Humboldt State University
Michael F. Goodman
Seinfeld
Philosophy 391, Fall 2000
Humboldt State University
Michael F. Goodman
Text: Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book About Everything & Nothing, edited by William Irvin
Readings:
08.28.00 Introduction and discussion
09.04.00 Labor Day (no class)
09.11.00 "Jerry and Socrates: The Examined Life?" [pp 3-14]
09.18.00 "George's Failed Quest for Happiness: An Aristotelian Analysis" [pp 15-26]
09.25.00 "Elaine Benes: Feminist Icon or Just One of the Boys?" [pp 27-37]
10.02.00 "Kramer & Kierkegaard: Stages on Life's Way" [pp 38-58]
10.09.00 "Making Something Out of Nothing: Seinfeld, Sophistry & the Tao" [pp 61-70]
10.16.00 "Plato or Nietzsche: Time, Essence, & Eternal Recurrence in Seinfeld [pp 71-89]
10.23.00 "Seinfeld, Subjectivity and Sartre" [pp 90-108]
10.30.00 "The Costanza Maneuver: Is it Rational for George to do the Opposite?" [pp 121-138]
11.06.00 "Peterman and the Ideological Mind: Paradoxes of Subjectivity" [pp 139-149]
11.13.00 "The Secret of Seinfeld's Humor: The Significance of the Insignificant" [pp 148-159]
11.20.00 Thanksgiving Break (no class)
11.27.00 "Seinfeld and the Moral Life" [pp 163-174]
12.04.00 "Virtue Ethics and TV's Seinfeld" [pp 175-182]
12.11.00 "The Final Episode: Is Doing Nothing Something" [pp 183-192]
12.18.00 Paper due, by 3pm, in Annex 103
This is a 1-credit, mandatory credit/no credit course. We'll meet Mondays, 4-5pm for our discussions. Those who take the class are urged to watch a lot of "Seinfeld" on television and to try to identify what might be philosophically interesting in each episode. So, for example, in "The Raincoats #1", George sells his father's vacation clothes, without Mr. Costanza's knowledge. Then, when Mr. Costanza asks where the clothes could be (he looked in the attic and they were gone), George denies he has knowledge of them. So, George lies. Meanwhile, George is pissed off when he catches Jerry's parents in a lie (they tell George they have plans and can't come to dinner at his parents house; he discovers they didn't have other plans). There are a number of things here that are philosophically interesting: 1) The concept of lying; 2) That George can lie, with equanimity in his own mind, but becomes indignant when he is lied to... Meanwhile, Jerry categorizes Elaine's boyfriend as "a bit of a close-talker", meaning that he stands very close to you when he talks to you. Is there anything philosophically interesting about referring to someone as a "close-talker"? It turns out that the boyfriend is a real nice guy; thoughtful, kind, etc. Elaine and Jerry are completely baffled that the boyfriend is being so kind to Jerry's parents, like taking them to a museum for the whole day. It's as if Elaine and Jerry would simply never consider doing such a thing. Meanwhile, Jerry's dad gets in cahoots with Kramer to sell some old (but mint) raincoats ("The Executive" model) to the same guy to whom George sold his dad's cabana clothes (who ultimately burns the cabana clothes because they're moth-infested). George himself gets burned, of course, when the buyer takes the money back after he burns the clothes. So, revenge is visited upon George. Philosophically interesting? How does Georges' dad catch him in the lie? Kramer comes to dinner at the Costanza's wearing one of Georges' dad's cabana shirts. Ouch!
1. Come to every meeting of the class having read the assigned essay for that day.
2. Participate in the discussions.
3. Give a 10 minute presentation on some aspect of some episode of the TV show Seinfeld which has approved philosophical content. This requirement should not be onerous and there is a wide range of philosophical topics one might deal with; the one most people think of right off is that of "How the characters treat one another, other people and themselves?". This is the moral question --- or "the questionable morals of the Seinfeldians". We'll discuss this individually and I'll give some examples in class.
4. Write a term paper, due 18 December, 3pm Annex 103. One idea for a term paper would be to write a script for a Seinfeld episode. To make it philosophically intreresting and potentially provocative, introduce a new character to the show, a philosopher. The characters could both make fun of the philosopher and also, which is usual for all but Kramer, reflect on the ideas with which the episode is dealing. Another idea would be to write on the concept of lying, giving a definition of what, exactly, lying consists in and giving various examples from the show (a good book to consult here would be Sissela Bok's Lying). Yet another idea for a paper would be to write on the concept of friendship using Aristotle's three categories of friendship (pleasure, utility, and "perfect"); one then could examine the various relationships between Jerry, Elaine, Kramer, and George to see to what extent their "friendships" match Aristotle's.
