Second, Mr. Preston Enright above seems to oppose corporate subsidies and welfare. Well, Mr Enright, so do the most staunch defenders of free-trade and capitalism: libertarians. I would not so much call myself a Libertarian but, like yourself, am also ardently opposed to corporate welfare, as it places an unwarranted burden on taxpayers and forces them to involuntarily support a cause, whereas they should only support the firm with their purchases from that corporation. Corporate welfare is, indeed, a rotten policy enacted but liberals and conservatives alike that, just as other forms of subsidies and welfare, create an unhealthy and unwarranted dependency on Washington (or wherever the largesse may originate), artificially lower prices, discourages innovation and efficiency, and ultimately harms the taxpayer and the consumer. Preston Enright is correct that this type of 'free trade' (not free to the mass of those who should benefit: the consumer) is only beneficial to the management and executives. Although, I'm guessing by his scattered and fiery writing style that he would be opposed to the free market, welfare or no welfare.

Irwin's text provides an excellent overview of how economic thinking has over the years come to accept and promote free trade. Unfortunately, today's free trade debate is typically not framed by such informed discussion, but rather is shaped by the protectionist rantings of critics like Enright.

The hardback book has excellent production value - glossy pages and loads of color photos. Very niuce, and informative if you don't know what a perentie looks like.

Steve's persona on tv - that of the highly excitable wildman who picks up venomous snakes and wrestles gigantic crocodiles - is no act. He describes it as merely having an enthusiasm for wildlife, and that enthusiasm is contagious. The book tells of how he developed this love of animals (basically, he was raised with it). Terri tells of how they met and fell head over heels in love at first sight. On their first date, Steve told her "You're not at all ladylike!" (which he meant as a compliment, it's sweet, in a weird way).

Neither of the Irwins are particularly stylish writers. The phrase "passion for wildlife" is repeated often, making the text occasionally sound repetetive, though not insincere. Still, both are gifted storytellers. Just like their tv show, the book draws you in to their world. You feel like you're right there with them trying to save a giant reptile that's trying to rip you apart.

If the book has a shortcoming (aside from the minor fact that some of the tales will be familiar to regular viewers of the tv show) it's that it is too short. Steve does impart a good deal of knowledge about his beloved wildlife, but could have explained more. For example, he tells that apex predators like crocodiles are key to the health of an ecosystem - true, but he doesn't elaborate on why. Terri tells informative and fascinating anecdotes about caring for a wide variety of creatures at the Australia Zoo. I wanted more of those.

Overall, the book does a good job in its primary mission: making you interested in animals, so that you'll care enough to try to fight for their survival.

If you're a fan of the tv show you'll love this book. Steve shares his passion for crocidiles and other wild life along with a great look behind the scenes at their zoo.

Throughout its history, philosophy has performed the important function of liberating people from the shackles of conventional ideologies, both religious and political. It was therefore disappointing (although perhaps not surprising) that all of the republican candidates in the 2000 presidential primary contest said that their favorite philosopher was Jesus. Not that there is anything wrong with Jesus. But there is something wrong with the kind of herd mentality displayed by American politicians (the democrats would have done the same thing). American philosophy is extremely anachronistic, mired as it is in a combination of analytic nitpicking and eighteenth century dogma concerning the sanctity of property rights. It is a credit to the authors of "Seinfeld and Philosophy" that they do not burden their readers with longwinded discussions of Frege, Russell, Ayer, and Quine or of Locke, Burke, Madison, and Hayek. But it is a shame that they left out the best contemporary philosophers that America has to offer: Woody Allen, Randy Newman, George Carlin, Michael Moore, and Garrison Keillor. In the sequel, the authors should consider turning their analysis on its head (as Marx did with Hegel) by treating Seinfeld as the philosopher and America as the sitcom.

The different essays cover the different philosophers like Socrates, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Wittgenstein. Using the famous characters from the TV show, the authors illustrate the different philosophers. If school was a little fuzzy on the explanation, this is a good supplement.

Because it is a collection, most of the authors used the same episode to refer to. I do wish they used more episodes, but "The Opposite" is a well-known episode. Also, a couple of the essays give different impressions of Kramer. Although this feels contradictory, the book is not meant to read as one work.

I would recommend this book to anyone who does not feel assured of his or her understanding of philosophy.

I've been quite fond of Seinfeld through its entire run; even at the young age of 12 or 13 I would watch and enjoy first-run episodes. Now I am a philosophy major. Buying this book was, well, natural.

The high points of this book are high indeed. It's easy to tell which of these essays sparked the original concept for the book: they shine with sharp wit, understanding of the Seinfeld universe and real philosophical explorations. These best of the best essays offer philosophy truly relevant to the show. The essays on nothingness and on morals come to mind; after all, the writers intentionally made these topics central to the show.

From that point, the works write themselves--and it shows.
A few of the more disappointing essays seem to be space fillers: they needed chapters on Kramer and Elaine, so they attempted to find philosophical significance in them. Not that what they came up with is bad, just not as in-your-face Seinfeldian as several of the other topics.

All in all, this is a very solid collection, providing a bridge between two subjects that everyone, in their heart of hearts, always knew were related :)

In his Ethics, Aristotle does little more than to search for and examine the "good." Aristotle examines the virtues and vices of man in all of his faculties.

