Looking Up From the Gutter: Philosophy and Popular Culture

By STEPHEN T. ASMA

In 2001, Open Court published The Simpsons and Philosophy. I think I received six or seven copies for Christmas that year. Other philosophy professors I know (and there aren't many, since we're all loners) received a similar glut of "the Simpsons book."

Friends and relatives, who had long struggled to have any way of...