're talking about Plato's Apology, famous for being Plato's interpretation of Socrates's trial in Athens, at which Socrates was condemned to death by a jury of 500 Athenians. It represents Socrates's speech in his defense against charges of corrupting the youth and impiety, and contains some of Socrates's …
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Reality and the AEW Championship Caper
What's real and what's not is a central philosophical problem. Is the table in front of me real, or is it imaginary? Do other people exist, or am I all alone? Do I really have free will, or is that just an illusion? As I discuss in Philosophy Smackdown, pro wrestling is fertile ground for …
Philosophers and Pro Wrestling Catchphrases
Time to match the philosopher to the pro wrestling catchphrase! Here are some initial ones: 1. Ric Flair and Socrates, 'To be the man, you gotta beat the man, woooooooooooo!'. A figure of mythical significance, Socrates was very much the man to beat in Athens when it came to philosophical argument. He went around the …
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Questions
Here are some key philosophical questions: What is real? Can we know what's real? Do we have free will? How do our social roles define us? What makes us who we are? Are we the same person through the course of our lives? What is it to be a good person? A bad person? What …
Philosophy Smackdown is Live!
Welcome to Philosophy Smackdown! I’ll be posting discussions of philosophical issues in pro wrestling here. The posts will introduce some themes from the book, but also talk about other stuff. The book itself is in copy-editing at the moment, and should go into production in November, ahead of its publication date in May/June 2020.
Philosophy Smackdown 