Aristotle refers to three types of lives, the common life, the political life, and the contemplative life, to which he assigns the highest order. Certainly, this is the most difficult life. Similar to Plato, Aristotle believed that "the unexamined life is a life not worth living." Aristotle does nothing other to examine the life of man and what is the best life to live.

Unlike Plato, you do not need to read the entire work to walk away with some useful insight into life. Though the over 100 chapters, divided into ten books, flow and build upon each other, you can read just one of them and be benefited. Aristotle covers many different subjects such as the good, morals, virtue, vice, courage, generosity, justice, intelligence, art, science, friendship, love, pleasure, and pain.

I can not say enough for the depth of insight Aristotle has into living the good life. Nicomachean Ethics is well written and presented in a clear manner that should be accessible to most readers. This is a must read for everyone.

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh of Homer is compilation of Simpsonian essays written by working philosophers (as far as I can tell, "working philosopher" is an oxymoron) on various subjects. The text is divided among four sections: The Characters, Themes, Ethics and The Simpsons and Philosophers. I would propose a secondary classification scheme as well: (1) those essays that use familiar Simpsons personalities and situations as examples within a discussion of philosophical ideas and (2) those that try to extrapolate philosophical meaning from the show itself.

The chapters that I found most enjoyable where those of the former type, the ones that (re)introduced various ethical philosophies or values of critical commentary using the Simpsons to support their positions. Those essays about Nietzsche, American anti-intellectualism, allusion (a topic especially relevant to the Simpsons), and television's sexual politics were among my favorites.

There were some real stinkers, too. A few of the authors of these collected essays seemed to think that a TV show should present a consistent philosophy, which the Simpsons clearly does not.

Overall, I would recommend The Simpsons and Philosophy. For people who have never even thought about philosophy, this book would, in many respects, be a worthwhile introduction. However, as de Tocqueville predicted, some in our democracy will not appreciate such high browed pursuits, even when directed to a cartoon.

By and large, the writers of this book are fans of the show. Although they quote a bit, their quotes are not always correct, and this may detract from enjoyment. For instance, the argument that Marge is an example of the virtuous person was made. It mentions several instances to support this, but the writer of that essay does not address the episodes that show her gambling addiction. Without knowing if the episode came out before or after the essay, I don't know if this is a simple error or not.

Some of the material is quite dense, and the relation to the Simpsons is not direct. The last essay explaining Heidegger and postulating that Bart may be considered a "Heideggerian" has some very complex ideas.

This is not always bad. The essay talking of signifiers and the signified (Roland Barthes) actually made the ideas a little easier to understand. I remember going the S/Z many years ago. Giving me an example from a Simpsons episode was very helpful.

From the subtitle, I thought there would be more Eastern philosophy, but alas, there was not a whole lot of mention. The philosophers covered are primarily Western.

I don't think that I would recommend this to Simpsons fans because they already know that the show is funny and needs to be seen repeatedly to get all the gags. I would recommend this to beginning philosophy students. Have fun!

You're not going to find significant philosophical breakthroughs in this book, and you won't find deep insights by watching "The Simpsons," but as a companion to the show, this book will shed new light on the characters and situations found throughout the series.

Mostly, I would recommend this book to anyone taking a first-year philosophy course who wants to see how philosophy can make fun things more profound, and profound things more fun. Yes, there is fun to be had in serious academia -- it should not all be dry and boring. Irwin has collected a number of papers that make for philosophical fun for all.

If this is a required textbook for your class, I highly suggest looking into a good supplemental book. Good luck.

the book was average in every sense of the word. the one thing i did not like about it was that it did not highlight every new word or phrase and define it. only about half of the new words or phrases were highlighted in a text box next to the paragraph. this means that if you were searching for a word or phrase, if it was not noted in the margin, then it was very difficult to find it. this is fairly typical of textbooks, so i figured it was average.

An underlying belief of Irwin's is that it is difficult to find properties whose income can cover all their expenses, and that the real money comes in selling for a profit. Accordingly, much of the book concentrates on flipping properties and other real estate maneuvers that are usually only successful/necessary in tight markets. In general the book advocates a high risk philosophy of investing, advising the reader to use the bank's money make money as much as possible. I thought the inherent risks of this way of doing things were not fully explained in the book.

Additionally, he advises to stay away from old houses which he classifies as older than 25 years. I laughed as I read that, as virtually all of the houses in the town I bought my house in are between 60-120 years old. 25 year old houses are considered spring chickens where I'm from!

The last weakness of the book is that it seems to overestimate ease of determining the "true" value of a house. It takes a LOT of looking at houses and checking final sale prices to say with much certainty what a property is worth.

This review may sound relatively harsh, but for the amount of time it took me to read this book I found it helpful. I would wholeheartedly recommend the book for a beginner in a rental market similar to the author's market. However, for someone in a region similar to mine (the depressed real estate market of Troy, NY) you may want to check for some other similar books. And for all I would advise to stay away from the higher priced "Make your fortune in real estate" packages advertised on TV and such. Real estate information is most efficiently conveyed in paperback books like this one - in straightforward text without motivational speaking or overly unrealistic portrayals of the real estate world.