Monty Python and Philosophy by Gary Hardcastle (best young adult book series .TXT) 📕

religious hypocrisy

and religious rules

on religious smugness

research for

Simon the Hermit in

Monty Python’s Spamalot (musical)

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (movie)

“The Autumn Years,”

“Birth,”

Catholicism in

on Christianity

on church prayer

critique of transcendentalism

“Death,”

on dehumanization

fish in

flaw of

“The Galaxy Song,”

God in

the grotesque in

“Growth and Learning,”

Heaven in

Hell in

“Live Organ Transplant” sketch

on meaning of life

“Middle Age,”

Mr. Creosote in

nihilism in

philosophy menu sketch in

prayer in

reductio ad absurdum arguments in

religion in, insensitivity of

on science and values

sperm song

on trivial diversions

Moore, George Edward

moral philosophy

Mormons (Latter-Day Saints)

Morris, Corbyn

Mousebender, Mr. (Monty Python character)

Mozart, Amadeus Wolfgang

Myers, Mike

Neurath, Otto

New Bruce (Monty Python character)

Newton, Sir Isaac

Nichols, Mike

Nietzsche, Friedrich

on Christianity

on God

on Jesus

madman of

on meaningful life

on morality

Will to Power

nihilism

nonsense

in comedy

philosophy on

O’Nassis, Kevin (Monty Python character)

Ontological Argument

ordinary language philosophy

drawback of

Orford, Earl of, Robert

Palin, Michael

as a Bruce

in Monty Python and The Holy Grail

in Monty Python’s Flying Circus

in Monty Python’s Life of Brian

in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

and ordinary language philosophy

Parmenides

Parzival

Pascal, Blaise

Pascal’s Wager

paticca samuppada

Paul (Biblical)

philosophical argument, method of

philosophical examples, value of

philosophical sentences

philosophy

analytic

as bad comedy

continental

and God

history of

on nonsense

and political circumstances

and popular culture

of religion

and social forces

in twentieth-century Britain analysis of language in

Plato

Apology

Euthyphro

Phaedo

Republic

Popper, Karl Raimund

Porter, Roy

Postmodernism Generator

post-positivists

Potthapada sutta

Protestant Reformation, and contraception

Pryor, Richard

Putnam, Hilary

The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons (book)

Quine, W.V.

From a Logical Point of View

Rambo (movie)

Rawls, John

reflective equilibrium

religion, and rules

religious belief and superstition

ressentiment

Rhees, Rush

Rieux, Dr. (Camus character)

Rimbaud, Arthur

Robin, Sir (in Monty Python and The Holy Grail)

rule utilitarianism

Russell, Bertrand

Our Knowledge of the External World

Ryle, Gilbert

Samsa, Gregor

Sartre, Jean-Paul

Monty Python references to

No Exit

on past choices

sati

Saturday Night Live (TV show)

Schlick, Moritz

science, and nihilism

The Sedition Act

semantic holism

semantic reductionism

sense data

sentences, meaning in usage

Sermon on the Plain

Schlegel, Friedrich von

Schopenhauer, Arthur

Shakespeare, William

Hamlet

King Lear

Simpson, Homer

The Simpsons (TV show)

Singer, Peter

Sisyphus

Smith, Adam

The Wealth of Nations

Socrates

on blasphemy

on death

on God

Solomon, Robert C.

Stallone, Sylvester

Stand By Me (movie)

Strawson, Sir Peter F.

Thales

theology

Theravada Buddhism

Thomson, Judith Jarvis

thought experiments

limitations of

Tipitika scriptures

transcendentalism

Troyes, Chretien de

Upanishads

use-mention distinction

utilitairianism

verifiability criterion

verificationism

Verification Principle

Very Big Corporation of America (in Monty Python sketch)

Vienna Circle

“village idiot,” as label

virtue theory

The Vision of the Golden Rump

Walpole, Sir Robert

Washington, George

Whitehead, Alfred North

William of Baskerville

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

on animals and language

cult of

early

on jokes

on language

on language games

later

on nonsense

On Certainty

Philosophical Investigations

on philosophical sentences

on philosophy

Remarks on Colour

on sentence meaning

on sentences

Tractatus

Wood, S.H.

Young, Jimmy

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (book)

1

According, at least, to David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker: the Story of a Ten-Minute Argument between Two Great Philosophers (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).

2

Though one gets the impression Cleese might well study philosophy if he had it all to do over again, given that philosophy has become one of his main post-Python interests. Concerned about the meager attention accorded philosophical questions in contemporary life, for example, in 2002 Cleese recorded a well-received set of radio “blurbs” on philosophical topics for the American Philosophical Association (see www.udel.apa.edu). He’s also shared the stage repeatedly with Pomona University’s E. Wilson Lyon Professor of Humanities Stephen Erickson in public discussions of the meaning of life (the topic, not the film) and, from 1999 to 2005, was A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University where he lectured on, among other things, philosophy and religion.

3

David Hume, “Of Miracles,” in his Writings on Religion, edited by Antony Flew (Chicago: Open Court, 1992), p. 73.

4

Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, with Bob McCabe, The Pythons’ Autobiography (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2003), p. 281.

5

Immanuel Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?” in Kant, On History, edited by Lewis White Beck (New York: Macmillan, 1963), p. 3.

6

Similarly, if Brian is an existentialist, he might be either a religious or theistic existentialist (like Kierkegaard, Martin Buber (1878-1965), or Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)) or an atheistic existentialist (like Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, or Albert Camus (1913-1960)).

7

Theistic humanism rather than secular humanism is a common theme in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here God is portrayed as criticizing religious believers who devalue their humanity, as in this dialogue:

GOD: What are you doing now?

KING ARTHUR: Averting our eyes, oh Lord.

GOD: Well, don’t. It’s just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. . . . Every time I try to talk to someone it’s “sorry this” and “forgive me that” and “I’m not worthy”. . . .

8

Bob Lane, “The Absurd Hero,” Humanist in Canada 17:4 (Winter, 1984-85).

9

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (New York: Vintage, 1955), p. 90.

10

Albert Camus, Preface to L’Étranger, edited by Germaine Brée (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955).

11

Robert C. Solomon, “Camus’ L’Étranger, and the Truth,” in his From Hegel to Existentialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 246-260.

12

The Pythons with Bob McCabe, The Pythons: Autobiography by the Pythons (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), p. 326.

13

The ensuing account of horror derives from Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror (New York: Routledge, 1990), especially the first chapter. For further background on comic amusement, see my article, “Humour,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 344-365.

14

It may seem that this does not apply to a great deal of black comedy. In many instances the cruelties dealt in black humor do not appear to be directed at objects that morally deserve such punishment. Think of such genres of dark humor as dead baby jokes. However, in cases like this, the cruel humorist is encouraging us to direct our moral rancor not at the babies in the jokes, but at sentimental attitudes that usually accompany discourse about infants. It is that complacent sentimentality that the dark humorist thinks deserves a moral whack.

Similarly, the recurring mentally-challenged “Gumby” characters in Monty Python’s Flying Circus (see, for example, “Gumby Crooner” in Episode 9, “The Ant: An Introduction”) seem to be basically an assault , by his own hand, on excessive sentimentality. It is not that Gumby deserves to be hit on the head with a brick, as he is; rather, the ethical energy underwriting the harsh laughter here is aimed at the sentimentalization of the mentally ill. The butt of the laughter lives off-screen, in a manner of speaking. It resides wherever pompous types congratulate themselves for caring for their “inferiors.”

15

Corbyn Morris, An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Raillery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) (New York: Garland, 1970).

16

S.H. Wood, Walpole