How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy

Like philosophy itself, How I Met Your Mother has everyone thinking. Have you ever wondered why you identify so strongly with Barney despite the fact that he’s such a douche? Or why your life story doesn’t make sense until you know the ending—or at least, the middle? Or where the Bro Code came from and why it’s so powerful? How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy answers all these questions and a whole lot more.

Twenty of the awesome-est philosophers ever congregated in one bar have come together to quaff a few drinks and analyze this most awesomely philosophical of sit-coms. They poke, prod, and sniff at the misdeeds of Goliath National Bank, the ontology of waiting to get slapped, the epistemology of sexual attraction, why the Platinum Rule is to never love thy neighbor, the authenticity of censoring yourself, why future Ted’s opinions matter to present-day Ted, and whether it’s irrational to wait for the Slutty Pumpkin. This book shows that viewers of How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy know that philosophy is much more than a song and dance routine.

Bence Nanay (who edits this book under the pseudonym Lorenzo von Matterhorn) is Professor of Philosophy, BOF Research Professor, and co-director of the Center for Philosophical Psychology, at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and Senior Research Associate at Peterhouse College, Cambridge University (UK). He is the author of Between Perception and Action and Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception (both forthcoming in 2013 from Oxford University Press), and editor of Perceiving the World (Oxford University Press, 2010). Before taking up full-time philosophy he was well known as a movie critic, and served on the jury at several major international film festivals. He lives in Antwerp, Belgium and Cambridge, England.

CONTENTS


1. Bence Nanay: Empathy for the Devil: Why on Earth Do We Identify with Barney?
2. Miguel Angel Sebastian and Manolo Martinez: Smoking Subs and Eating Joints: What Counts as True in Fiction?
3. Jordan Pascoe: Telling Each Other Everything
4. Tobias Hainz and Yvonne Würz: Is It Irrational to Wait for the Slutty Pumpkin?
5. Maryam Babur: Legend-wait for it-dary: The Anti-Mid-life Crisis Medicine?
6. Kris Goffin: When I Get Sad I Just Stop Being Sad and Be Awesome Instead
7. Carter Hardy: Barney’s Magical World of Self-deception
8. M. Chris Sardo: The Cockamouse of Minerva Flies at Dusk: Ted Mosby as Reader of Hegel
9. Tina Talsma: A Mother and A Career-Woman: A Tale of Two Feminist Icons
10. Thomas Ainsworth: Me, me, me! Barney the Egoist
11. Michela Bordignon: How to Be Really Awesome : Living the Contradictions of a Possimpible World
12. Elize De Mul: Sandwiches, Blue Horns, Bob Barker and a Goat. Telling Your Life Story.
13. Joe Slater: The Barney Stinson Theory of Truth: True Story
14. Amanda Ypma: Robin Scherbatsky, the Most Amazing, Strong, Independent Woman Barney Has Ever Banged
15. Frank Karioris: The Bro Code as a Relational Starter
16. Radu Uszkai and Emanuel Socaciu: The Story of the Platinum Rule, as told by David Hume and Barney Stinson: Should You Really Really "Love" Thy Neighbor?
17. Bart van Beek: The Pick-up Game